Ashes in the Darkness

Wolves

"So, you were out here every day, Phoenix?" I hear Gaz ask behind me, I turn around but continue walking.

"Yes, mostly observing animals that I would track for days at a time. But I also built a lot of habitats out here: cutting down hazard trees, putting wood into streams for trout, tested water quality. It was lonely but I felt like I was making a difference."

"I feel like I would never get used to this," Gaz replies, falling stride beside me. "Not a bad life.

I hesitate for a moment and contemplate just how much things had changed for me. My life seemed to repeat itself in cycles. For my childhood I walked the forests of West Virginia hunting with my father and Hayes, then I went into the military, saw battle, saw blood, saw death in the back of my helicopter. Then I fled the military again to escape back to the forest, escape my demons. The military claimed me again. Now the two were converging like air coming together in a clap of thunder. "I feel like I'm walking in a dream."

"What do you mean?"

"It such a strange coincidence. The Russians, me, Alex Keller, this forest, that you all just happened to find me out here..." I say with my words tangling in my mouth, tumbling out int the air like broken notes of a guitar.

"Do you believe in fate or destiny?" Gaz asks, chuckling a little as my words get harder and harder to produce.

"Seems silly to believe in something like that," I say, trying my hardest to not laugh at the ludicrous response. "Destiny is for fantasy novels, not real life."

"You don't think that Captain Price finding Ghost right doesn't have a touch of destiny to it?" Gaz asks and my heart skips a beat, I look back at Soap and Ghost who are walking side by side. Soap and saying something about explosives, Ghost silently listens but he notices me looking at him as we walk. "Price and I just happened to meet after an attempted terrorist attacking Piccadilly Square. Price just happened to be at an evaluation training when he found Soap."

My eyes flick to Gaz, who is still watching the mountains in the distance. In the moonlight they are turned an eerie blue color that barely stands out in the night sky. "Fate, destiny, God... it doesn't matter what you believe it is, but it brough you to us because we needed you.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

His words were like ice picks directly into my sternum. I remembered the way that Price had taken into account my wishes about Jackie, the boys had listened, they had wanted to help me get to her. I had grown to become a member of Task Force 141, more than just title and appointment. These were my team members now, despite the fact that I had nearly killed Price in a helicopter crash... that no one seemed to be talking about at all. Despite being a deserter. Despite being a woman. Despite being a victim.

"I'm a burden to all of you," I say under my breath. "Don't believe that I do anything for this team besides get in the way."

"We wouldn't know about this bridge, or this fire tower, or how to get here without your insight, Ash," Gaz says next to me as we watch the mountains. "We wouldn't have gotten Valeria out of that compound without you, Maria wouldn't be buried properly without you, Alejandro wouldn't have gotten out of that prison without your help, Graves would still be alive if it wasn't for you."

I nod and stare at the ground, not really sure of what to say next. Gaz may be right, but it doesn't stop me from feeling like I'm an imposter in my own body. There had not been enough time for me to do damage control on my brain or in my life. The feelings in my head spiraled, how could someone so unstable like myself be a part of a team of men who saved the world and slept soundly at night after?    Flashes of all the things I had done in the past two months cycled in my mind once again. A man getting his abdomen blown open, heads being blown up, blood... so much blood. Explosions. My fingers in Ghost's mouth, his hands on my body. Jackie betraying me.