“I don’t think so, Nate,” she answered almost apologetically.

“Because you already have a man?” I inquired, letting my eyes wander her face, checking for any signs of indecision. Maybe if I just kiss her, she’ll kiss me back… Or maybe she’ll slap my face. I decided against it. Clearly she wasn’t interested in me, and I couldn’t stop the jealousy from building up inside me because of that knowledge. During the last couple of hours, I’d realised how great she was. Her boyfriend was a lucky guy; I hoped he knew it.

“Yeah,” she whispered, nodding.

“Okay, well it was nice to meet you and stalk you for a few hours. Thanks for keeping me entertained. Your first piece of stalker mail should arrive within the next couple of days,” I joked, grinning at her and trying to cover up my disappointment.

She chuckled, handing me back my jacket. “I’ll look forward to it.”

I slipped it on, immediately feeling the warmth of the material from her body. I took one last look at her before I turned and headed back to the station to wait for my train. As I sat there, sipping bad coffee from a paper cup, I couldn’t help but wonder if this girl was my Anna; my perfect match. Technically, it didn’t even matter because she wasn’t interested.

By the time I was back in LA, I was exhausted. My eyes stung and it was almost four in the morning. I had just over an hour before I was due to start work. I headed back to my apartment and had a nice hot shower, trying to wake up my muscles a little. After pulling on a fresh uniform, I headed to my department a little earlier than I needed to, deciding to read through my briefing pack with all the details of the day’s operation.

My team of ten was going to a building downtown, where they had been tracking a drug dealer. Apparently, there was a cop undercover with the group; he’d fed us information that there was a big deal going down this morning at seven. I was to lead the snipers – four of us in total – and we would take vantage points across the street. The other six agents in my team would move into the building and secure the targets after the deal had gone down. A tech team had already set up the building with cameras and motion detectors in preparation, so we would be able to watch the deal before moving in. It all sounded fairly standard to me, not unlike a normal raid, except we needed to be careful of the undercover cop. I flicked to his picture so I would know who he was during the raid.

When I was done reading, I rested my head on my arms and waited for everyone else to arrive. I must have fallen asleep because I jolted upright when someone smacked me on the back of my head. Russell, one of my teammates, laughed wickedly, obviously proud of himself.

“Asshole,” I grunted tiredly as he dropped into the seat next to mine.

“Another girl keep you up all night?” he asked, shaking his head. Russell was a married man and always disapproved of the tales I told of girls I’d been with.

I smiled. He was right, but not in the way he was thinking. “Yep, I had no sleep at all. It was fun though,” I answered honestly.

He rolled his eyes. “When are you going to grow up and stop sleeping around?”

I sat back in my chair, rubbing a hand over face, trying to wake up a little more. “When my dick shrivels up and falls off,” I joked.

Before he could answer, the captain walked in the room and everyone went quiet, listening to last minute instructions before we all piled into two vans and headed to the location.

Two hours later I was lying flat on my stomach, looking through the eyepiece of my rifle. In the building opposite, I could see five guys fussing around a briefcase. One of them was the undercover cop. Apparently, there were another four guys spread around the building, keeping watch while the deal went down. I didn’t need to worry about those four though, the ground team would take them out before they moved in.

My comms unit crackled to life. “We’re moving in. Radio silence.” This meant that we could hear what was going on with them, but they couldn’t hear us unless we buzzed to get their attention. That way we didn’t give away their positions.

I glanced at Russell, who was about twenty feet away, mirroring my position and aiming at the building too. “I’ll cover the two on the right,” I said, signalling with my hand.

“Yeah okay, I’ll go left then.” He nodded, looking back into his eyepiece.

My comms unit crackled again. “I’m going in,” Kurt, one of my more reckless team members, hissed.

“Kurt, just wait. We’re not ready, just wait for the signal,” Neil replied.

“I can hear someone coming, I need to move in.”

“No. Just hold off. Take out who you need to, and wait for the signal. We have an undercover in there,” Neil ordered sternly.

I frowned, grinding my teeth as I listened to their exchange. Kurt was always like this; the f**king as**ole couldn’t take orders.

Through my eyepiece, I watched the room as the sound of shouting and gunfire came through my earpiece. Against orders, Kurt had burst into the room on his own. I tensed, lining up my shot for the guy closest to Kurt, ready to take him down if I needed to. Three of the guys immediately looked around, shocked; they were suits, they had others to do the shooting for them so they just stood there with their hands up innocently. The undercover cop moved to the side, but held his hands up too, playing along until he was arrested like he was supposed to in case the raid went wrong and he needed to stay under. The fifth guy moved quickly, slamming Kurt into the wall making his gun drop from his hand.

“Nate?” Russell shouted, waiting for me to make the call of whether we should take him out.

“Hold,” I called, lining up my sight as I frantically searched for a shot that wouldn’t hit Kurt. They were scuffling around on the floor rolling over and moving too much. There was no shot.

The three suits ran from the room, grabbing the briefcase, with the undercover hot on their heels. I heard Neil ordering a change of positions so the ground team could pick them up. Somehow the guy grappling with Kurt got the upper hand and grabbed the gun from the floor, standing at the same time as Kurt and pointing the gun at him. I could hear their conversation through my earpiece. The way they were positioned Kurt had his back to me and was blocking my shot to the guy with the gun.

“Motherfucker,” the guy spat.

“Just calm down. There are agents all over the building, if you shoot me then you won’t make it out of here alive,” Kurt stated, holding his hands up in surrender. The guy’s eyes flicked around the room quickly, obviously looking for a way out.

“Do you have a shot?” I called to Russell.

“No, I’ve got nothing. Kurt’s in the way.”

I pressed the button on my comms unit, calling through to the two other snipers that were three floors down from us. “Steve, Cody, you have a shot?” I asked hopefully. I had a shot, but didn’t want to take it; it was straight through the guy’s forehead and we should try and go for a body shot if possible. It was better to wound than to kill.

“No nothing,” they both replied. Fuck it! “You have anything?” Steve asked.

I swallowed. “I have a kill shot.”

Come on, Kurt, step to the right a little. Just move your body. You know we’re watching. Move your f**king body out of the way! Kurt was still trying to calm the guy down, but he was just looking more and more stressed with each passing second.

“Let’s just go in together. Give me the gun, and it’ll be easier for you,” Kurt coaxed.

“I can’t go inside again, I can’t,” the guy cried, as he raised the gun again.

I saw the indecision on his face fade as he made up his mind to shoot. His face hardened, and his jaw tightened. Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger on my assault rifle. The shot smashed the window in the building opposite me, shattering glass everywhere. The glass hit the floor a second before the guy’s dead body did.

Kurt spun on his heel, looking in our direction gratefully. His face was pale as he ran a hand through his hair. I gritted my teeth as anger built inside me. He was always doing things like this. I’d killed more people because of his stupidity than needed to be dead, and I hated it. I hated to know that I was the one to end someone’s life. It played on my mind after – not that anyone knew that, of course, I didn’t talk to anyone about my feelings because it was just my job. I was damn good at it too; I was the best long-range shooter, which was why I was chosen to lead and make the decisions. I knew I had done the right thing in shooting, but deep down I knew that if Kurt hadn’t moved in early then the rest of the team would have been there to back him up. That guy might not have died today.

“Nice shot,” Russell congratulated me, slapping my shoulder as I packed up my gun once we’d been given the all clear from the ground team.

“Thanks.” I nodded trying not to show any emotions. I needed a drink. I needed to f**k someone senseless and get wasted so that I could stop thinking about the way the guy’s body fell limply to the floor.

Slinging my gun bag over my shoulder, I headed downstairs slowly, knowing I was going to be interviewed over what had happened. There was always an investigation when a kill was involved. Kurt was standing off to one side, smoking and laughing with one of the other team members as if nothing had happened. It may have been bravado on his part, but I saw red. I dropped my bag and grabbed the front of his tactical vest, shoving him roughly against the side of the car that he was standing next to.

“Fucking dickhead! Why can’t you just do as you’re damn well ordered for once in your life?” I snapped, as he gripped my wrists and tried to push me off.

“It all worked out in the end, so what’s your problem?” he asked breathlessly.

“You’re my problem! You’re always pulling shit like this. You need to grow the f**k up, or you’re going to get yourself killed,” I spat, my face inches from his. All I could think about was ramming my fist down his throat and pulling his heart out.

He smiled weakly. “I won’t get myself killed, Nate, you’re too good at your job.”

I pulled back and shoved him away from me, watching as he stumbled and fell onto his butt on the sidewalk.

“Maybe next time I won’t have the shot and you’ll take one through the forehead just like he did,” I retorted, turning and picking up my gun bag. I forced myself to walk away from him before I did something stupid.

The rest of the day passed slowly, I had to fill in a ton of forms and reports stating that I had no other choice but to take the kill shot. Russell and Kurt were interviewed too. Finally, after about two hours of talking, I was dismissed and allowed to go home early while they combined their evidence and then made their decision. I knew I wouldn’t be in trouble for it; this was just a formality; a tedious, annoying formality, which, unfortunately, was part of my job all too often.

It was only lunchtime so I decided to go and have a couple of hours sleep so that I could go out tonight and get wasted. I really needed something to take my mind off work, but I didn’t have the energy right now for anything physical. Picking up a girl for random stranger sex was usually my first defence when these feelings started seeping in, but even that didn’t appeal to me at the moment. Instead, I went home alone and slumped into my bed without bothering to take off my uniform.

It was at times like this that I wished I had a girl of my own. A girl to ask me what was wrong and let me offload my feelings on to. A girl to hold me, so I could think about anything other than the way the target’s eyes went vacant just before he fell to the floor. A girl to just want to be with me for me, instead of the way I looked or because I wore a uniform.

My half-asleep mind wandered to Rosie. I closed my eyes against the afternoon light and imagined how nice it would feel if she were lying next to me, with her arms wrapped around me, whispering that it was alright that I felt guilty inside and telling me that I’d done the right thing. A small amount of the anger and guilt dispersed within me, and I fell asleep with a small smile on my face.

Chapter Four

The week passed quickly. Kurt was placed on office duties for two weeks as punishment for his little stunt that he pulled, so that made me feel slightly better. There wasn’t really much they could do about him though; apparently, a warning had been put on his file this time and next time he messed up he’d be transferred to a team that was not as field based as us. Personally, I was now willing him to screw up again just so he’d be out of my hair.

Today was Saturday, Seth’s birthday, so we were all heading out to celebrate. I was actually looking forward to it because I’d been working hard all week, so this was going to be the first chance I’d had to let off some steam. And Ashton was coming out, much to my surprise. He’d initially cancelled after Cameron was born, but later called back to say that Anna was making him go and had made secret arrangements for another guard to come and take over her guard duty for the night. He didn’t sound best pleased about it.

As I stood outside their apartment, watching as Ashton kissed Anna goodbye and whispered words that made her smile, I cleared my throat loudly. “Can you at least wait for a time when I’m not here? You know seeing that kind of thing makes me sick.” I coughed dramatically, pretending to gag. I needed a drink, not to stand here watching them behave like lovesick puppies.

Anna laughed and pushed Ashton away from her. “Don’t make him sick on the carpet,” she joked.

I nodded in agreement and folded my arms across my chest. “Ashton, get your shit together, your woman wants the apartment to herself for the night, and we’re wasting valuable drinking time,” I suggested.