belladonna | alejandro vargas ✓

【Chapter 3】

Beadie wanted to smash her head open.

Maybe even jump out of a window.

There were multiple reasons for that. One of them is the absolute bitch of a headache that came right after they arrived at the base. After her missions, a headache was pretty much a usual thing, but this one was more of a migraine at this point.

And the fact that Graves left her behind just like that. She thought she was good enough to go along with him, as his second-in-command. She thought she proved herself by now. But it looks like she was wrong.

Beadie had a lot of time to think as she laid in her bed, staring up at the ceiling. It really gave her teenage years flashbacks when she laid just like this, moping for whatever reason. Sometimes after boys, sometimes after her grades, usually because of her father.

Beadie adored her father as a child. She hung on every word he spoke, she loved to pester him and follow him around, and just casually annoy him whenever she could. Deep down she always loved her father more, but as the years went by, it seemed like her parents loved her less and less.

When she was a teen, she argued a lot with her father. Well, it was mostly him being mad at her for being stupid, not doing good enough for his expectations, fooling around with boys too much, such things. And Beadie didn't have the heart to talk back to her father, she loved him too much. So she just tolerated getting scolded, then cried herself to sleep.

Whenever her father left with a disappointed look on his face, the hole in her chest got bigger, deeper. And after all these years, she felt the edge of the hole crumble inside, deepening it even more.

After a few hours of just lying there, Beadie had enough and finally got up. Maybe she could look around the base, try and find her squad, anything. She just wanted to do something. And as she strolled down the hall, she shook off the previous feeling and bad thoughts. She'll have fun, she didn't need Graves.

She only knew so much about the base that it belonged to the Mexican Special Forces. She heard a few men talk in Spanish a few rooms down but she didn't feel like mingling with them on her own. Beadie was a confident woman but she wasn't comfortable enough to throw herself to some random men here.

So she walked around the place for god knows how long till she reached a hall where the walls were covered with pictures. There were numerous group pictures, all with military men she guessed were part of the Special Forces. As she looked at the pictures, she started recognizing faces from them, each of them appearing in different pictures. Some of them grew facial hair, some of them lost weight, and some of them lost the shine from their eyes.

But there were happy pictures, too. Some of the men went swimming, all of them laughing as one of them fell into the water from a rock. Or on another one, where all just chilled outside, playing Uno. Another one was taken of a man with only a white apron on, his muscles tensing as he flipped some meat over the grill station.

Her eyes lingered on his flexed muscles and stopped for a moment to admire the photographer's work. The way the setting sun shone just perfectly at him, making his muscles pop more and making his hair jet black was beautiful. He was a gorgeous man, she had to admit. And the fact that he could cook only made him more attractive. And his smile almost shone as bright as the sun behind him.

She wanted to look at the pictures some more. She didn't really have the opportunity to gain such access to other people's memories. But a loud bang and some cursing made her stop.

Furrowing her eyebrows, she wandered towards where the noise came from, softening her steps as she went. As she got closer to the source of the noise, she could make out some English words and some laughing, her muscles relaxing immediately. She would recognize her team any time.