The Survivor

Chapter 32

"I'm doing this for my family," I remind myself. There's a knock on the door, I move away from the mirror and straighten up.
  The door opens with it sliding on the floor. A man is standing in the doorway. He has black hair and tan skin. He's about 5'8 and probably about 198 pounds. He has on his green military outfit, with a gun in hand. "Time to go," he commands in Persian. I follow him out of the cell and down the hall.
  We go to an elevator. Once we get there there are about seven guards waiting at the elevator. Somehow, we all fit in the elevator and I'm surrounded by eight guards, all holding M16 rifles. I'm so glad that I have this shemagh to hide my face.
  Once we reach the floor, we walk down another hall and stop at a door. The guard from before open the door. "Go in," he orders me. I walk in and see that it's a conference room.
  There's about a ten foot table in the middle of the room with ten chairs. Four on each side and then one on each end. There's a chalkboard on the right side of the room and maps all over the place. Some maps have pins or markers on them and others are plain. In the back of the room, are a bunch of older looking computers. There like the kinds that were in the 80's or 90's.
  There' papers scattered all over the table. Each seat has a candle in front of it, this is some sort of special meeting room. I walk a little farther into the room and wait for a command. I spot Hassan and another soldier by the chalkboard, writing something down. I can tell that the soldier next to him is a higher rank, due to the medals that he wears.
  I'm not really able to get a good look at his face. "Khor Khoreh, come," Hassan commands. I do as I'm told and walk over to him. "Lieutenant Bukhari, this is our new weapon. She will lead us into many great victories," Hassan says with confidence. Lieutenant Bukhari has short gray hair, with a graying beard. He's a little under 6'0, but still taller than Hassan.
  "How are you certain of this?" Lieutenant Bukhari asks. "She will be a loyal asset to this operation. She has had 539 kills in the matter of nine years, not including some of my men," he whispers the last part under his breath. "Where did you find her?" Bukhari asks. "That is a long story, best for another time. I want to deploy her on her first mission tomorrow," general Hassan tells him.
  "How much training does she have?" Bukhari asks. "Would you like to answer that Khor Khoreh?" Hassan more so tells me. He gives me a look of know your place. "Since I was a child. I'm skilled in every and any type of weaponry," I respond. My back straight and my eyes looking Lieutenant Bukhari right in the eyes. Not breaking eye contact for even a millisecond.
  "We'll see about that. Where are you planing on departing her?" The lieutenant asks. "Kandovan Village. President Rashid's right hand man, governor Zahar will be there tomorrow. He has been getting too close to our weapon system. Khor Khoreh will eliminate him and steal back the information that belongs to us," Hassan informs lieutenant Bukhari.
  Lieutenant Bukhari looks at me and then back to Hassan. "Fine, this is war and we will do whatever it takes to win this fight," the lieutenant grants. I can see that Hassan is more relieved and calmer after hearing this news. "Tell Abder that I won't fail him," Hassan says with a solute.
   Once lieutenant Bukhari leaves, it's just me and Hassan. "Khor Khoren, have a seat," Hassan commands. I do as he says and sit down in the closest chair. Hassan walks over to the map on the opposite wall from me and goes into the filing cabinet and throws a file at me.
  "Prove to me your worth. You will eliminate this man," Hassan says, pointing to the man in the photo. "His name is governor Zahar Baldikave. He is President Rashid's right hand man. He stole some important information from us and you will get it back. After you kill him of course. You will succeed. Do you understand?" Hassan asks.
  "Sir yes sir!" I yell. I see him smile. "Good, remember though. If you fail, someone you love will die," he threatens. "I won't let you down, General Hassan," I reassure him. Oh no. I can feel my face go white. I meant that. Once the meeting is done, I grab my weapons and head out to my next destination.

Back at home, Addison's pov
  We finally pull up to Dr.Miller's building. I rush out of the car and inside. The rest of the family follows behind me. I get to the front desk and hurry over to the man running it. "Hi, we need to see a Dr.Miller," I say frantically.
  "Floor five, room 218. She's getting done with a session so I recommend not going up quite yet," he suggests. I ignore him and the rest of us rush into the elevator.
  Tom hit's the button to floor five and we ride up. Once we get to the floor, we all dart out. We all want to know why Mace sent us here. As we get to room 218, there's two women, they both have a big smile on their faces. "Thank you so much Dr.Miller, you've helped me out so much," the one says.
  I'm assuming that the other one is Dr.Miller. "Of course, enjoy the rest of your week," Dr.Miller says. The girl leaves and we rush to Dr.Miller. "Hello, you all must be the Denvers. Am I right?" She asks. We all nod our heads frantically.
  "Come inside and have a seat," she tells us. We all walk in, Tom, Tiffany, Jess, and Monica are on the couch. Me and John take seats in the two identical chairs, while mom and dad sit on the two chairs by the desk.
  "Wow, you guys really are a big family," Dr.Miller comments, closing the door behind her. She takes a seat in the chair behind the desk. "So, I'm assuming that you found out that Mace is no longer here, right?" Dr.Miller asks. "Do you know where she is?" Dad asks.
  Dr.Millers face sadness, she shakes her head no. I can feel tears start to well up in my eyes. "She did not. She called me last night, she wanted me to tell you things that she couldn't," she explains. I can tell that we're all confused by this.
  "Why did she go back?" Tom asks. "Look, I'll start from the beginning, ok? We can ask questions at the end." Why? Why would Mace want to leave us? She said that she wanted to be done. She said that she didn't want to do this anymore.
  "Mace has a lot of trauma. When her mother died, she was devastated to say the least. She watched her mother die right in front of her. You guys gave her a home and a family. You guys gave her a second chance. She joined the Marine Corps because she wanted to serve her country. She wanted to be with people that would understand her. When she joined the Marine Corps she found another family. She never realized how good she had it until it got taken away from her."
  "I was a terrible mother," Mom says to herself. "None of us treated her the best. We didn't show her a lot of love," Jess says. "I was so mean to her," I confesse. "When she came to school she had no friends and my friends and I would bully her," I add.
  "She still loves you," Dr.Miller says. "The year before she came home, she and her team were captured. She was going to try and take down a certain government organization in Iran. The man that captured her team killed everyone in front of her. They made her the death of her entire teammates. Along with the death of her teammates, they would torture her for days on end. Most of the scars that you saw were from her time over there," she continues with the story.
  "Oh my gosh," Mom says, putting her head in her hands. "Tiffany, Mace really wanted to tell you this, but she didn't want you to leave Tom for it. Your brother was a part of Mace's team. He was captured and died. Mace is so sorry for your broth." We are all taken by surprise by this.
  "How did he die?" Tiffany asks, tears threatening to fall. "I don't know if you would want to know that," Dr.Miller says in a mellow tone. "How did he die?" Tiffany asks again, this time with tears streaming down her face. Dr.Miller takes a big breath and sighs. "It was the seventh month. He kept on fighting until the end." 
  "Tony would talk about Tiffany everyday," I explained to Dr.Miller.  "He ended up saying the wrong thing. I tried to stop the men from getting him, but I wasn't enough. I tried, I tried to stop his death. I killed thirteen guards. They ended up getting both of us anyway. No matter how hard I tried to fight back, they always seemed to get me. They took us to the hospital wing, they strapped Tony down and they had two guards holding me down. They injected a serum in me that would calm nerves and make it so I couldn't fight back," I tell Dr.Miller.

  "They ended up..." Dr.Miller pauses. What happened? "They dissected him. Mace went into details but I can't do that," she explains. "She believed that she killed your brother, but she didn't. The person that took them captive did," Dr.Miller adds. Tiffany starts to cry and Tom just hugs her and comforts her. Dr.Miller stands up and grabs something from the drawer. She walks over to Tiffany and kneels down. She takes Tiffany's hand and opens it. "Mace wanted you to have this. She said she was sorry that she lived and he didn't," Dr.Miller remessages. She places a pair of dog tags in Tiff's hand.
  "They told me that they didn't have his tags because they couldn't find them, and they couldn't find the body. We had an empty casket funeral," Tiffany cry's. The poor girl. "Why did she leave though? She said that she wanted to be all done with the army," I tell Dr.Miller. "That's what I'm going to be talking about next."