Ever Hayes - Redemption

“You don’t—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Especially not with you.”

Whoa! Wait a minute! “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, Hayley. You should leave.”

“Uh, no, that’s not happening now. You’re going to tell me what you meant by that.”

“What’s the point?” There was plenty of anger in his voice. “Huh, Hayley? What’s the point in all of this?”

“All this?”

“Yeah—everything we lost. For what?”

“You mean why did you come after me?” I asked and he didn’t answer right away. Awesome!

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

By the way he said it, I almost believed him. “Okay. So what then?”

“Hayley, when you were little, when Mom and Dad fought all the time, I told you I would always protect you, that I would never let anything happen to you—that you would always be my number one.” He paused and stared at me until my eyes locked with his. “You may piss me off now and again— especially now—and your integrity may get on my nerves at the worst damn times, but if I’d have lost everyone else and only saved you, it would honestly have been worth it to me. But not vice versa.”

“Danny—”

He held up a hand. “I’m saying you’re still my number one. I was always going to—and would always—come for you. But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with everything that happened. That doesn’t mean this isn’t absolutely killing me right now. I really, really wanted to be a dad. That’s pretty much what kept me and Ava from…” He stopped his own sentence—the implication plenty clear. “That’s what kept me in this. Does that make sense?”

It would have felt wrong not to nod, so I did, even though I didn’t totally understand.

“There’s nothing for me to go back to now.”

“Danny, that’s not true at all. Kate is dying for you to come back.” Wow! Terrible choice of words!

“It is Hayley. It is. I can’t take this anymore. None of it. I don’t even want to go back to Hawaii now.”

“Danny, come on. There are so many people who love you and respect you and can’t wait to—”

“I just need a break, Hayley. I need a damn break. Everyone always expects me to be perfect, to carry the load, to figure everything out. I need that to end.”

“Danny, we don’t—”

“But you do.” He stood up now, his voice getting louder. “If I don’t come get you, you’re dead. I did, and now all these other people are dead. I’m not saying it’s your fault, but what was I supposed to do? How do I ever win?”

“Danny—”

“Hayley, damn it, enough.” He spun to me with fire in his eyes, but I hadn’t said his name this time. I pointed at the door, where Ava was standing. Please put some clothes on!

“Sorry,” he apologized to her. “What?”

“You guys need to see this,” Ava said quietly.

“You should get dressed,” Danny said.

Thank you!

Ava put pants and underwear on and we followed her down the hall to the main room. She drew stares from a dozen men along the way. They were probably rather disappointed in her new look .

She led us over to the main computer. “Damien sent this over from Hawaii.” She pointed at a few lines on the screen. “When he lined all the missile codes up in sequence, there was a letter or symbol tagged to the end of each launch code—a hundred missiles, a hundred characters. He’s pretty sure it’s a message from Keena.”

I read the two sentences over Danny’s shoulder.

**If everything went as planned we are still here.**

**If not, I hope we did enough. This land is our land. Take it back.**

Leaving California.

I don’t know what news Flynn took worse—that her dad was still alive or that he was being heralded as one of the two heroes in all of this. When Blake explained what had happened in the Cheyenne Mountain Bunker—from what he’d gathered from Danny and Damien—I don’t think there were words to describe our astonishment… or Flynn’s anger.

It turned out Keena somehow convinced Captain Baker to help her. He, of course, claimed the scheme was all his idea—his plan B when the original plan disintegrated. He saved Hawaii by weaseling his way into Commander Boli’s good graces, got him into the bunker to gain his trust, only so he could find out what Qi Jia’s plan was—and blow them all away. I’m not sure any of us believed that— I absolutely didn’t —particularly since it had cost thirty people in that bunker their lives. Captain Baker was no hero. Flynn and I—at least—were convinced he’d have said and done anything to save his own life. It was only when Keena told him how he could survive and be free of Qi Jia’s control that he committed to her plan—the one they carried out.

Captain Baker tortured Keena—severely. If any credit is due him at all, he was at least convincing in that role. He somehow got Boli to believe that she was holding on to a critical piece of information that would keep the destruction of Hawaii from being successful. They needed her alive to pull it off. He saved her life by almost killing her . Boli bought it—at least enough to leave the two of them alone at a computer for lengthy periods of time. It was during those times that Keena manipulated the launch codes and put the entire plan in place.

She convinced Baker to drag out the torture for three days—to do enough to make it believable and delay Boli from launching until the third night—hoping that would give Danny enough time to get to safety and get a message to Hawaii in case their plan didn’t work.

But it did work. When Keena entered in the final code to launch all the missiles, Baker convinced Boli’s men to go outside and watch the missiles pass overhead. He and his two SEALs got the door down on the bunker, took Commander Boli prisoner, and killed the few Qi Jia soldiers who had stayed inside. Six survivors remained inside the nuke-proof bunker: Keena, Boli, Baker, and his two SEALs… and Isabelle. Isabelle was still alive.

There was no way Captain Baker came up with that plan. But Keena was too modest—and Baker too arrogant—for any other version to surface.

She was still in Cheyenne Mountain with Commander Boli, Captain Baker, and his two surviving SEALs. There was far too much radiation in the Denver/Colorado Springs area to come out yet. But we hoped to retrieve them in a few more months. We couldn’t wait to see Keena. As for Captain Baker—the “hero” who had his own son killed and sacrificed his team to save himself—well…seeing him again ever would be far too soon.

We stayed in the Disney bunker a month longer than we’d originally planned. I can’t say they were a great four months. In fact, for me they were pretty much the opposite. Flynn was terribly sick the entire month of October—some form of pneumonia the bunker doctor guessed. Mackenzie and I stayed with her and took care of her but it was scary to watch her wither up and almost die. Somehow she pulled through, but her illness and the cold darkness of the bunker ate at me.

Mack and I quickly became good friends—turned out she was only a month and a half younger than me. She just seemed really young—compared to how old I felt. She was so cheery, so fun…so innocent and pretty.

I didn’t like what I saw in my mirror—pale, sickly, and tired. I needed a tan, a couple straight months of sleep, and my bow and arrows for stress relief. I needed to get away and be alone, like I couldn’t be in here. I guess you could say I understood how Danny felt about wanting to escape from everything related to this mess. He didn’t feel like celebrating. I didn’t either.