War Dog

Chapter 72

I settle in my chair between Ghost and Soap. Ghost sat at Price's right hand side, and I sat in the spot that had once been claimed by Soap. Soap had given me a quick glare that I was in his spot before he reigned his jealousy in, and sat next to me instead, close enough that our legs brushed against each other when we shifted. Shane and Gaz sat next to each other on the other side of the table and Price sat at the head of it. I had given Lilly back to Ben who had been racing all over the base looking for her. He'd ducked to the bathroom for a moment only to come back to his quarters empty and the door cracked open. He had been displeased to find Lilly had ignored our rules about leaving without one of us with her and I had been more than happy to leave the discipline in his hands. 

Ghost began speaking, he started off by talking about the moment shit hit the fan in Mexico. Shane side eyed me, and clearly neither Ghost, Price or Soap had told him much of anything, and I regretted not speaking to him more while we were in Mexico. In my defence however I had been busy.

"Gareth is dead, yes?" Shane growled, a hint of his protective dog nature kicking in as he glanced towards me. 

'Yeah, I ate him." I said simply with a shrug. I'd asked Ghost to show me the footage of that day and I'd kept it as a reminder to myself, of what I could become. I was basically a mad science experiment, that had been left to run lose through warzones. Shane had a grimly satisfied smile, Soap glanced at me as if he was still slightly disgusted since finding out, and Gaz just laughed. "Of course you did."

Ghost continued on, the hint of a smile in his voice as he continued on. "We have footage that you all need to see before we continue on. Be mindful that Drs Mckenzie and Cooper have done extensive testing before we all left Mexico." 

He pulled up the very video I had kept sequestered away on my own phone to pull out on nights where I needed the reminder that I had more going for me than my nightmares would have me believe.

Soap began swearing in Gaelic, and Shane watched with a hint of jealousy seeping from him. Gaz paled, hand running through his hair in agitation. 

"Damn sis. When Dr. Cooper said you had a medical condition, this is not what I was expecting. I thought you had like... wolf cancer or something." 

I grin wryly. "This isn't even the least of what's happened." I sigh, and Ghost continues on with our time in Mexico.

Ghost gets to the point when Valeria had found me and hunted me down while I was out buying dinner. Soap looked positively murderous when he found out I'd been poisoned. "How the holy hell was I not told about this?" His voice was low, the most threatening I'd ever heard his voice.

"Wait until you find out I was dead," I mutter.

"Excuse me?!" Shane stood, his chair scraping across the floor. Gaz stood, his hand on my brothers shoulder to calm him down.

"Shane," he murmured, "You can't do anything about it now."

"I can fucking murder the pair of them. I'm her  brother, I should have been told all of this." His voice had dropped to a low growl, the combination of the Australian accent with his dog like attributes normally would have made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. As it was, I leaned back in the chair and let their emotions wash across me. Fear, mostly and a little bit of anger.

"I'm fine. Mexico has good doctors."

"Actually, we believe not even death wants you." Ghosts voice is unphased by the two other men who held me dear to their hearts. "The doctors had given up on bringing you back when you came back to life. Alejndro still believes there is a deity out there looking after you. After all, how many times have you died so far?" He glanced at me, his eyes twinkling with amusement and I hesitated to answer that question.