Will it just never fucking end!

I've had my ear pressed up hard to the door for the past five minutes hearing every word that was exchanged. First from the guys and then from the soldiers at the door. The former could be picked up later, depending on the outcome of the latter.

There were so many emotions running through me right at that moment that I had no idea where to start untangling them all. I needed time to process. Not just the imminent situation but everything that had happened in the last two days. My death. My life. My future. The danger. But it seemed fate was being a total bitch and not allowing me such a luxury.

The military was here. Here to collect my dead body. A body that was still dead but living a life. Would they still take me if they knew that I wasn't like those people on the TV?

The guys seemed to think they would and I was inclined to believe them seeing as they had been following the recent events more than I had over the last few days. Especially since I had spent probably half of the two days unconscious. And it was more than that. I actually trusted them. I didn't trust many people in my life so that was a huge deal for me.

My breathing picked up as panic gripped me. I was on the verge of a panic attack and my head was starting to spin from the lack of oxygen. Did I even need oxygen to breathe anymore? Now was not the time to test the theory but I made a mental note to come back to this later.

Turning my back to the door, then sliding down it until my bare ass hit the cold tiled floor. I pulled up my knees, wrapping my arms around my shins and then dropping my forehead on to my knees. Breathing deeply so I wouldn't crumble. I was so fucking close to my breaking point but now was not the time to lose it.

I had no control over my life or my immediate future once again. It was like I was a child again and back in the foster system. People, who didn't know me, had no idea what kind of person I was and didn't even care to know, had complete power to make decisions over my life that I had no say in and it made me feel sick to my stomach. I had escaped one nightmare only to begin another.

What the fuck was I going to do?!

I could hear the men in the living room shuffling around banging doors and cupboards as they searched my apartment. The bedroom would be the next stop before they got to the bathroom where I was hiding out.

I hated that I had to just sit there and wait to be discovered, to wait for my fate to be decided. I was trapped in this small room and once they cornered me they would have the upper hand, they would have the control and the thought of that killed me inside.

My only chance was to catch them on the back foot. To catch them off guard. To take control of the situation. A plan started to build in my head and a smile stretched across my face.

Thinking back to the story that the guys had told the soldiers I knew what I needed to do, how I needed to act.

The soldiers were here looking for a psychotic woman ready to tear a person limb from limb. And that's exactly what I will give them. Just not in the way they expect.

I pulled off my shirt, well Conner's shirt, then climbed in to the tub. Mentally preparing myself for what I was about to do. It was fucking risky, but if it worked, they would leave me alone for good.

Hey, nothing ventured nothing gained, right?

Whatever the outcome, at least I would be able to say that I had tried. That I went down swinging.

After a quick head to toe dunk, I climbed out of the tub, decided on the smallest of the three towels that Conner had left me and took a deep breath before opening the bathroom door and heading out into the chilly hallway.

We were now stood in Agnes's bedroom and I just had to stand there fucking helpless as they tore through her things. They had trashed the living room. Flipping sofa cushions, dragging out her kitchen cupboards and even emptying her fridge, which was thankfully rather bare. The clean up would be minimal due to her lack of belongings. But the bastards were thorough, i'll give them that.

Currently, one soldier was flipping her box spring while the other two were dragging out the entire contents of her closet. The same closet that I had spent hours organising the day before. This made me wince.

Once they had finished with this room, there was only one room left. The room that held exactly what they were looking for. The nerves and anticipation were absolutely killing me. What would the do when they found her? What would I do if they tried to take her?

I sized all three men up. We were bigger and more physically fit than they were. If it was hand to hand, we could probably take them if we caught them by surprise. But they had guns, and big fucking guns at that. They would have us taken down before I could even land a second punch. But would that still stop me from trying? I was terrified that I couldn't answer that question.

Blake looked completely bored and unaffected at my left side. I had no idea how he was so calm but his quick thinking back at the door gave us a plausible story of which I was grateful for. Conner was slouched against the wall to my right. The picture of complete ease with his arms folded across his chest as he watched the soldiers as I did. The only indication of his anger was the quiet sound of his teeth grinding together. He had murder in his eyes and I was sure in that moment that he would be my side swinging if they tried to take my girl. Our girl.

"Jay honey, could you just grab my-"

I and the five other men in the room spun around in unison. All turning to look at a sopping wet Agnes that stood in the doorway in nothing but a small hand towel held against her chest. Only just covering her modesty. Her long, wet red hair, clung to the creamy white skin of her shoulders causing rivulets of water to run down towards her ample breasts. My mouth dropped open as if on a hinge as I stared. She was fucking stunning.

"Arghhh!" Her scream, snapping me out of my lust filled trance. My back jolted straight and my fists curled tight, prepared for whatever was about to happen. But I couldn't have been more unprepared for what unfolded next.

"What the fuck is going on here?!" She screached at the top of her voice, frantically trying to cover more of her body with the tiny towel and failing miserably. Hadn't she heard us from the bathroom?! Didn't she know they were here, they weren't being fucking quiet about it.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. We are part of the military response team that was assembled after the attack. We are responding to a call about a deceased female on the premises." The unsmiling soldier spoke, his eyes wondering a bit too freely over her almost naked body to be a truly disciplined soldier. Bastard.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" I could hear the murderous rath in her voice and I smiled thinking about how the perv was about to get completely chewed out for his staring. My smile soon dropped when I realised that her anger was aimed directly at me and not him! What the actual fuck?!

"I can't fucking believe you did this, you bastard!" She stormed towards me and shoved me in the chest. Hard.

Me?! What the hell did I do?

I was too stunned and confused to respond, so I just stood there staring, my mouth agape.

"Let me get this straight" She yelled shoving me in the chest again "When I passed out the other day, you not only gave me this-" She lowered her towel, exposing her full chest but pointing angrily at the black bruise at it's centre. "-trying to perfom CPR on me thinking I was fucking dead-" guilt flooded me at the mark that I had branded her with "-but then you wrapped me in a blanket, nearly suffactating me and killing me for real and then called the fucking military in to drag my ass out of here!" her voice went up about ten octaves through her berating speech.

"I thought you fucking loved me!" She wailed, hitting me again and again.

It dawned on me then what she was doing. And that she had, in fact, heard us from the bathroom. I was thankful that the dumb looking expression that I was sure I was wearing, fit perfectly to the impression that Blake had given the soldiers about me in his story. I made a mental note to kick his ass later about that if we got out of this in one fucking piece.

"I'm s-sorry" I stuttered out pathetically.

"You're sorry, you're fucking sorry!" she shoved me back into the wall, ignoring everyone else in the room who were now probably getting the perfect view of her fully naked back. Pointing her forefinger right in my face as she glared intensely at me. All her anger aimed in my direction.

"Baby, please-" I tried to sooth, playing along.

"Don't you Baby me you bastard! I can't believe what you have put me through. What kind of boyfriend are you! You are meant to protect me but all you've done is hurt and humiliate me! How could you do this!" I went to speak but she carried on with her rant, tearing me a new one about how I was the worst boyfriend on the planet and listing all the ways in which I had failed her.

The soldiers mutterings to the guys broke through every time she took a breath.

"Story checks out-"

More shouting.

"What an idiot-"

More shouting and now shoving again.

"Poor bastard-"

She was shouting louder now.

"Lets give them some privacy and leave them to it-"

Now she was talking about herself in the third person about how much of a mistake she made with me. She sounded like a crazy person! But I still stood there and took it.

"Check the last room then leave-"

"My mother was right about you!" She yelled as we heard the front door shut a dew moments later and Conner and Blake piled back into the bedroom.

"That was fucking genius!" Conner guffawed. "Remind me to never get on the wrong side of you!"

"They're really gone?" her voice was quiet, all the anger and passion she showed only moments ago had left with the soldiers.

"Yeah, they couldn't wait to get out of here. No one wants to witness the degradation of another man by a scorned woman" Blake answered. But as he did, her shoulders sagged and a sob broke through from her chest as the protective armour she had been wearing over the past few days finally cracked wide open.

So much had happened over the past few days but she has had no break from it. She put on such a strong show but even the most hardened of people wouldn't have been able to keep the meltdown at bay for as long as she had.

She fell to her knees crying harder and harder. Her body week as the adrenaline wore off.

I followed her down to the floor, scooping her up into my lap and wrapping my arms around her tightly. Not a single word was said in the room. Conner grabbed her comforter from the bed and wrapped it around her naked body before he and Blake left the room closing the door behind them. Leaving us alone so she didn't have an audience to her moment of weakness. She was a proud woman and that's what she would see this as. But she couldn't be more wrong.

After all I had seen her go through the past few days, seeing how she handled everything. Seeing how she just got us out of a life or death situation with such ease. She was the strongest person that I had ever met.

So I stayed quiet and just let her take comfort from my body. No words that I could ever say would make her feel better in this moment. She needed to grieve.

Grieve the life that she had planned out, the life she had been expecting. She needed to cry for the obstacles she has had to overcome and to the ones she will encounter from here on out. Her life hasn't been easy, I could tell from the way she carried herself. It was same thing that I saw in Blake. They're so similar it's uncanny. I didn't know her story yet, but what I did know was that her future had just become a hell of a lot harder than her past.

And as much as she is going to try and fight us. She is going to need us by her side.

Pulling her tighter against my chest, I used all my strength to rise to my feet and carry her over to the mattress that had been tossed to the floor during the search. I would lay her down and then give her the option of being alone. But as I placed her on the bed, her arms tightened around me refusing to let go as I tried to pull back and give her space.

Thank fuck for that! It would of killed me to leave her in the state she was in, but I would have if she had wanted me to. I would have done it to give her back some semblance of control of her life. She was spiralling and knowing she could control what was happening in the present would help her deal with her unknown future.

I shuffled into the bed beside her, laying on my back and pulling her into my chest with my arms wrapped around her shoulders. She held back round my waist, her grip fierce like I was going to drift away in to the night. She had no need to worry about that. I will be here until she sends me away and maybe not even then would I leave her. She was ours.

I kissed the top of her head as her sobs tapered off and her breathing evened out. She had cried herself to sleep and my heart broke for her.

There were no sounds coming from the bedroom anymore. When we left the room nearly an hour ago, Conner and I cleaned up the mess in the living room and kitchen that the soldiers had left and then just sat quietly staring at the blank screen of the switched off TV. Neither of us daring to say anything as the reality of how close we had come to disaster had dawned on us. If it wasn't for her quick thinking, things could have been completely different to what they are right this second.

I saw the looks in both Conner and Jay's eyes. They weren't going to let those guys take her away without a fight and I wasn't going to stand by and let them get hurt. Those soldiers were very twitchy around their weapons. I saw it when Agnes first appeared in that doorway startling us all. Their hands instantly went to their weapons as Jay and Conner's stance went into protective mode. We would have gone down in a hale of gun fire and that made her really dangerous to my friends and I in my eyes.

But the way she handled the situation- Damn! I was impressed.

She managed to totally disarm, disorientate and embarrass all three of them within minutes. Her anger and fire and lets not forget her nudity caught them so off guard that they had no idea what to do other than leave. Other than quick eye around the bathroom, they hightailed it out of here like the whole building was on fire. Offering up their condolences to the fallen brother in the bedroom as they left. I couldn't help but laugh at the incredulity of it all.

"Do you think they'll come back?" Conner asked, feeling that it was safe to talk now that the apartment was finally quiet.

"They don't have any reason to now" I responded truthfully "They reacted out of protocol to a call that we had made and saw no reason to take any further action. They'll just move on to the next call."

The visible tension in his shoulders dissipated with a sigh.

"Thank fuck for that, I don't think we could get away with that twice. We were lucky we had the element of surprise on our side. Plus I don't think my nerves could take it. Man, I need a drink!"

I nodded in agreement as he headed off to his apartment to get the bottle bourbon that I had given him for his birthday last week.

Left alone in the room I just sat and stared at her bedroom door. The girl on the other side had my head and my life in a tailspin. Everything had changed since that moment in the hallway and I know it wasn't her fault but I couldn't help the resentment that bubbled within me at the trouble she had brought into our lives. But just like Conner and Jay, I couldn't stay away from her. She had this pull and she never did or said anything that I expected that she would. She surprised and scared the hell out of me.

The only thing that I did expect was the inevitable breakdown. We all saw it bubbling beneath the surface, it wouldn't have taken much more for it to happen but the fact that she made it through that whole charade, let me see how fucking strong she was. It made her all the more irresistible to me but I still couldn't go there. I wouldn't let myself. I didn't deserve her and she didn't deserve what I would probably do to her.

Conner was back in no time at all, lining up two glasses in the kitchen, filling them with the amber liquid and handing one off to me.

I downed the drink in one, hating the need for her that was building within me. I had needed no one but myself for all these years. No way was I going to let one girl change that.

I drank three more straight glasses to numb my turmoil before passing out on the couch. Hopefully I'd drank enough to keep the nightmares away tonight.