Silence awakens Pebbles after a rewarding night of sound sleep. Glancing toward the cot where Bo-peep slept she sees it is empty. Letting her eyes roam around the interior she spots her in the midst of sit ups. “Is that how we start the day?”

Not breaking her rhythm. “Yup! Are you ready?”

Hitting the floor and stretching out on her toes and palms her body suspended Pebbles answers. “I’m ready.” And begins the count. She keeps a steady pace through fifty pushups when her arms begin to ache from the momentum. As she begins to lag she hears a firm voice echo through the cavern.

“Push! Push! Push until you think you will collapse then push harder. Your goal is one hundred.”

Pebbles can’t believe what she is hearing, the cold unrelenting tone spitting out the words. Holding her body suspended in the air briefly, she renews her rhythmic pace. No matter how hard she makes it, I will not quit.

Bo-peep completes the pushups and begins preparing coffee and breakfast keeping an eye on the progress of her pupil. With satisfaction she notes the grim determination mirrored in the face glistening with perspiration. Taking bets in her head as to whether Pebbles will complete the goal set for her. On second thought my bets on her. Just as the coffee starts to boil she intones ninety-eight, ninety-nine, and one hundred! In spite of herself Bo-peep lets a smile creep into her eyes but not quite allowing it to quite reach her lips.

Pebbles lies on the floor unmoving panting with the exertion her sweats clinging to her moisture riddle body.  The harsh tone of the orders barked at her shocks her into action.

“Off the floor! On your feet! Now!” Bo-peep keeps her head down not looking at Pebbles desiring to appear intimidating in her demands.

With a look of disbelief, she slowly rises to her feet. “What the hell?”

 “Walk around until you cool down. Don’t give your muscles a chance to cramp.” Resuming her attention to the meal she watches Pebbles out of the corner of her eye to see if she is following instructions making sure her legs and arms are free of cramps.  In watching her breathing Bo-peep is aware when Pebble’s body begins to relax. “How about a cup?”

“Managing a smile. “Sounds good. Can I quit parading around?”

Laughing at the good nature displayed by the comment. “For now.” The two ladies sit quietly consuming their meal. Each lost in their own thoughts. Bo-peep realizing it is going to be hard to be firm with a woman who seems to rally no matter how much she yells, but she also realizes that it is only the beginning.

The rest of the day Bo-peep is busy laying out a regime for the future activities, but knows she will need equipment she doesn’t have and gradually prepares a list.  She puts Pebbles to making an inventory of the supplies they have giving her no time to ask questions. As they finish their chores. “Pebbles, dig out a couple of MRE’s for dinner tonight.”

With their chores complete and their lists made they sit quietly in the cool of the cave. And once again Pebbles has that faraway look haunting her eyes.

As the shadows grow outside the cave turning gray dusk to ebony, inside the two relax with coffee. Bo-peep keeps glancing at Pebbles aware that she starts to say something then stops.

After watching her wrestle with the dilemma for over an hour Bo-peep looks at her. “Alright, Pebbles, out with it! You got something on your mind. Either don’t know how to say it or afraid to. So spit it out.”

Pebbles nods her head then looks up at Bo-peep. “Tell me what happened to Viper? I need to know so I can try to understand better.”

Bo-Peep eyes turn cold and hard her face a mask of rage as she stares unflinchingly at Pebbles.

Then, without warning, Bo-peep sighs, shaking her head. Looking at her coffee cup as though it was a thing of importance, she slowly reaches out absently picking up the pot pouring herself another cup placing it back next to the fire.

With a grim expression and dark haunted eyes. “Pebbles, I guess you deserve to know. But bear with me because it’s still not easy for me to recall the events let alone talk about it. What has he told you about his last mission?”

“He said that the team was out on a mission and were led into a trap where the whole world seemed to explode around all of you. He doesn’t remember anything other than that.”

Bo-peep nods her head and is silent for a few minutes as Pebbles sits quietly. Finally, she begins to speak.  “We were on a mission and being led by a local who said he could take us to the one we were after. He had checked out and for all we knew was legitimate. We followed him into a narrow valley with high cliff sides. All of us had been watching him to see if he started acting strange like he was waiting for something, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.”

Bo-peep paused taking a sip of coffee then began again. “We got around the center of the valley when they hit us, the terrorist, from all sides. To make matters worse, they held the high ground. We took cover as best we could and returned fire but it soon became obvious that we were out manned and out gunned. All of us had been hit, most more than once. Viper was the first to get hit as he was on point. We called in close air support and had gunships, F-16’s, F-18’s, and A10’s dropping their loads all around us, but we were still pinned down and the bad guys were closing in. Finally Viper took the radio and made a call.  He talked for a few minutes to someone he called Mad Dog.  When he finally got through, he yelled at us to give him all the grenades we had, both smoke and otherwise. We gave him all we had and he started tossing the smoke grenades around us. Soon it was so thick, you couldn’t see anything. Finally we heard Viper yell for us to stick close to him and kill anything that moved. Then he said we had ten minutes to get the hell out of the valley before it turned to dust. The next thing we knew, Viper stood up, screamed like a maniac, started throwing grenades out in front of him and running toward the entrance of the valley where we had just come in. Needless to say we followed him hot on his tail shooting at anything that moved. I saw Viper go down once, get back up and start lobbing grenades again screaming as he went. After what seemed like an eternity, we made it out and our support chopper was there waiting for us. When I next saw Viper, he was just standing there looking back at the valley with a smile on his face. He was weaving back and forth, trying to remain up right; he was covered in blood, his own. I counted at least twenty holes in his uniform as King Pin was trying to get him on the chopper. Then we heard it, both sides of the valley erupted in massive explosions; starting at the far end and coming toward us. As we watched the scene unfold I heard Viper say that will teach them; then he passed out.”

Bo-peep pauses for a moment and taking another sip of coffee which by this time is cold yet she doesn’t seem to notice its temperature.  “What we did not know at the time was Viper had called a friend of his, Mad Dog, who was a B-52 pilot and he was part of a flight of three looking to help out if need be. The flight of Buffs came in and over the valley and dropped their full load of five hundred and thousand pound bombs on either side and in the center of the valley. Viper knew that if we did not get out of there we would be nothing more than a spot on the landscape. He got us out of there and saved us all. When we landed tension was still running high when the Doc’s and nurses started to work on us all, as a unit we told them to take care of Viper first. One Doc said there was nothing they could do for him, he was good as dead anyway. With extreme calm every one of us drew our weapons pointing them at the stupid Doc. If he dies, so do you! So what’s it gonna be? That got the whole bunch moving real quick! They worked on Viper for sixteen hours non-stop. None of us left his side; and before you ask we would have killed the doctor without a second thought or an ounce of remorse. How Viper survived is a miracle in itself, and to this day he still doesn’t remember what he did or how he saved us. They shipped him to Germany; then home for more treatment. That’s when the nightmares and PTSD kicked in. We owe him our lives and will do anything for him! And GOD help anyone who hurts him.”

Pebbles looking directly at Bo-peep understands the meaning of what she said.  “I had to know Bo-peep; I think I may be falling in love with him. But I’m so scared, I don’t know what to think or do.”  
 
 Seeing the seriousness mirrored in Pebble's expression. “That’s not news Pebbles!  Let’s call it a night; we’ll be getting an early start in the morning on the training.”

Rousing from her reverie Pebbles inquires. “Peep, what’s next? How will the training progress; and what can I expect?” Finally dawning on her what Bo-peep had said. “What the hell do you mean that’s not news?”

Without answering her question Bo-peep replies. “Get some sleep.  Tomorrow will be a long busy day.” Smiling to herself she lies back on the cot. She has no idea she’ll be toting the supplies across the mountain. Should prove rather interesting.

As silence echoes through the cave, Bo-peep is aware of Pebble’s uneven breathing signaling she is not asleep, but chooses to remain quiet.

Across the room Pebbles lies in the darkness thinking about what Bo-peep told her earlier. She thinks, every time I feel drawn to Liam, something happens that scares me.  Will there ever be a time when I will be able to trust. And what the hell have I got myself into with Bo-peep. In the blink of an eye she turns as hard and cold as Liam did when he was killing those men. Trying to turn her thoughts off so she can sleep, she suddenly realizes that her only hope of never living in fear is to learn everything she can. With that realization and the thought that killing is what they do, not who they are, she drifts off to sleep.

Bo-peep manages to get her usual cat naps now that Pebbles breathing is even in slumber.