Sweet Recovery (Ex Ops Series Book 4) by Jessie Lane

what had gotten me in this predicament in the first place. My mother’s love for my father had spun a disaster through time and lives as devastating as any tornado could ever be.
    So maybe I was wrong for hurting the man I loved, but I had spared him and his family from getting blown away by the destructive man who ruled my life.
    Setting down the black marker, I picked up the charcoal gray color and started shading in the dark, dramatic lines of a giant wolf with razor sharp teeth bared at his prey. Part of the creature was already colored black, and now I would use a few different shades of gray as a highlight to detail his features, making the wolf’s eyes menacing, his teeth razor sharp, and his muzzle pulled back in a snarl of dominance. His body built for war and his claws sharpened to rend whoever might cross his path, he was truly a savage beast that stood over his captive with an undeniable message: I own her. She is mine to let live or kill.
    Dropping the gray marker, I picked up the maroon red for the wolf’s hostage. The woman’s features were hidden in profile and shadows, leaving only one of her eyes, the small curve of her nose, and her defiant chin visible. Everything about her was drawn in black and white because she was as innocent and naïve as snow. No shades of gray corrupted her appearance, because I wanted the character to convey that there was only right and wrong in her world.
    In my mind, the woman was in denial about half-truths and the possibilities of what-ifs. The only color she possessed was in the cloak that was draped over her body and white dress, covering her shoulders and lying like a waterfall of blood down her back to the forest floor. Her hood was pulled up on her head to help protect her from the cold night.
    As I colored in the majority of the cloak in the dark red, leaving spaces to highlight and define in a brighter red, I wished that hood and cloak could protect her from more than the cold, like the wolf.
    The sad truth was that I knew nothing could protect her from the big, bad wolf. Not that cloak, not some magical power, and definitely not love. Anyone who looked at this piece would easily see what I was trying to convey.
    The world in front of us was evil and dangerous, ready to gobble us up and spit us out at any moment. In truth, we were all just doing what we had to in order to survive.
    After spending the next half-hour coloring the rest of her cape with a fiery hue, I finally finished with touches of fine black marker lines then sat back and studied what I had produced.
    Black and red.
    Power and determination.
    Loss and danger.
    Fear and love.
    Death and life.
    My entire world felt as if it had been reduced to the colors of black and red.
    Lucas
    What was worse than days and nights of flashbacks and nightmares of the men to your left and right being shot down or blown away?
    Cable television.
    For the last two weeks, I had been in my apartment, the curtains drawn to block the sunshine, all the lights turned off, and nothing to brighten up my living room other than the illumination from the flat panel’s projection. Sleep had been almost nonexistent, and by this point, I was running solely on the fumes of my leftover pizza and the numerous whiskey bottles littering my coffee table.
    I didn’t know how many days I had been holed up in my little one-bedroom apartment. What I did know was that my cable sucked. Big time. There were too many infomercials with skinny chicks doing horrible exercise videos and fat men selling new cooking inventions. Not to mention, if one more rerun of the Brady Bunch came on, I was going to show Jan what a real temper tantrum was and throw my TV out the fucking window.
    The only good thing I had discovered while secluding myself was that there was a liquor store that did deliveries if the order was big enough. Consequently, I had ordered ten bottles of Jack and asked the guy who had been taking my order if that was enough.
    “Sure, man.