The Ice-Cold General Learned Regret in the Language of Roses Novel

Standing in the packed departure hall , watching the flight information roll across the screens and listening to boarding announcements urging passengers to the gate , Ethan felt his heart grow strangely , unexpectedly calm . It felt like if he could just step onto that plane and cross the ocean , he might actually catch hold of that sliver of hope .

Just as he tightened his grip on his boarding pass and started toward security , a young soldier in uniform - a communications specialist - pushed through the crowd at a dead run , stopped in front of him , snapped to attention , saluted , and held out a sealed envelope stamped URGENT . " General Foster , sir ! Urgent dispatch from the border ," he barked , still catching his bre hostile activity . Command orders you to return to base immediately and take your u Ethan's outstretched hand froze in midair . expected ht away .

" He looked down at the heavy envelope , then back up at the plane outside the terminal windows , already taxiing slowly toward the runway - the flight he was supposed to be on . The roar of the engines thundered in his ears , sounding almost like mockery . Orders were absolute . Duty , responsibility , country - everything he had once treated as sacred now rose up like an unbreakable wall between him and the woman he was desperate to reach . He clenched his fist so hard his nails dug into his palm , sending a sharp jolt of pain through his hand .

For the first time , he felt a kind of despairing doubt and helplessness under the sheer weight of the uniform on his shoulders . In the end , he closed his eyes slowly , every line of his face tight with pain ; when he opened them again , his gaze was rimmed with red , cold and mercilessly resolved . He took the dispatch , tore it open , scanned it quickly , then said in a low voice to the communications specialist , " Tell command General Foster is returning to base immediately ." He turned away from the departing flight and strode toward the airport exit .

His back was still straight as ever , but there was a loneliness in it now , a bleakness that words couldn't quite touch . Behind him , the plane carrying all his hopes screamed up into the clouds , climbing higher and higher until it was nothing more than a speck he could no longer see , vanishing into the sky . Chanter 17 66.67 % was nothing more than a speck he could no longer see , vanishing into the sky . Out along the border , the wind was thick with sand , scouring his face raw . The setting sun bled across the barren ridges , staining them a tragic , burning orange .

Gunfire , explosions , and hoarse shouts tangled together , weaving the battlefield's brutal soundtrack . Ethan cut through it all like a drawn blade , charging at the very front of his unit . His tactics were still precise and lethal , his aim uncannily accurate , but the men who knew him best could all tell something was off with their general . He was pushing too hard , throwing himself forward with a recklessness that bordered E destruction .

He no longer stayed back to calmly direct the fight the way he used to ; instead he wa ntly at the tip of the spear , in the thickest danger , like he was deliberately hunting for some kind of release - or punishment . " General , right flank ! " one of his men shouted , his voice shredding in his throat . Ethan twisted aside at the sound , a bullet screaming past his ear close enough to leave a burning trail of air . His eyes snapped cold and sharp as he lifted his rifle and squeezed off a controlled burst , dropping a distant enemy where he stood .

But more enemies were already swinging in from the side , their fire so heavy that his squad was pinned down in a shallow dip in the ground . " Cover me . I'm going out there to draw their fire - you find an opening and break through , " Ethan rasped , wiping sweat and grime from his face . " No , sir , it's too dangerous ! " " That's an order , " Ethan snarled , and before anyone could argue again he vaulted out from behind cover , moving fast as he poured fire into the densest cluster of enemies . Just as he'd calculated , most of the enemy fire swung toward him at once .

Bullets hammered the dirt around him like rain , throwing up sprays of dust at his feet . Running on pure training and a total disregard for his own life , he actually managed to rip open a gap in their line . But just as he was about to link up with the team waiting to pull him back in , a stray round slammed into his lower leg , sending him staggering and crashing to the ground . Chapter 17 56.67 % At the same moment , a grenade detonated nearby . The shockwave picked him up and slammed him back down hard .

Pain roared through every inch of his body , and his consciousness started to slide . In the split second before the darkness swallowed him , what flashed through his mind wasn't fear of dying or regret for unfinished duty , but a face - bright and reckless , streaked with tears she refused to hide . Scarlett ... if I die out here , will you be even a little bit sad ? Will you ever shed a single tear for me ? That question was the last thing he clung to as he slipped under . His mind drifted in the dark .

He dreamed for what felt like a very long time , the images wild and disjointed yet terrifyingly clear . Every dream was about Scarlett . In the first one , she was in the middle of a crowded dance floor at some downtown club , a blaze of fire at the center of it all , drawing every gaze in the room and scorching through the still water of his calm , disciplined heart .

To get out of their engagement , she'd raised hell every way she could think of - he carried her home on his back after she pushed things too far , he quietly fixed things after she rammed the base commander's front - yard fence , he went down to the police station to bail her out when she'd gotten into yet another fight . She was like a stubborn vine with a will of its own , wrapping herself around his neat , orderly world whether he wanted her there or not . She would curl up against his chest , fiddling with his buttons as she warned him in a mock - whiny tone not to ever lie to her .

She'd gone red - eyed with anger when he tossed off a joke about having a baby , calling him a bastard through gritted teeth . When they'd found her in the morgue , her face had been white as paper , and she'd still forced out a cold little smile . She'd taken eighty blows with the disciplinary baton for him , her back shredded and bloc bitten down and refused to make a sound . still she'd She'd signed the divorce papers , walked away from everything , left the country , and left him with just one line - " You don't measure up .

" AL - or 17 56.67 % Finally , there was that last long - distance call , her icy , distant " Oh " in his ear and the merciless busy tone that followed as she hung up on him without a second thought . Her smiles , her tantrums , her tears , her hatred , the stubborn line of her back as she walked away - every frame replayed in his mind again and again , like some slow - motion reel he couldn't shut off .

And only now did he realize that under all the so - called duty and all the so - called deals , through all the days and nights when he'd dodged her , ignored her , even hurt her , Scarlett had been carving herself deep into him in her own reckless , all - or - nothing way . He loved her .

It wasn't about obligation or any bargain they'd made ; somewhere in the quiet , ordina little ways she'd slipped into his life , his feelings had taken root and grown down into ts , in all the He'd just been too stupid , too blind , so wrapped up in old promises and his own warped sense of responsibility that it took losing her completely - and walking up to the edge of death - for him to finally see it for what it was . 56.67 % admin