Page 36 of Forged By Sacrifice

“Fulfill the prophecy,

Be something greater.

Go make a legacy,

Manifest destiny.”

Performed by Panic! At the Disco

Written by Urie / Juber / Sinclair / Youngs / Jeberg / Pritchard / Hollander / Parx / Lobban-Bean

Truck and I spent a week out at sea together. We fished, swam, and pulled into ports to eat at dive bars. We just hung. Truck expanded on his desire to get out of Hawaii. I had a feeling there’d been a girl there who he’d been seeing and broken it off with, but he didn’t want to elaborate. I didn’t force it. If he wanted to talk, he would.

His baby brother had been in some trouble with the law in the small town in northern California that they’d grown up in, and Truck was in the middle of trying to get him straightened out. To get him on a course that didn’t lead to serious jail time. Truck wanted to settle somewhere his brother could come stay for a while.

We didn’t have that kind of trouble in our family, for whatever reason. Maybe because all of us kids had known exactly how it would impact our family if we’d messed up that badly. Our grandparents and parents were in the political and media’s eye on a regular basis, and news of our screw-ups would have been plastered everywhere.

When Truck and I neared St. Petersburg, Florida, I sent a text to my buddies, Nash and Darren, to see if they wanted to meet up before Truck and I continued our journey down toward the Keys. Even though they were part of Joint Special Operations Command as members of a top secret S.E.A.L. Team Six squadron and would normally be stationed with the rest of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group out of Virginia Beach, they’d been stationed at MacDill due to classified Special Operations Command needs for the last two years. Long enough for Darren to bring his wife and baby down to Tampa.

NASH: Why would we want to meet up with you, traitor?

DARREN: Traitor or not, we may need him when he’s in office someday. We better schmooze him now while we have the chance.

NASH: I don’t schmooze.

ME: Truck is with me.

NASH: Well, hell, why didn’t you say?

We met at a restaurant that we often frequented whenever I was in town liaising between DoD Naval Intelligence and SOCOM. When Darren walked into the restaurant with his Captain America charm, eyes turned. His wife, Tristan, didn’t even bat an eyelid at it. Maybe because she was equally blonde and beautiful on his arm. She had their newborn baby girl, Hannah, swaddled up against her chest. They were the perfect, all-American family. Born in the heartland, serving their country. They were people country songs were written about.

Nash followed them in. He was the dark to their light with demons from his past that had followed him into his present. Demons that had him always picking the wrong women even when he craved what Darren had. Family. Love. Home.

“How are things?” I asked after we were all seated with drinks in front of us, except for Tristan who was still breastfeeding their little one.

“Shit. They’re still trying to vet that op you’ve talked them out of twenty goddamn times,” Nash said.

Darren cleared his throat. “It won’t go through. The numbers are never in favor of it.”

“The moneymen are drooling over it. They want the channels it will open.” Nash glowered.

“It won’t happen,” I told them, taking a swig on my beer. “I’ve shown them the odds.”

“Yeah, but you’re not there anymore,” Nash groused.

“If you really believe Mac had that much sway with the powers that be, then I have a bridge to sell you that goes all the way to Hawaii,” Truck said.

It warmed my heart that Truck was really sticking up for me even when it sounded like he was putting me down. In his own way, he was telling Nash to back off. But my heart still clenched a little at the thought of letting Nash, Darren, and all the JSOC teams down. I’d left. It had been harder than I thought.

After dinner, Truck and I drove with Nash to Darren’s house where we were challenged to poker. Nash and Darren had been trying to beat me since I’d first been stationed on the USS George Washington and they’d been catching a ride. They’d already been S.E.A.L.s by the time I’d met them, and even though we’d only been on the ship together for a few months, we’d become friends—friends who cheated at poker in order to beat me, but still friends. Ever since I’d called them out on the “cheating scandal,” they’d been determined to win on their own mettle. I was equally determined to not let it happen. Long after Tristan had put the baby down and gone to sleep herself, the four of us stayed up, trying to best each other in Texas Hold ‘Em.

My phone buzzed.

BRAT: Where are you?

ME: At MacDill with Nash and Darren.

BRAT: Tell the otters I said hello.

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