Page 102 of What I Should Have Done

Hunger didn’t exist.

Eventually, the three of them left, but not one of them asked me to get up. I cradled in tighter to Mikey’s pillow, closing my eyes. Maybe if I laid here long enough, I’d wake up from this nightmare.

Maybe things would be different.

Mikey…

Bright sunlight beat down on my skin as I emerged from my first shower in days. No sign of Reyes, and Dom was in no rush to send us out to retrieve the Black Box considering everything that had happened. I was grateful—and surprised, I mean this was the military we were talking about.

Holding my dirty clothes and toiletries to my chest, I kept my eyes trained to the ground as I meandered back to the tent. A place that held both consolation and devastation.

“Hey, Scottie,” Bernie’s voice pulled my gaze up from the ground. “Did you hear the news?”

“Hmmm?” I mumbled, stopping to look at him.

“Karim al-Jabari is even more desperate than before. He sent a few groups of followers to ransack a couple villages.”

“Are the people fine?”

Bernie gave me a tight smile.

“Right,” I muttered, even more disheartened than before.

“Come over to the gym. We’re just hanging out right now while the colonel finishes setting up new security protocols and what not,” Bernie said.

“Hanging out? Code for wallowing in self-misery more like it,” I attempted a half-hearted joke.

A pity chuckle was my answer. “Just come on.”

Inhaling deeply, I nodded. “Let me just drop my stuff off at the tent.”

“Scottie.” Bernie’s hand gently wrapped around my arm. But he didn’t need to say anything for me to know what he was trying to express. I was grateful for him. For the entire team. They were hurting as well, yet he still offered his comfort and support.

His eyes burned, green eyes I’d never bothered to study too closely. His facial hair, much like the rest of the team, was in full bloom, a disheveled mess upon a face spending too much time in the sun. Beneath the pain, beneath the violent burden waited a man who, just like Mikey, sought some sort of control in this world.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I whispered.

He inhaled deeply and pulled his hand away, glancing one last time at me before walking off.

A few minutes later, I found myself wandering toward the bench where the entire team sat. The usual chipper banter I’d come to love, come to find peace in, was absent. Heavy in the air was the melancholy burden of the moment. Despite the loud chatter of the surrounding soldiers enjoying time lifting, or each other’s company, my soul sought the fractured team quietly sitting. Doing nothing.

Even Dom.

Part of me was still so angry with him. The other part was even angrier that no one else seemed upset with his decision.

Aggressively plunking myself down on the bench beside Bernie, I stared across at Dom. His eyes remained downcast at the table despite my presence drawing the attention of Ford beside him and Duncan sitting at the head of the table.

“Why?” I asked. A question I’d asked before to him. Yet his answer then still did nothing to stop the bleeding in my heart.

Dom knotted his jaw. “There was no other choice.”

“Wasn’t there?” I snapped. Bernie placed a hand on my arm, but I shrugged him off. “You could’ve shot Karim’s buddy, whatever the hell his name is. In fact, you did. You could have done anything besides shoot your own fucking SEAL first.”

“Mikey was aware—”

“Like hell he was aware. Did you explicitly tell him you’d be shooting him? That he could fucking die?”

“Scottie,” Ford cautioned but I shook my head.

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