Page 54 of What I Should Have Done

For a brief moment, right before that ever-present calm stretched across his features, his eyes remained dark. Guilt and terror unlike I’d ever seen twisted his expression, turning him almost inhuman.

Like a bolt of lightning, it was gone. His eyes returned to those ocean blue swirls, though there seemed to be a hint of pain left behind. “Huh?” he muttered, as if he hadn’t quite heard me.

“You’re bleeding,” I repeated and gestured toward his thigh.

His eyes darted down to his leg and air sliced through his teeth. “Well, shit, would you look at that?” A tight smile spread across his lips. “Anyway, we should radio Dom and let him know we’re all good here.”

Mikey placed a hand against the ground, shifted to the side, and rose with minimal weight on his left leg. His face didn’t contort in pain. Not a muscle flinched from the movement and strain that I knew had to be uncomfortable for him.

I stared at him, shocked to say the least. Was he pretending to be some tough guy? Or did it really not affect him? Was he maybe simply numb to the pain due to adrenaline?

“Phoenix, this is Viper, do you copy?” he radioed, but I didn’t hear anything in my ear.

“Try again, I didn’t hear anything,” I replied, letting him know that nothing connected.

“Phoenix, this is Viper, over?” he asked again, looking in my direction but not really at me. Something had shifted in him. I wasn’t sure what it was, but confusion flitted over my figure that had previously felt so grounded around him.

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Phoenix, this is Crow, do you copy?” I said over comms.

Mikey’s brows pulled together, his eyes finally focusing on me. “I didn’t hear nothing either,” he said.

“Phoenix, anyone, come in,” I radioed one more time. Mikey shook his head and inhaled deeply, sheathing his bloody knife.

He shrugged his shoulders, too casually for the fact that our radios were down. “Well, let’s get walking. We can head back down this canyon and see if they’re still in the midst of the battle. If not, we’ll jump up to the rendezvous point.” He adjusted the PPE around his torso and shrugged the pack higher onto his shoulders. I watched in odd horror as he limped over to both my rifle and his, several feet away in the dirt, back near the absolutely demolished buggy we’d nearly been blown up in.

“Mikey,” I muttered, unsure of what to say as he stooped. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he raised his gaze to me and cocked a brow.

“It’s not like either buggy is functional. So, the longer we wait, the longer it’ll take—”

“You can’t walk that far.” I closed the distance between us and slipped my rifle from his hands.

“Eh, I’ve had worse.” He scanned around me, still refusing to linger on any one place for too long.

“You’ve had worse?” I snapped a hand around his arm, shaking him. “Look at me, will you!”

His jaw knotted, and his gaze skimmed briefly across mine, then darted away.

“Mikey, will you fucking look at me!” I shouted, jerking his arm.

The casualness in his features snapped away, hardening. He aged right in front of me. Every line in his face deepened, maturing beyond his years. “Scottie, don’t.” His voice was sharp and he brushed at my hand on his tight sleeve. Every muscle in his forearm beneath my fingers rippled in tension, cracking out of my hold.

“Don’t what? Be concerned for you?” I slung my rifle around to my back and crossed my arms. But no matter how intense I tried to make myself, no matter how piercing and serious I tightened my face, he didn’t react. Where was the Mikey I’d grown to know?

He merely wet his lips and looked over my head. “You can be concerned when we get back to camp. I think you’ve forgotten your place, Corporal. Let’s go.” As sharp as ice, Mikey walked around me, not a single expression twisting his features.

Corporal. He called me Scottie. He called me Crow. He called me Scotch after some damn tape, but never my rank. He skipped right over my last name and went to the most impersonal thing possible.

Spinning on my heels to face him, I jogged after him, easily catching up with his uneven gait. “What in the actual hell is wrong with you?” I snapped, shoving him against his shoulder. Despite the need to unintentionally brace his weight on his bad leg to stay upright, the pain that had to snap through him never once appeared on his face.

“Nothing. We eliminated the target, now we need to get back,” he said without inflection.

“What…” I started to ask, but I wasn’t even sure what to say now. I had no idea what was going on with him. Something clearly went wrong, but what it was, I had no clue. Mikey resumed walking, his gaze darting around like a pinball. It honestly exhausted me with how rapidly his eyes shifted. But I followed along without a word.

The sand beneath our boots crunched softly, shifting with each step we took. Not another sound echoed around us. Straining for any familiar crack of a gun or rumble of an explosion, my ears quickly tired.

And then Mikey stopped, his head tilted up, eyes trained on something. Following his gaze, my heart dropped to my stomach, dread curling my toes. “Is that…?” I questioned, not wanting confirmation that the red sky swarming toward us was exactly what I thought it was.

“Sandstorm. We need to find cover,” Mikey stated, still without emotion in his words.

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