Page 68 of Inseverable (Carolina Beach)

As close as Trin and me have been, and after all that we’ve done, I’ve barely said a word about my time in Iraq. But here I am, telling the two most important men in her life more than I’ve dared to tell her.

‘Cept there’s no stopping now is there? The murderer is out of the bag.

“Were you a SEAL?” Owen asks.

“No. Ranger.”

I know what he’s doing . . .what they’re both doing. They’re trying to gauge just how dangerous I am. So I wait, unsure how much more they’ll tolerate before I’m asked to leave and not come back.

Her daddy hasn’t moved, and his expression is as hard and cool as cracked granite. “What was your specialty, boy?”

This time, it’s my turn not to blink. “Sniper.”

Silvie’s sharp intake of breath robs the room of all sound, and twists the knife already lodged deep in my gut.

“How many confirmed kills?”

It’s Landon who asks, but my focus stays on Owen. “A hundred and seven.”

“All your own?” Owen asks, his face unyielding.

“Yes, sir,” I say.

The quiet that follows lasts more like hours than minutes. My tightening muscles are screaming and threatening to tear clear from my frame. But it’s when the air thickening the space between me and Owen, appears to freeze and lower the temperature around us, that I’m certain judgment’s been passed, and that I’m no longer welcomed.

I start to rise, but Owen’s words cement me in place. “I was a Green Beret. Got sent to Somalia on special tour to find some rebels.” His voice grows distant. “Lost count after I fired those first thirty-five shots.”

I’m hovering mere centimeters from my chair. Somehow, I find my way back down. Owen’s cold exterior remains. Only his eyes are different. They’re those same vacant, dead eyes soldiers get after serving too many tours, and the same eyes that stare back at me each time I dare to look in the mirror. But he continues, although he doesn’t seem to be breathing, not anymore.

“We spent close to three months rounding them up,” he says. “Some were just children, really. Children bred and trained to take lives. But that didn’t make a difference.” He looks at me then, the torment deadening his stare as palpable as his daughter’s presence beside me. “We had a job to do. Didn’t we, boy?”

My fists clench and I swallow the lump that’s building. “Yes, sir,” I say.

Chapter Twenty-two

Callahan

I don’t think this is Trin, or her brother’s first time learning their father was a Green Beret. And based on the heaviness in the room, I don’t think it’s the first time learning the extent of his sins. We eat a homemade sweet potato pie in silence, with nothing more than the clinking sound of forks against the plates to break the quiet.

The minute we’re done, Landon excuses himself to make a call.

I thank Silvie for dinner and help Trin gather the plates, my hands not quite steady as I load the dishwasher. She tries to catch my stare more than once, but each time I deny her the reassurance she seeks.

She wants, okay, maybe not wants?sheneedsto know I’m okay. That we’re okay. But I’m not sure if we are. Not after learning I killed a hundred and seven people all on my own. Those same fingers that sweep over her body, pulled the trigger that abruptly ended a shitload of futures. And those hands that give her pleasure, caused a hell of a lot more pain.

Trin knows what I am now, knows what I did. I can’t take it back, but then I never could.

The plate, the one I think I used, doesn’t quite fit along with the rest. But I need it to.

I place my plate on the counter. Compulsively, erratically, I start rearranging the dishes. I move the pie dish, a lid, and a flat pan her momma used to fry okra. My hands move fast, snatching up her daddy’s plate, her mother’s, and everything else in between.

And it’s still not enough. There’s no room for me among the rest.

It. I meanitnotme.

I take a deep breath, and release it slowly, knowing I’m seconds away from breaking every damn dish in this piece of shit appliance. That rage, the kind I’ve beaten down more times than I can count, hovers close to the surface. I can taste the adrenaline it stirs in the back of my throat and sense the fury of the beast I’ve become.

I need to get out, need to leave fast before I lose myself to that darkness?the one where the bodies of those I failed lie bloody and still.

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