Page 7 of Desolation

I didn’t come here tonight to talk about me. I came here tonight to have fun and Colton is ruining it. I throw the pool stick in the corner and storm out of the bar.

* * *

“This is your desk,” Jackson says to me as he gives me the tour of the office. “I’ll have Jimmy bring you over the file I need you to start working on. David should be back tomorrow so he can walk you through what we are looking for but Jimmy knows enough that he can get you started.”

“I’m not an intel guy,” I say to Jackson as he starts to walk away.

Jackson turns staring me down with intent. “You worked surveillance. You told me you were the best. Turn those skills to paper.”

“I came to work for you because I thought I would be sent out,” I grit.

Jackson takes two steps toward me, his broad shoulders towering over me despite our lack of height difference. “If you want to spend your time in the desert you should have thought about that before you got kicked out.”

Anger flashes across my eyes but I can’t find any words to say in response.

“You came here to work for me,” Jackson commands. “You will be given jobs as I see fit. And from your piss-poor attitude and lack of taking orders, paperwork is where you start.”

“This is bullshit,” I mutter under my breath but not quietly enough he doesn’t hear.

He steps even closer to me, our toes nearly touching. “When I talked to your commander, he told me you skipped therapy sessions, part of the reason you were discharged. And since you’ve been out, you haven’t been going either. If you can’t make it to a few appointments to better yourself, I can’t trust you to have the backs of my team.”

I look at him in shock. I didn’t think anyone knew I missed those appointments, doctor/patient confidentiality and all. I swallow as I look down at the desk with the file. “I’ll get right on this then, sir.”

Jackson starts to walk away again before turning his head over his shoulder. “You’re out, kid, you don’t need to call me sir.”

I watch as he walks away. Stunned that he knows about my lack of drive to see a therapist. I don’t need one. I hate talking about my feelings. It doesn’t do shit for me. I have my own ways of dealing with all the fucked up shit in my head and it’s worked better than any therapist my entire life.

I grumble as I sit down at my new desk. I never thought I would be a paper pusher but I guess it’s what I have to do to prove myself. I’ve proven myself before. I can do it again. Cole will see that he needs me out in the field for missions. That I am the best there is.

I skim through the documents for twenty minutes before Jimmy comes over. And thank God he does because I have no idea what any of this shit is. It’s half computer code and half written in another language. There are a few surveillance pictures but I have no idea what any of the grainy images are.

“You figure anything out?” Jimmy says to me as he sits perched on the corner of my desk.

“Considering I’m not a numbers guy and I don’t speak Arabic—”

“It’s Farsi.”

I look up at him and try not to roll my eyes. “Fine. I don’t speak Farsi. So no I haven’t figured shit out.”

Jimmy starts cracking up before throwing a different file on my desk. “Muff didn’t think you did. He was testing you out man.”

I pinch my brow as I look at him.

“Fake file. Hell, it’s probably a romance novel he gave you. Wanted to see if you would actually work?”

I snort. “Did I pass the test?”

The left side of his lip lifts in a smirk. “Yeah. But that doesn’t mean you won’t keep working on intel. He wanted to see if you listen, follow directions. You did.”

“But I still need to go through files?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “Part of the job, man.” He grabs a chair from a nearby desk and pulls it over to sit next to me. “Luckily, I’ve been looking through this shit for the last week. A fresh set of eyes might help.”

I nod at him as I open the file. It’s full of dossiers, notes, pictures.

“I’m Jimmy, by the way,” he says while sticking out his hand. “But everyone here calls me Kermit.”

“Like the frog?”

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