Page 67 of The Art of Dying

“But you still blame yourself for not reading the letters.”

He didn’t speak for what seemed like a full minute, his eyes heavy with regret for his next words. “I knew there was something important in those letters, and Mack…” he was struggling to rein his temper, “you did, too. If I’d pushed you, hell, if I’d just gone behind your back and read the fuckin’ things… Kepner would still be here. And one of themanyhurtful things about all of this is that I don’t know that the consequence of losing your trust is worth his life, because I’m not sure I had it in the first place.” He laughed once without humor. “God knows why, Mack, all I’ve ever done is prove to you that you can. You should’ve trusted me to read themandkeep you safe. You should’ve trusted me when I said we should read them to figure out why he sent them at certain times. You’re right,” he said, nodding. His eyes glossed over. “I do. I blame you, too. And you’re right that it’s not fair. Nothing about this is. But, sweetheart, you didn’t get handed a folded flag this week, and now we both have to live with it.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying like I’d seen Caroline do so many times. If I shed even one tear, Kitsch would console me, and I didn’t deserve to be. The man staring back at me with disappointment also loved me more than anything, and even he couldn’t find an excuse for why my irrational need to keep us all in the dark led to the deaths of multiple men for whose lives he was responsible.

I couldn’t even be angry with him, because he wasn’t wrong.

I could see mourning in his eyes, for his brothers and for the once tightly held belief that his love had saved me from demons living beneath faded scars.

“You hate me?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Well, I do.”

“I deserved every word.”

He made a face, clearly disgusted. “I hate the hurt look on your face right now.”

“I hate that Kepner’s dead because I’m a coward.” Tears burned my eyes, but I wiped them away before they could fall.

Kitsch walked over to me and held me in his arms. I protested for just a moment, knowing I couldn’t break free even if I wanted to—and I didn’t.

“We fucked up,” he said.

I nodded again.

“We gotta make it right. Every spare moment I have from here on out, I’m weeding those fuckers out. And Mason… Mason will be last so he knows I’m coming for him.”

I looked up at him, and he wiped salty streams from my cheeks with his thumbs.

“Kitsch?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“A quick death isn’t good enough for him. You make sure he suffers.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

chapter eighteen.

Kitsch

We hunkered down behind the gigantic trunk of a fallen baobab tree about three klicks outside a village with less than twenty thatched huts, half of them on fire despite the torrential rains. The others were annoyed, wiping the lenses of their NVGs and droplets from their eyes. I looked up, letting the sky pour onto my face. Storms were a relief. It muffled our movement; it was cooling and amped up my adrenaline. I did my best work during a good storm.

Two days after Abrams was released for duty we shipped out, but Trex had to plan for a hunting party and a possible ambush. By the time we had boots on the ground in Darfur, Kushayb’s lieutenant, Ahmed Mahmoud Nooh, had unleashed his men on four villages with no signs of stopping, massacring hundreds of unarmed men, women, and infants. Boys six and older were taken, armed, and forced to be soldiers in Nooh’s growing death squad.

We listened to screams and wailing just outside the perimeter of the village, Trex on one side of me, Abrams on the other, both of their faces painted in thick black and green curved markings, just like the rest of us.

Trex and Hawk communicated for a few minutes and then Hawk took his men into the dark.

Trex updated us through our earpieces. “We’ll push forward, flush them through and out. Bravo Team will be waiting to sweep ’em up.”

“Copy that,” I said.

“Captain?” Matt said.

“When Bravo’s in position,” Trex said.

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