Page 23 of Passion and Payback

I shrugged. “It was years ago. Easier to talk about now. Especially to you.”

“I…how long ago?”

“I was nineteen.”

“Oh.”

“He was a good guy. Had a few brothers back home and liked to talk about them. Never could figure out if he liked or hated them, but he was always talking about them. Really wanted to make his old man proud. Was pretty cocky too, always trying to compete with everyone around him. Didn’t matter if it was arm wrestling, shooting, or just learning knife tricks other guys knew. It was pretty annoying at times. His name was Logan.”

He’d also been sweet once you got under all that bluster and the need to prove himself. It probably wouldn’t have surprised anyone with a basic understanding of psychology, but he was just scared of not matching up to people's approval. All he’d wanted was to be accepted, seen as he really was, and not be judged for it. He’d found that with me, and in him, I’d found the first man I was able to be with.

“One minute,” I said, getting up from the couch and going back to the kitchen to retrieve the bottle. I figured we would both want more and wouldn’t feel up to getting it later. “Alright, here.”

“You two were close then,” Hunter asked as he eyed the bottle, sipping from his glass.

“The best of friends,” I said, knowing we were more than that. I couldn’t have said exactly what we were because we’d never discussed it. We were close. That much was true, and after a few awkward first encounters, had grown comfortable with sharing sex. We’d shared tents and bunks before, where we’d lay together in privacy, holding each other tightly and sharing parts of ourselves and our lives. It had made us more than just friends with benefits, but not quite together. “He was there the first time I killed someone.”

“That bad, huh?” Hunter asked softly.

“No, killing was the easiest thing in the world. Aim like you’ve been trained, and pull the trigger until the threat is neutralized. You just have to ignore the nagging feeling laterwhen everything’s calm, as you remember seeing their body go limp and watching the blood pool under them. Then you start to think about the people they knew, who had loved them, who he wouldn’t be coming home to. And then you start thinking about what the hell you’re doing there, what any of you are doing in that damned place.”

“Shit.”

“But then you have to face doing it again and again and realize that if you keep doubting yourself before a fight, you’re going to die…or get someone you care about killed.”

His eyes drifted to me, wide with worry. “Is that what happened?”

“No,” I said with a relieved laugh. “I’m not responsible for his death. No, a cell operating in our area kept giving us trouble. The real trouble came from the fact that we couldn’t tell who was helping them. There was one villager who I was damn sure was working with them to sabotage and attack us, but any time we followed a lead, he was always absent. Funny how so much seemed to tie to him, though. I couldn’t figure out why Command kept holding us back from bringing him in.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, but only when it was too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“One day, we were out on patrol—a normal day. Hot, boring, and…well, anyway, we came under fire. After the long ass days we spent roasting, going out of our minds with boredom, we almost welcomed shit hitting the fan. I might have thought the same thing that day, but once we got under cover, a shot caught Logan in the throat, right through the artery. There was no time for a medic. He was gone.”

It had taken only a couple of minutes. The wound had been that brutal. To me, it had taken forever as I’d knelt there, trying to hold him, my hand pressed to his wound in a futile attempt tostaunch the blood. They’d told me afterward there was nothing I could have done, the bullet had torn his throat, and there was no saving him. They hadn’t had to be covered in his blood, though, to watch the fear in his eyes as he realized he was going to die or hear the awful gurgling.

I flashed him a smile, hoping he would realize I was okay. “It was…not the easiest thing to deal with.”

“God, I can’t imagine,” he said, looking me over. “And is it bad that I’m thankful it wasn’t you? You were right there with him.”

“Be it fate, God, or luck, it wasn’t,” I said with a shrug. “It took him instead.”

He refilled his glass, and I wondered if his drinking had improved his alcohol tolerance. Used to be he could barely get through a couple of drinks before getting goofy. “You mentioned your Command wouldn’t let you go after this guy?”

“I did.”

“Why? Was that connected to this story about your friend?”

“Because you see,” I said and mentally shrugged, refilling my glass. I had already hinted at the story earlier, so I might as well tell it, “that was when I realized I’d had enough. I knew that villager was responsible for a lot of the shit we’d been dealing with, and I’d had enough.”

“What did you do?”

“You asked me earlier what things could be worse than all the other ways of coping I listed, and I avoided it.”

“You did. Why?”

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