Page 101 of Unmade

I needed a distraction.

Seeing that the Juniors didn’t look too busy at the moment, I walked over to them so I could ask?—

“Marksmen inbound for a break,” Max declared. “That’s our cue.” He nudged his friend. “Two hours on the clock starting now.”

Oh. Okay, so they’d be busy now. They were leaving.

Some twenty feet behind me, Crew laughed at something.

“Look who’s ready for the Banana Wars! Nice jungle setup, Gramps. Chesty would be proud.”

I turned around and spotted two men walking toward us, decked out in ghillie suits—or nets—to blend in entirely with the background, including helmets and face coverings. Safe to say, their hiding spots had not only been on the ground but very close to the tree line where someone would be easily spotted by our targets.

Were they the ones who’d blown out the tires of the van? Because they were clearly snipers. Their rifles hung across their chests.

One of the men walked past Crew and smacked him upside the head. “Quit talkin’ like a boot, son.”

“Hey, fuck you. Not even a devil your advanced age can disrespect Chesty.” Crew scowled and followed while the snipers started shedding the protective gear. Helmets off, netting off.

In the meantime, the Juniors got ready to take over. They had their own helmets, but it was their turn with the ghillie suits, and they didn’t seem very happy about it.

Understandable. I’d gotten stuck in one of those nets more than once.

Crew handed out water bottles and rags to the men, who made quick work of removing the worst of the green and brown camo paint from their faces. Another thing I’d hated during field exercises, painting my face. Because everything got stuck to it, dirt and dust and sand and tiny twigs. Then you got sweaty, and…fuck those memories.

“Hudson!” Coach strode over to them, so I went another way.

I was starting to feel awkward and very out of place. I didn’t belong here. I had no orders to follow, and when I asked what I could do, all I got was shit answers. How did I “brace myself” for a furious Beckett? There was little to no room for creativity either. Like, how could I show initiative when there was nothing to do? I didn’t have any communication device, the Juniors had been monopolizing the map, Coach was all over the place, and I didn’t wanna be in the way.

But since there was no one by the map anymore, I trailed over there and eyed the area illustrated in faint black lines and tiny Xs. The lines showed what kind of terrain it was, right? Or were the lines hills and valleys? I couldn’t fucking remember, and we hadn’t started studying this yet.

They required us to have military experience here, and then they went and changed things up enough so we had to start over in so many ways. What was the point? I’d aced land nav, and here I couldn’t tell what were trees and what was terrain.

Either way, more operators had been called in since Beckett had left, that was for sure. Our location was marked with a blue pin, and I counted twelve, thirteen…fourteen red pins.

“That’s Coach’s recruit?”

I snapped up my gaze and instinctively backed off. Crew nodded. They were headed this way. The sniper ran the rag over his face some more, and I could tell he was much older. Late forties or so.

Had I met him before? He looked familiar.

“Yeah, meet Leighton Watts.”

The man smirked and extended a hand to me. “I saw what you did to the guy in the passenger’s seat. He went out like a light with one elbow.”

Oh. Heh. I shook his hand firmly. “Coach did tell me to eliminate the threat.”

He chuckled. “Good to meet you, kid. I’m Ryan.”

…Ryan? Ryan. Ryan, who looked familiar.

“…one hell of a jarhead and sniper.”

The memory of seeing a particular photo online flashed by in my mind. A younger Ryan Quinn and his dad standing side by side, wearing matching grins, one with a USMC tee and the other holding up a Go Army tee.

“Nice to meet you too,” I managed to get out. Nausea crawled up my throat, and my mouth watered because of it.

This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t him. He just looked like him a little. Or a lot.

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