Page 26 of Hide From Me

“Far from it, Ray. I’m just a lucky man.” He smiles, and Laura pulls out her phone, grinning like an idiot. I have no idea what she finds so amusing, but her smile is kind of scary, and the blush creeping into her cheeks is even more unnerving. So, I pour myself another shot.

“Well, go get lucky with one of your crushes. Stay away from mine,” I mutter under my breath. Maybe I shouldn’t be drinking anymore because that comment slipped out too easily, and I’m not ready to deal with the questions.

“Jealous much? You two would be a match made in hell if you weren’t so stubborn,” Jack teases, but Laura slams a card down and mutters, “Uno,” diverting his attention.

I gnaw at the inside of my cheek. I am jealous, and that’s a problem. It becomes an even bigger issue when my phone chimes, and I quickly check the stupid message that appears.

Lead me back to you, sunshine.

Seven

Moe

11-21-2025

Seaborn Base

Eight days.

Do you know how many hours that is? One hundred ninety-two. That’s eleven thousand five hundred and twenty minutes. Or, if you really want to piss yourself off with the math, six hundred ninety-one thousand two hundred seconds I could’ve spent with her—wasted. All of it. Instead, I spent it in Alpine, a fragmented faction in Africa, tearing itself apart from the inside.

As I said, war is a fucking joke.

I brace myself against the bathroom sink, knuckles white, chest heaving. The mirror is cracked—not from today, surprisingly—but it still distorts my reflection just enough to make me question whether the person looking back at me is real. I don’t recognize him. Not always. The dirt and dried blood, the scar trailing across my left shoulder blade, the too-bright eyes that can’t stop seeing red... I’m still in uniform, sweat clinging to every thread, the scent of iron and gunpowder soaked into my skin.

No one here knows what I’ve done, what I saw, what I had to become just to get out of there.

They know the mission report. Not the details. Not the pleading screams. Not the sound of an old friend's breath catching as my hands wrapped around his throat. Not the silence afterward.

Everyone has a way of justifying their actions. They talk about vengeance and necessity, but not me. Each time I take a life–every pull of a trigger, fractured spine, every set of lifeless eyes–I don’t see the evil in the world or the justice I’mdoing; I see myself. I see my reflection in their eyes just before they go dark, and I feel a part of me fracture a little more.

I slip away into that dark place in my head, and my sanity bleeds out like the life I take.

“Moe!” Sharkie’s voice pounds against the metal door of my quarters, sharp and impatient, as if this isn’t the first time she’s knocked. How long has she been standing there? I don’t know, but surely she’ll leave when I turn the water on. I don’t have time to discuss something like a wedding. I mean, who actually gets married in our line of work, anyway? We’re not promised tomorrow–for fucks sake were not even promised tonight.

I yank at the buttons on my sweat-drenched uniform, peeling it off with shaking hands.

“Come on!” Sharkie whines like a child, and I grind my teeth in frustration. I suppose some people might want to get married despite our lifestyle—maybe it gives them a sense of purpose or perhaps it's their way of ensuring they achieve everything they want before the inevitable end, which is likely to occur in a foreign country, far from those they love.

It’s difficult to decide if I'd ever want that, especially now, as images of brain matter sticking to the tips of my boots and wives' cries still plague my mind. Why can't I be normal and be affected by it? Why can't I gag or panic?

“I’ve got to shower!” I call out, tossing my clothes into the hamper.

“Five minutes!” she pleads.

I don’t respond as I shut the door to my bathroom, hoping the extra barrier will send her the hint without me having to spell it out. Sharkie isn’t the type of person I want to snap at—she doesn’t deserve it, especially after how steadfastly she has stood by my side when she didn't have to. I mean, she even beat the living daylights out of Sam—a grown man—for me.

I let out a sharp breath as the cold water hits my battered skin. It was supposed to be a simple mission: neutralize the situation and reiterate the boundaries that needed to be upheld within the faction to prevent events like this from occurring.I went in with only half the number of men and women I would normally need for a situation of that size, unaware of the chaos that was unfolding.

“Moe!” Sharkie’s yell is muffled but high-pitched enough to be recognizable. I wish she’d stop screaming my name like that. I’d heard it yelled enough as I had Gage's neck between my hands.

My knuckles tighten against the tiled wall. Her voice echoes through the memory of that moment—his eyes going wide as I strangled the life from him. I begged him to stop. I tried to de-escalate the situation and reminded him of where he came from and what he was supposed to be fighting for—the world, each other. But the moment he turned on me, it was over, just like that.

It almost makes me sick at how easy it was to watch the life drain from his eyes—how unfazed I still am knowing I tore another person from this world.

The blood swirls down the drain as I lean into the stinging water. I suppose I’m one of those broken people who find solace in pain; it keeps me awake, a reminder that I’m still here, still functioning, even if my sanity is fraying at the edges.

I step out, towel off, and avoid the mirror until the last possible moment—but, as always, I take a look.

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