Page 79 of Darling Wildfire
Atlas on the other hand was the definition of a soldier. He obeyed orders and executed with precision. He moved off of Nyx and I, observing us before making his own move to support and defend. He was lethal with his rifle—a dead shot every time—one of the best snipers I’d ever encountered and hisaccuracy wasn’t isolated to just his sniping. I’d seen him shoot a man in the eye, then take out the second one the same way all within less than two seconds.
Now that I’d seen them in action, I knew we could build a good team around the three of us. But the others had to buy in too or there’d be no cohesive action and that would just result in all of us getting killed. The longer you worked with a team, the closer you became and the better you knew each man intimately and could work off of that instinctively. I knew the three of us would be dangerous, but I was worried about having more teammates like Vyper. Someone who saw this as simply winning or losing. It wasn’t that black and white. But for now, all I could control were the three of us and that was a good enough place to start.
38
NYX
“Well,that was…interesting,” I said.
“That’s one way to describe it,” Atlas muttered.
We were stitched up, showered, and now I was exhausted. I threw myself into an armchair and swiped a bottle of water, draining it in one go. North was sitting in sweatpants, reclined on the couch with his arms across the back. Atlas sat next to him, looking over the food that had been waiting for us when we got back. He didn’t seem to have any qualms about eating after what we’d just done whereas I needed a minute to decompress before I even thought about consuming anything other than water. Preacher was staring out the windows, arms folded across his bare chest. I could see his scowl reflected in the glass.
“Preach, come sit down or something, you’re making me nervous,” I said.
He was still wound so tightly and something about him was on edge. I didn’t like it. He turned and walked over but his scowl didn’t leave his face. He looked at the food then fixed on North.
“That was a fucking disaster,” he snapped. “What the hell were you thinking killing Vyper?”
Ah. There’s the problem.
North looked up at him calmly. “He was a liability. That man would have cost us the game or more importantly our lives.”
“So you’re just going to off anyone you deem a liability? If they’re not good enough for you, what, you’re just going to put a bullet in them?”
“Preach, come on,” I said. “You were with him the most. You can’t tell me you trusted him…”
Preacher didn’t even look at me, still glaring fiercely at North who didn’t break eye contact.
“Yeah, I know but that’s not the point. There needs to be some sort of structure or we’ll descend into chaos and we’ll just all be killing whoever we want, whenever we want.”
“That’s a very cop thing to say,” I chuckled, and he shot me a glare.
“Don’t bring that into it,” he snapped. “I think I handled myself just fine out there with all you jarheads.”
“That’s a marine—”
“I don’t fucking care,” he hissed.
“Is that what you’re worried about?” North asked. “That I’ll kill you?”
“You’re welcome to try,” Preacher growled. “Many have.”
North looked amused but shook his head. “I would agree with you—from what I saw you handled yourself out there—”
“So what, I have nothing to worry about?” That seemed to make him angrier, and he scoffed and looked away.
“We’re not going to just go around killing teammates,” Atlas grumbled.
“You can’t guarantee that,” Preacher said. “Your friend here is unpredictable—that’s just as bad as Vyper in my opinion.”
Atlas and I were right in our assessment of him in the beginning—North was a force in the field—a true team guy. An absolute lethal soldier who anticipated, planned and executed with ruthlessness and precision. I didn’t see him as unpredictable—in fact, he was the opposite. Unlike his usual closed off self, I found I could clearly read him in the field and work off of him so we were in sync—a flow state I craved during missions because of the way I could perfectly combine my instincts with orders so I could operate at my personal peak performance. Like a good leader, North quickly learned my personal idiosyncrasies and made them work for him. He did the same thing with Atlas, working us quickly into a well-oiled machine.
“Sit down, Preacher,” North said.
Preacher hesitated, but I watched North’s eyes sharpen, I knew a test when I saw one. When he still didn’t move, North’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t blink. Instead, I saw Preacher try to match him but North’s entire energy radiated fuck with me and find out. Finally, with a low growl in his throat, Preacher sank into the other armchair. North leaned forward and rested his arms on his thighs as he looked at Preacher.
“I want you to understand something,” he said. “Men like Vyper are the first ones to get themselves killed in the field. I’d love to interview his teammates and I bet you they’d have similar experiences with him like we had today. But that’s not why I killed him—I killed Vyper because all he cared about was winning the game. All I care about is getting myself and my team—” He stressedmy teamand gestured to Atlas and I. “—home alive. He only cared about himself and getting the glory of being the one to win it. I don’t wantthat kind of man at my back. It’s not about skill—we can deal with someone who doesn’t know everything or doesn’t execute perfectly. I can’t deal with selfish bastards who have no regard for the man standing next to him.”
