Page 45 of Freedom Fighters
The fire in the middle of the room had been lit again, even though the night wasn’t much cooler than the day had been. Everyone sat around the fire, more for companionshipthan for warmth. It was only a small fire yet the crackle of the flames was cheering.
Carmen had nearly finished her meal when Garrett appeared. He had showered and changed not long ago, for his hair was slicked back wetly. He was carrying a bottle of what looked like mescal. How many bottles had Hernandez given him?
Garrett stepped up to the fire and turned to face them. “You all did well,today,” he told them. He held up the bottle. “A shot each, as a thank you.”
They all smiled and laughed. Everyone scrambled to collect cups and glasses, anything that could be used to hold a shot, while Garrett cracked the seal on the bottle and passed it on.
Carmen eased away from the fire, leaving her empty plate there. She moved back down the long room to her sleeping bag. She lowered herselfdown on to the bag, then put her back against the stone wall. She wasn’t tired yet. She just refused to share the bottle with Garrett.
She watched the bottle move around the fire and the smiles as they clinked glasses and cups together and drank their shot. The air around the fire was one of contentment. Garrett was back in everyone’s good graces.
Carmen scowled. She had no intention of forgivinghim as they had.
Garrett snagged two tin cups from Llora and stepped around the fire. He was heading in her direction.
Her heart sank.
He poured two shots as he walked, his head down. Carmen watched his approached, her arms around her knees, her fingers digging into them. She wanted to speak first, to say something cutting and send him on his way. That would avoid having to deal with him atall. She couldn’t come up with a single thing to say.
Instead, she watched the play of his thighs under the denim, remembering how the scar curled over his hip just there, under the belt and above the edge of his pocket.
She remembered how he liked her stroking the sensitive flesh on either side of the ridge of scar.
She had spent the last three nights in Garrett’s bed, sneaking out just beforedawn and walking around the monastery to come to the camp area from the side, instead of walking out through the interior door next to the kitchen area. It had been three nights of some of the best sex she had ever experienced.
She had relaxed around Garrett during the day. He still fired zingers and complaints and sarcastic observations, although she could shake them off easier than she usedto. Until this morning, that was.
The PT drill had been brutal and, in her estimation, unnecessary. Everyone was as fit as they could be, given the poor food and accommodations. Everyone did their share and then some. There wasn’t a single lazy bum among them.
Garrett had singled her out for more punishment than anyone else in the group. He had almost hazed her, using his position as the groupleader to humiliate her. Her father had always told her she had too much pride and it would get her into trouble. Garrett knew that, too and had deliberately provoked her. Why? What had been the point?
By the time he stopped at the edge of her sleeping bag and held out one of the cups, Carmen was angry all over again. She looked at the proffered cup. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You deserveit as much as anyone else,” Garrett told her, the cup held steady at the level of her shoulder. “Probably more so. Drink.”
“Fuck off, Garrett. I have zero interest in worshipping at your god-like feet just because you offer a dram of mescal. I don’t come that cheap.”
She didn’t modulate her voice or keep her volume down. Garrett hadn’t spoken softly, so neither would she. Heads were turning.They were listening.
“You’re still pissed about the training.” He put the nearly empty bottle on the ground, then drank one of the shots and added that cup next to the bottle. “Get over it, Escobedo.”
“Get over a pointless morning of mortification and pain?”
“It wasn’t pointless.” He upended the second cup, draining it, then bent to dump it next to the first. “You couldn’t hit the tree thefirst time. You weren’t even close. Yet despite physical exhaustion and high stress, you grouped three shots inside a four inch circle, a short while later. What does that tell you?”
She glared at him. She had already said it was pointless.
“Think!” he railed at her. “Use that fancy education of yours and figure it out.”
The broken down room was silent. No one pretended they were not listening.They watched Garrett. And her.
Carmen stared down at the sleeping bag where her toes were pushing the nylon into a small ridge. She scowled, thinking it through.
“You lay in the dirt, too tired to move,” Garrett added. “Yet when you thought I would kick you, youdidmove.”
Carmen lifted her chin to look at him, surprised into it. “It’s mental.”
“It’s mental,” he repeated, agreeing with her.“If you couldn’t shoot inside the circle on the first round, then after four miles in this heat, you should have been even farther off the mark, only you weren’t. You wanted it to stop badly enough you overcame your fatigue and shot straight. Everyone did. Everyone hit the circle sooner or later. Pain is mostly mental. Tiredness is nearly alwaysmental. Now you know you can overcome it if youhave to.”
