Page 4 of Unloaded
“I won’t let them take me again,” the 1Lt. calls out as she shifts the knife to her right hand and raises it to her throat. “Tell my sister I love her and not to join the service.”
“No!” I shout, realizing her intention. “Don’t do it! Please don’t hurt yourself. We will get you out of this. I won’t let them take you. Trust us!” With a shake of her head, she digs the knife into her throat.
A crimson spray shoots out from her neck as I run forward. Gunfire explodes all around me, but I don’t pay any attention to it. I have to get to her to stop the bleeding.
I fall to my knees at her side. A huge puddle has already formed around her. Bloody bubbles gurgle out as she takes herfinal breaths. “Fuck! Why?” I yell, trying to staunch the flow, to no avail, with my bare hands.
My mind is trying to make sense out of her actions, but I’m having no luck in making sense of any of this. She stares up at me with wide eyes. Her lips move, forming words, but I’m too shocked to comprehend what she’s trying to say around the gurgling blood flowing out of her neck and mouth. In seconds, her eyes lose focus, and the sounds stop. She’s gone, just like that.
I stare down at her in horror. A hand grabs my tac-vest at the shoulder. I’m jerked to my feet pulling me out of my stupor.
“We have to move, Duke!” Pitbull yells in my ear as he volleys a spray of bullets at our enemies. I reach down and grab the 1Lt’s limp body, throwing it over my shoulder. As I turn to run, pain sears in my side, but I keep going.
We reach Tiger, who now has a bandage on his thigh. I’m torn between leaving the 1Lt.’s body and helping Tiger. I can’t leave him behind. There’s no way he can walk unassisted, and the hostages we have with us can barely go on their own, so there’s no way they can help him either.
Thankfully Drake and the rest of our team shows up on foot, just as that thought crosses my mind. Drake stares at the body hanging from my shoulder, shock evident on his face.
“What the hell happened?” he asks, even as he fires at the insurgents. I shake my head. I have no words to explain this shitshow. “We need to get the fuck out of here,” he needlessly explains.
Gradually the enemy stops firing, disappearing into the desert, leaving us alone to tend to our wounded. We don’t hang around. The guys lift Tiger to his feet, one on either side of him, assisting him to make it back to our Humvee. It seems the insurgents have given up on taking any of the other hostages after the 1Lt. died.
I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something is very fucked up about this situation. I don’t understand why she killed herself, other than the torture she’d endured had been too much to consider enduring again. Her vacant eyes stare at me accusingly. I close them wishing like hell I had a sheet or flag, something to cover her with. I let her and her family down. I failed to bring her home alive.
1
ROSCO
Five years later…
The jukebox is blaring an upbeat tune with a heavy base. Several bodies are gyrating out on the dance floor. Sitting in Jay’s Bar and Grill—which is 0verly crowded tonight, full of both regulars and a larger than normal tourist crowd—I scan the room noting the exact location of my brothers, their women, and our friends.
I’m intimately familiar with all the exits and know how long it will take me to reach each one of them. I have multiple contingency plans in my head should something go wrong. Yes, I know I sound paranoid, but if your brothers’ women had been through what mine have? You’d understand my paranoia.
In the last six months or so, both Luke’s and Bo’s—my older brothers—women have been abducted and left to be used as weapons of mass destruction for a terrorist organization. I don’t plan to allow something like that to happen again if I can prevent it.
“What are you over here brooding about?” Kelvin, a longtime friend and co-worker at Invictus, asks, taking a seat across from me. “You look like you are about to murder someone.” I scowl at him.
“I’m not brooding about anything,” I deny. “I’m just sitting here enjoying my beer and my brother’s engagement party.” I drink the last of my beer. Kelvin dips his head and narrows his eyes, glaring at me. Dalton, my closest friend since we were teens, slides onto the seat next to Kelvin.
“What are we not brooding about?” Dalton asks, looking between me and Kelvin. I roll my eyes in dramatic fashion.
“Nothing,” I refute, really hoping they will just drop it, but knowing all along I’m not that damn lucky.
“Just spill it,” Kelvin demands, “I can tell you’ve got something on your mind. You’ve been moping around for weeks.” He is seriously about to piss me off.
“I haven’t been moping,” I argue in response.
“He’s right, Duke,” Dalton agrees, using my team name. “You know you can’t hide anything from me. I haven’t said anything thinking you would eventually come talk to me, but it’s plain to see something is eating at you.”
“What the hell?” I grumble. “Y’all are like a couple of little old church ladies gossiping about the choir. Hoping to get something juicy to twitter on about.” Dalton rears back with wide eyes, staring at me, before turning to Kelvin with a look of disbelief.
“Jeezus!” Both of them begin to chuckle at my expense.
“You are definitely agitated about something,” Kelvin comments. “Come on, spill. You know we’ll have your back.” I’m about to deny it yet again when Dalton holds his hand up.
“Don’t try to bullshit me. I know you. If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so,” Dalton urges. I blow out a breath, because Dalton does know me, and I know him. He may say I don’t have to talk about it if I don’t want to, but he will keep needling me until I give in and disclose all my secrets. It’s been that way since the first day I met him.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I retort, firmly shooting a look at both of them daring them to argue the point. Dalton gives me a shit-eating grin, which lets me know I just admitted that somethingisbothering me. And he isn’t going to let this go. I’m off the hook for the time being, but I’ll be in for it until I disclose my issues.
