Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Asshole,” Fischer grumbled under his breath.
“Yeah,” Bonnie agreed. “I don’t really remember a lot about David. He was so much older and wanted nothing to do with a little sister. Then he left. I used to hope he might make some money, come back, and rescue me,” Bonnie said, her eyes going a little glassy before she blinked the tears away. “But then… he died.”
“I’m sorry,” Fischer said, his head tipped to the side.
I’d never been a jealous kind of guy. Especially when a man was just showing human concern for another person and their lived experience. But I was getting close to wanting to physically move that fucker from Bonnie’s side.
“Wait,” Chris, ever the pragmatist and much better at compartmentalizing things, given her horrific past, spoke. “So, you knew her brother? There is a connection between you.”
“Yes,” I said, answering Bonnie, because there was a question in her eyes.
“He was on my last operation,” I said. “Green as grass still,” I recalled. “We used to tease him,” I added. “‘Come on, get a Clewski,’ was a common refrain those days.”
To that, Bonnie gave me a small smile.
“He was a good kid. Just too inexperienced for what we were doing then.”
“So, wait,” Chris said, trying to get all the facts straight. “He was on your last operation? The one that ended with…”
“Everyone dead but me,” I said, nodding.
“Oh, shit…” Fischer said, the pieces falling together for him too.
“But… I don’t understand,” Bonnie said. “Like, I get that you were the only survivor. So, I guess maybe someone might target you because of that. But why me? I mean… I don’t mean for that to sound—“
“It’s okay. I get what you mean,” I cut her off. “That, I think, goes back to how that op ended.”
“With everyone dying,” Bonnie said.
“Yeah. But…” I sighed, not liking this part. Even if she wasn’t close with him, it was still her brother. I didn’t want to ruin whatever memories she did have of him.
“I’m not that fragile,” Bonnie reminded me. “I can take the truth.”
And, even when it sucked, I had to always give her that.
“David is the reason everyone is dead,” I told her.
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “How?”
“We were in this abandoned town, looking for this group of terrorists that our intel said was hiding out there.”
Suddenly, I was back there.
The sweat soaking through the bandana I had on under my helmet, dripping down into my eyes, feeling disoriented by the harsh, sunbaked terrain that went on endlessly, so thirsty that my tongue felt like sandpaper.
All I could think about was getting back to the patrol base, getting a halfway decent meal, and washing the sandy soil that seemed to stick to every inch of skin, even under my clothing.
We just had one more building to check out.
Then it would be over.
“Hold up,” I’d called to everyone, all of them looking just as fed up as I felt.
Something just felt… off.
If someone asked, I wouldn’t be able to explain it. It was just a gut instinct you got from being in risky-ass situations for years, from always knowing your life was one bad move away from being over.
I moved away from the wall of the building, standing in the middle of the empty street.
I just needed a minute to figure out what the feeling was, decide if there was any merit to it, then make a decision.
But then I heard David call out, voice high and a mix of fearful and excited.
“I just saw someone. We gotta go in!”
“Wait!” I called, but it was too late. He was too young, too bull-headed, too eager.
He ran forward, heading into the building.
The other guys, this group of men who’d been strangers to me once but had become good friends, had no choice but to follow.
“Goddamnit, Clewski,” I’d grumbled, hand going to my gun as I started to run toward the building.
Until the bomb detonated, sending me flying through the air, landing hard enough on my back to make me gasp for air.
Rubble shot out everywhere, heavy stones sourced from the nearby mountains flying and landing all around and over me.
“One landed on my head and I was out,” I told Bonnie, Chris, and Fischer. “When I woke up, I was still mostly buried. Had to dig myself out.”
I was playing it down for Bonnie’s sake. I had a nasty, gaping head wound. Was bleeding so bad I was blacking in and out, was disoriented and dizzy.
But in situations like that, even bleeding from the head, adrenaline could get you a long way.
It got me out from under those rocks.
I’d walked, stumbled, crawled the rest of the way across that road, finding a giant mass of rubble that had once been a building.
A building where my men had just entered.
I’d known.
Of course I did, in the back of my mind, that no one could have survived that kind of explosion.