As soon as I had a location on the attackers, I called it into LT. “Fires, this is two.” “Go for two,” LT responded.
“We’re taking fire from compounds three and six and have identified the targets by muzzle flash, request permission to return fire,” I said through the radio with my heart pumping in overdrive.
LT hesitated for a second as he listened to RadBn then responded to me. “Good to go, two.”
“Roger, Fires,” I responded with a grin.
The sound of machine-gun fire echoed all around us as my team let loose on the men trying to kill us. The battle raged all around us, and I lost myself in the motions. Adrenaline was high as marines shouted out enemy positions, mortars exploded, and machine guns snapped rapidly. LT was conducting the symphony of battle from the floor below us by calling out which targets were clear to fire on and which targets to direct the heavy artillery and air support to.
My heart skipped a beat when a loud ping sounded, and Haring cried out. I crawled over to where she was and pulled her down to the ground. “Are you hit?” I shouted at her through the noise of battle.
She ran her shaky hand under her helmet and exhaled in relief. “No, but I felt something…”
I pushed the helmet back down on her head. “You were definitely hit by something,” I told her. “Your helmet is totally fucked, but it looks like the round just grazed it, you didn’t get the full impact.”
Haring paled to a sickly white color. I couldn’t blame her, because if that round had hit two inches down then we would have seen if helmets made by the lowest bidder on a government contract could stand up to a direct hit.
“You want me to call doc?” I asked her. Most marines would have rolled their eyes at the question, but Haring was already on edge. I was giving her an out right now. She could claim a head injury from the impact and try to get sent home.
Haring hesitated, but shook her head no. “I can’t abandon the team in the middle of a firefight.”
I nodded at her. “Get back in position, and keep your head down!”
An RPG exploded in front of the building we were stationed on, and I thanked whatever gods were watching over us that the enemy had shitty aim. That was close. Over the radio, I could hear LT shouting for someone to take out the guy who just tried to kill us all. Our top mortar guy, Layala, locked onto the target and destroyed it in an impressive display of firepower.
It wasn’t until later that night that there was silence all around us, and we were relieved of our rooftop duty. My ears were still ringing from the cacophony of battle that had raged around us. I took a seat next to LT, who was downing a RipIt that he must have had stashed away in his pack.
Doc was looking at Haring’s head, and she had a bunch of marines crowded around her. Everyone was checking out her destroyed helmet, and I saw her get more than a couple of fist bumps. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to pull a group of marines together.
Stevens was staring at Hart like she was a choice cut of steak that he’d like to devour, so I did her a favor and called her over to me. “Hey,” she said with a grin. “That was fun, right?”
I rolled my eyes and suppressed my grin. “Sure, if that’s what you’re into.”
“Liar,” Hart said with a broad grin. “You get off on it as much as I do.”
“Whatever,” I said with a slow smile. I knew Hart was right – battle made me come alive. But the close call with Haring was a reminder that none of us were invincible and I had a feeling deep inside me that things weren’t over just yet.
Hart sat in the dirt beside me. “The only thing that would have made this better is if we got to jump to get here.”
I looked at her as if she were utterly insane. “You’re an adrenaline junkie.”
Hart laughed, her white teeth flashing in the shadows. “I’m alive and ready to keep irritating my family with my very existence.”
“You can’t keep running on hate forever,” I cautioned her. “Believe me; I’ve tried. Eventually, you have to start living for yourself, not just to spite others.”
Sadness briefly flashed over Hart’s face before it was back to defiant. “Maybe someday, just not today.”
“They’re pulling back,” O’Connor called.
LT nodded and got back on the radio with our commander.
“ICOM chatter says they’re going to wait for us to pack up and attack when we’re vulnerable again,” Stevens called out.
“You think they ran out of ammo?” I asked.
LT shrugged. “Or they just want us to think they did.” He used the radio to check in with the rest of the teams stationed in the buildings around us and called for them to gather in this compound.
Regardless of what anyone thought, our mission was declared over. What did this accomplish? Maybe it was just a small piece of a larger puzzle that I couldn’t see, but aside from taking out some enemy soldiers, there wasn’t a clear benefit. We had taken over a couple of buildings in the middle of enemy territory for a couple of days. We had attracted a large group of enemy soldiers to us and let them take shots at us. Now we were going home without a clear resolution. We hadn’t gained any territory, we hadn’t won any hearts or minds toward our cause, and there wasn’t a clear winner in our battle. That was the frustrating part of being a marine grunt. You never knew if the potential loss of life was worth anything, you just had to trust that the generals and politicians were doing the right thing when they gave you orders. You had to convince yourself that taking life and risking your own was somehow benefiting the world.
We hustled back to the ditch to wait for our ride home. Snipers had marked our landing zone with infrared chem lights that we could see only with NVGs in an attempt to make it unclear to the enemy as to where they would be landing. A lot of the guys dozed off while lying in a prone position and I shook my head at their carelessness. We weren’t even close to out of danger yet.
I couldn’t get rid of the feeling inside that something terrible was going to happen. I tried to shake it off, telling myself that the sensation of dread was just my imagination. But the reality was that we could still be overrun before we made it back to the helicopters, we could be blown to bits by IEDs hidden under our very feet, and we could even be shot down while being transported in a helicopter. It was too soon to relax.
The attack birds flew in first. It was a thing of beauty to watch as the Cobras swooped in to clear the area of any lingering enemies and then set up in a defensive position to allow our rides to land. Our transport helicopters did their hovering thing to create a dust storm large enough to allow us to ‘run’ from our ditch to what we hoped would be our safe ride back to base.
LT waited until the pilots gave O’Connor the okay, then called for the teams to proceed forward. My team was assigned to run to the helo that landed third and would have three chem lights hanging in the window to show us the way. I pulled the night vision goggles over one eye and switched them on so I could make sure I led my team to the right ride.
I could barely see the marine in front of me as I hustled to our bird and I couldn’t hear anything outside of the chopping noise of the helicopter blades. I had no idea what it was that made me look back for Hart, but I did. She had gotten off course in the swirling dust and was veering too far to the left. She was going to end up too far away from the helicopter and would be vulnerable to attack. I shouted in her direction, but there was no way she could have heard me - I could barely hear the sound of my own voice.
I glanced up at the marine ahead of me, but he had already disappeared into the thick cloud of dust. Another marine ran past me, but I don’t think he even saw me as he passed. I knew it was ultimately against protocol to break formation and go after her, but marines never left anyone behind. I moved in the direction I had last seen her before she disappeared. I tugged on the arm of another marine before he could disappear ahead of me. I pointed in the direction Hart had gone in and then motioned to indicate I was going after her. I wasn’t ent
irely sure if he understood what I was trying to communicate, but I had to tell someone or risk being declared MIA.
I had barely made it two steps in that direction when an explosion rang out. A hot wave of air hit my body and knocked me back a step. Burning pain seared into my leg, and I lost my balance as it refused to hold my weight.
Ringing silence echoed in my ears for the few seconds after the initial blast. I tried to stumble towards Hart, knowing it had been close, but agonizing pain in my leg stopped me. Nausea hit me when I looked down to see shrapnel protruding from what was a severe wound. My leg couldn’t hold my weight, so I dropped my pack in an attempt to keep standing. Despite the brutal pain, I was still determined to go after Hart when two other marines grabbed me by the arms to pull me back. I shouted at them as I caught a glimpse of Hart’s leg through the dust, but the fight immediately drained out of me when I realized it was just a leg. Bile burned the back of my throat at the gruesome sight, and deep down, I knew the truth that I wasn’t quite ready to admit. Hart wasn’t coming back with us.
Reality crashed through me, and I gritted my teeth against the pain as the others dragged me into the waiting helicopter. Shock and desperation must have numbed my body for the first couple seconds, but my pain receptors were fired up now. My breath was coming too fast, and I was starting to feel light-headed. Do not fall out. I told myself. You can handle a little flesh wound.
“Where’s doc?” I heard Stevens shout out as he moved to help pull me into the helicopter.
“Not on this ride,” O’Connor responded as the bird lifted up into the sky.
I looked down on the gruesome wound and saw that a piece of metal shrapnel had embedded itself deep inside my leg. My uniform with blood and dirt was caked around the wound. Haring took one look and turned green, but at least she was in one piece.
I looked around for Smith and saw she was near me. My brain was getting fuzzy, and I was straining to hold onto my thoughts. I closed my eyes for a second, hoping that would help give me the endurance I needed to get through this. I had never suffered from physical pain this intense, but seeing a piece of Hart lying in the Afghanistan dirt had ripped my heart into shreds. I could deal with the pain from my leg, but losing my best friend, a marine I was tasked to take care of? That was the real source of agony.
I tried to hold on as long as I could, but as my fellow marines shouted all around me and did what they could to try to save my leg and my life, darkness seeped in. The sights and sounds all around me faded, and eventually, there was nothing.
Chapter 1
“Keep your mouth shut until you reach Captain Michaels in Bethesda. He’s not one of us, but he is an ally. He’ll make sure things are taken care of on that end.”
The words of the doc in Kandahar echoed through my mind as I dozed off on the plane. Quick medical attention and my rapid healing abilities meant that I would get to keep my leg. A flashback to seeing Hart’s leg lying on the ground as pain seared through me made me flinch. LT had come to see me in medical and had given me the news. “We were able to recover her remains,” he had told me with sadness in his eyes. “Two marines will escort her home to her family.”
I had just nodded, still numb to the grief and not willing to breakdown in front of my chain of command. “I owe it to Hart to-”
LT shook his head. “You won’t be going anywhere for a while. Let us handle this for now.”
I cleared my throat. “I might be out for a couple of weeks, but I’ll be back to avenge
Hart.”
I knew it was a bad sign when LT wouldn’t meet my eyes. “The metal shrapnel shredded your muscle and hit bone. You’ll probably be able to walk again, but you’ll always have problems with that leg.”
I read between the lines to what he was really saying. “You mean I won’t be able to qualify to be infantry again?”
LT shifted his eyes from my leg back to my face. “You were up for reenlistment at the end of this deployment, but if you don’t qualify medically…” He cleared his throat. “You might be able to stay active-duty if you can pull desk duty. But you’ll still have to be able to pass the PT test or risk being medically discharged.”
“This is fucking bullshit,” I snarled. “The best I have to hope for is to become a POG?”
Anger had burned through me, but when I had tried to get out of the bed, I had immediately passed out again. They had gotten me on the plane back to the States while I was high on morphine, but I wasn’t going to give up. Hart had been my best friend, and I was going to see her lain to rest and do whatever I could for her family. They should know that she was one of the best marines I’d ever met and that she had gone down fighting. The thought of losing my place in the marines was devastating. My parents were gone, my extended family had disowned me, and I had been completely lost in the world until I had found a place in the marines. I’d never fit in with my human comrades completely, but the Marine Corps had become my family and had given me a mission that I could believe in. A reason to wake up and fight to live every day. I couldn’t imagine life outside of that community. The thought of being alone and adrift in the world made me nauseous.
I was unconscious for most of the flight back, so I didn’t realize we hadn’t landed in Bethesda as planned until I had already arrived at the hospital in Seaside. My heart rate sped up. Would Captain Michaels have been notified of the diversion? Would someone be waiting for me? My leg twitched as I flexed my toes. There was no way a human could have healed this quickly. Without help, I’d never be able to explain having a working leg that soon after having my skin ripped open and muscles torn.
It didn’t usually take long to find other shifters in the military. I could feel the glow of magic emanating from someone and pick up on their underlying scent to identify what they were when they got close enough. But as I was taken into the hospital and put into a corner of the ER, I only saw humans all around me.
I sat on the hospital bed. What was I going to do? I was supposed to be in Bethesda – my contact was there. I knew absolutely no one in Seaside. Last I heard a new wolf pack had claimed the previous no-mans-land as their own. I’d dealt with wolves before and it had never been pleasant. Most of the wolves I’d met were brutes who only cared about proving dominance and they weren’t fond of panthers.
Cold sweat dripped down my back. I’d like to say that it was from the abrupt withdrawal of the potent narcotics that had been pumping into my system, but that would be a lie. I was alone in this Emergency Room as corpsmen, nurses, and doctors efficiently worked on triaging the injured that had arrived with me. I huddled down and tried to be as unnoticeable as possible, but being dressed in a hospital gown made it obvious why I was here. I was already wearing a hospital bracelet, and I would have to make it past at least twenty people in this room to escape the hospital. Even if I somehow managed to get out of the building, I’d still have to make it off base. It wasn’t impossible, but it would mean abandoning the life I’d built in the marines. I would be declared AWOL and labeled a deserter. And even worse – I’d bring dishonor on my team, and taint Hart’s memory. And if I were caught, humans would want to know how I’d managed to heal so quickly. I’d face action from the humans and be targeted by other supernaturals for putting our secret in danger.
There would still be a lot of questions if I stayed to be examined by the human staff.
They’d realize it had only taken days to heal what a human would have taken months. Surely
Captain Michaels would have heard of the diversion from Bethesda and would send someone?
My luck suddenly changed for the better when the nurse wheeled me to one of the triage rooms and a beautiful blonde stepped within the privacy curtains. Her hair was in a severe bun, and she was wearing ill-fitting scrubs, and a white coat that was boxy and a couple sizes too large. Was she trying to make herself look unattractive? I almost didn’t pick up on her as a wolf until she stepped closer. Her magic was tightly wound inside and walled off within her. I c
ould sense something from her, but it was like trying to see the sun through thick clouds. She was hiding what she was.
My nostrils flared as I caught the distinctive scent of a wolf, and I grabbed ahold of her coat in surprise. “Oh, thank god.”
Captain Michaels must have sent her. But when I saw the lack of recognition from her, I realized that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t here to help me.
I debated on what I should tell her. But when I looked into her curious green eyes, I didn’t detect any hint of malice or trickery. A tendril of her magic reached out to me, and it was warm and golden. I didn’t react, because shifters usually didn’t see magic the way I did. She was unconsciously getting a feel for my magic and taking my measure. Most shifters didn’t even realize they were using magic; they just used their instincts to figure out where they fell in a hierarchy. Because this wolf had the majority of her magic hidden from me, I couldn’t tell where she ranked in her pack. But because she was female, I could guess it was towards the bottom.
In my limited experience, wolves didn’t treat the females of their species well.
I glanced around to make sure no one was listening to us. “I need your help to get out of here before they realize what I am.”
She carefully took in my scent and frowned. “You’re not a wolf?”
I shook her head sharply, hoping she wouldn’t refuse to help me because I was different. “Panther,” I murmured to her.
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Jaguar or leopard?”
I couldn’t help the grin that spread over my face. “Jaguar. Never had a wolf ask me that before.” I had decided to cut ties with the Jaguar community completely after my parent’s death, and most people didn’t make the connection once I told them I was a panther. They all assumed a panther was a species of cat. In reality, a panther could be a leopard, jaguar, or cougar who had an all-black coat instead of the one typical to that particular cat species.
Finding Buried Secrets: A Seaside Wolf Pack Novel Page 2