I knew I was right when he called me half an hour later and I lied and told him I was just feeling unsettled because of something I ate.
After he got through confirming that Ty was indeed right and I was most definitely bitch made, he hung up. At least he was no longer worrying about me.
I awoke a little later, still with that unsettled feeling in my gut. I felt like I should be moving faster, like there was something that needed my attention. It made no sense.
For the first time there was no direction to follow, when always in the past I at least had some idea of what the fuck.
That zing in my blood had become a strange crawling sensation beneath the surface of my skin. I looked around outside and all seemed calm, so I was once again assured that at least my family wasn’t in any immediate danger.
I was on high alert once I left the house in the early hour between night and day, when everything is still silent and the light is barely peeping above the trees. This is usually my favorite time of day. It’s peaceful and undisturbed; not today though.
The others were still in bed as I made the rounds around the perimeter just to be safe, before making my way to the gym we’d built on the premises.
A look at my watch showed it would be another hour at least, before they stirred. I’d like to be there myself but unease had run me from my bed.
4
Quinn
I thought of the CO as I did my laps in the indoor pool. Swimming helps me to relax and clear my head when it gets too hot, or when something keeps rattling around in there.
It wasn’t long before I felt the stress begin to leave me and my limbs became more relaxed and pliant as the tension eased.
Only in the water do I feel this at peace. An old woman once told me that it was because of my ‘gift’. Apparently those things are all connected to the elements or some shit.
I could do without this ‘gift’ as she called it, though it has helped me out a time or two in the past. And then there’re the times when it’s a right pain in the ass; like now.
From the time I was a very young kid, before my dad tried to beat it out of me, I had a very strong sixth sense. Apparently it’s something that ran in the male line of my family. Some Celtic shit that had been passed down since the days of the druids or some fuck.
Fuck if I know, I grew up on the streets of Chicago where shit didn’t lean to the supernatural but more survival of the fittest. I wish I would have told my boys that I hung with back then about this shit. My ass would never have made it out of the south side.
I always knew I was different, and somehow knew this difference wasn’t something to be shared. It could be because of my dad’s reaction the first time I mentioned ‘seeing’ something that wasn’t there.
He’d freaked the fuck out and I can’t remember if the beatings for that particular infraction started then or some time later. Whatever!
It didn’t matter what the asshole did, that shit just kept on coming. Sometimes I would just know things, things that no seven year old should know or have any knowledge of.
That’s the earliest recollection I have of this shit, when I was about seven and trying out for little league. I remember seeing this kid bleeding from the head and somehow knowing that it was going to happen that day.
Not understanding of course, I’d told my mom who was sympathetic and tried to reassure me. I remember it had led to a heated discussion between my parents and then dad had been pissed off and slammed out of the house only to return later, drunk.
That’s when he’d yelled at me and told me never to do that shit again. That’s when I first started to hate my ‘gift’. Not because he yelled, asshole was always yelling. But the look on his face I’ll never forget as long as I live.
As I grew older, I got so good at ignoring my ‘gift’, that after a while it seemed to have disappeared; but apparently the shit was just playing possum, because it came back full force in my teen years.
It was a source of great confusion back then. How could the thing that warned me not to follow Johnny Spinner back in eighth grade, the same Johnny Spinner who’d lost his life playing duck-duck goose on the train tracks that same day when I listened, be such a bad thing?
But that look on my dad’s face was never forgotten and being a kid who lived for his dad’s praise and approval there was no choice.
So, I spent a lot of time as a young boy frightened and confused, and as I grew older I’d try to hide that shit until I came to hate it. As far as I was concerned it was something to be ashamed of. I mean if my old man hated it so much there must be something wrong with it right.
For the majority of my life up until the time I met my brothers, it was some shit that I wasn’t too keen on sharing with the rest of the world’s population and had gone to great lengths to keep buried.
Of course after meeting Lo and the others who’d joined up a few years ahead of me, there was no way I was telling these tough as nails motherfuckers about my little hiccup.
If I’d hid that shit before it was damn near imperative that I annihilate it now. I could just see the six of them laughing their asses off or worst, telling the CO.
So all through training I’d kept that shit to myself even though for some perverse reason it seemed to choose that time to be even more of a pain in the ass.
I remember the first few weeks of training it was a constant companion and once I realized I couldn’t shake it so easily this time, I dealt with it. I guess if you’re going to put your ass on the line everyday it was a nice little side bennie every once in a while, but I worked hard at keeping it under wraps.
If it helped me to excel, well hey. But it took more than that to get me through that shit. All through training as I built my physical strength, my gift grew right along with it-it seemed and it was getting harder to contain.
Still I was feeling pretty good that after months with my brothers they hadn’t picked up on my ‘knowing’. And then I’d outted myself when we were going on a particularly sketchy raid. That shit had been riding my ass all day and I’d put it off as long as I could.
We’d recently been teamed up together after I’d kicked major ass in BUD training and it was only our third or fourth run. No way did I want these bad-asses knowing that I was a damn freak of nature.
We were in the Congo on a rescue mission to extract the son of a diplomat who’d got himself kidnapped. The family was more than willing to pay, but that’s not how this shit works. You start paying off these fucks it would never end.
It was our first extraction but we’d done drills until I could run them in my sleep, and we’d been in tougher situations together a time or two by then. I was just hitting my stride and beginning to feel like I belonged, that I was part of something worthwhile.
We were getting Intel from one of the locals that the CO had been assured was on the level, but something just didn’t feel right in my gut. As we moved through the night deep into the jungle, that feeling persisted until I could no longer ignore it and I caved in and got Lo’s attention.
I’ll never forget his face when I told him we were walking into a trap. He’d studied me like he could see into my head. Then without question he’d alerted the others.
Long story short, the local ended up with a broken neck and we went in and got the kid using my ‘gift’ as guidance. When we got back Lo had confronted me in front of the others.
I was embarrassed as fuck, but they seemed more impressed than repulsed when he finally dragged the shit out of me. Of course he convinced me we had to tell the CO.
I was nervous as fuck, still a young man of about twenty back then and had finally felt like I belonged somewhere. I’d heard the others talking over time and knew that most of us came from fucked up beginnings, some worse than mine.
I was terrified that the CO would use this as grounds to kick me out, but things had gone in a whole other direction.
Instead he’d called us all into a meeting and after grilling my ass like a sus
pected terrorist skell he’d praised me for my abilities. At first I’d thought he was making fun of me, but the reactions of the others had soon set me straight. They’d actually thanked me for saving their lives.
Apparently the CO had learned too late that the local guide had been compromised and there was no way to pull us back. He’d been mounting a second team to go in after us.
That was the night they became my brothers in heart. It was from that moment on that the seven of us just clicked into place for me. That was a lifetime ago now and we’d come very far and had faced some serious shit together over the years that had only made us closer, stronger.
As time went by we became more than just a team. I don’t remember us ever being apart even when we came back stateside after that. Lo had decided to take our training a step farther and since we were a motley crew of semi orphans, we all just seemed to fall into brotherhood.
Before that I was more of a loner; still have a bit of the lone wolf in me. The navy hadn’t knocked the stubborn out of me and I’d say for sure if not for my brothers, my ass wouldn’t have made it out of the sling a time or two. But since we ‘semi retired’ I’ve calmed the fuck down like ninety percent.
Lo has a lot to do with that. He knows each of us almost as well as we know ourselves. That’s why he’s so good at being our leader in the field and why we still trust him to call the plays now that we’re home.
Before the CO left us this place, we’d hole up in some beach town somewhere or a cabin in the mountains when we didn’t feel like dealing with people in our downtime.
We’d always planned to stay together when we got out, and the CO who always seemed to know everything, and had played a bigger part in our lives than just that of a commanding officer, had made that possible.
I pulled myself up out of the pool and dried off as I pushed the weirdness of the night from my mind and thought of my family. Though we were all roughly the same age give or take a year or two, we’d all fell into certain roles as easily as if we’d been born to it.
Logan was a born leader and protector. Connor’s his wingman and the rest of us just found our place and took up position with Lo at the helm.
We’ve had very few losses over the years, and through them, because of our bond, I’d grown into someone I could be proud of.
Since dad was an asshole of the highest order and mom had been long gone by the time I signed up, it was my brothers with whom I’d shared my greatest achievements.
The kid who’d been aloof and withdrawn, who trusted no one but himself, had learned to trust, not just the men I fought and bled with, but the man who’d led us.
It was easy for me to take a step back and let Lo do his thing because I knew when it was needed he had no problem letting the rest of us take that position. We all played on each other’s strengths.
He’d given Cord the reins this last go around which thank fuck we’d all survived. That boy is just a little bit touched if you know what I mean and there were times in the last couple weeks when things were touch and go.
Thank fuck he has his woman to keep his ass on his toes now and the rest of us can catch a break. We’d dodged a few bullets there and were facing yet more bullfuckery in the not too distant future, but the rules of our game had changed a hell of a lot.
We were all keeping it on low keel for the sake of the women, but had it been just us, we would’ve fucked shit up already, consequences be damned.
That usually involved leaving bodies scattered to fuck and back. But now with everyone becoming family oriented and shit, we’re having to find new ways and means.
Plus, this shit was on domestic soil, something we’ve never had to deal with before, not like this. We were treading new waters with this one.
5
Quinn
I don’t know if it’s divine intervention or just plain happenstance, but I find it more than just a little strange that in the midst of all this bullshit, my brothers have been dropping like flies. That shit so far, has been an adventure of a whole different bent.
I’d never seen them in love before. I don’t think any of us ever even gave thought to the possibility. The kind of men we are, love just never seemed like it would ever be in the works and I think we were all cool with that.
But since we moved here something shifted in the wind or some fuck and boy has this shit been all kinds of entertaining.
Connor was the first to go, and he needed to be first. That’s one crazy motherfucker. The danger with Con is that he seems calm as fuck, but beneath that veneer beats the heart of a true beast.
His quietness hides a deep-seated hatred for all the things we stand against as warriors. He, like the rest of us, believes in honor, courage, commitment and the fair treatment of everyone who deserves it.
I’d say he’s probably the toughest nut to crack. So I guess it was only natural that once he took the plunge the others would follow suit.
Logan is right behind him in the crazy stakes, but he has a little more control. His shit is like ice, but he can keep it contained and do what needs to be done.
Zak is outright-nuts. He loves hard and it’s even harder for him to forgive. But when he’s on your side you know you’re safe, you’re gonna make it out of whatever situation you’re in.
Ty, well, Ty is the baby of our little family even though he likes to pretend he’s the big dog. Maybe it’s because out of all of us, he got the shittiest deal in life and that’s saying something.
But no matter what the rest of us suffered at the hands of others as children, nothing beats watching your mother murdered by some asshole, not knowing if said asshole was gonna come for you next.
So, we’re all very protective of him though none of us would say that shit out loud. On a good day he’s probably the most softhearted of us. But he’s also the loose canon, the one most likely to say fuck it, break rank and off a motherfucker.
I guess you can say he’s the brother who says and does the things you wish you could, but training holds you in check. He slips his training like a snake sheds its skin and don’t give a fuck. Good times.
And then we have Cord, Mr. Master of all he perceives. No one really knows how deep that fuck runs, we just know that with him in our corner, whoever comes at us are gonna have to come hard as fuck.
Each of us have put our lives on the line for the others a time or two and would do it again without a second thought. Together we make a formidable team of bad-asses.
Devon is the silent creeper. He holds everything close to the vest, stays pretty much to the background taking in everything until it’s time to strike. I’d die for each and every one of them, and now the women they’d brought into our tight little circle, and of course our baby Zak.
I grinned at the thought of my precocious niece who has us all wrapped around her little finger. My gut tightened up a bit when I remembered that my sisters were pregnant and we were in the middle of a shit storm.
We’ve had to protect women before but under very different circumstances. There’s a big difference between shielding girls and women in a school in Kabul that was under threat of being bombed because some asshole didn’t think women should learn shit, and having that shit happening in your own backyard, with women that are now family.
The situation still gives me pause, but I can’t say that I would wish for things to be different at this stage. I can’t imagine them not being here, part of the fabric of our lives.
My brothers are happy and after the shit we’d seen together in the field, I can honestly say, they deserve every bit of that happiness. I’ll do whatever it takes to see that nothing and no one fucks with it and them.
It hadn’t been easy at first, had taken some getting used to for the rest of us each time another one fell. It had been just us guys for so long that suddenly having the care of females was going to take some reorganizing on our part.
Females take up a lot of fucking space, both physically and mentally. Men of honor know that shit and h
ave to deal accordingly.
Though we’d built our homes to accommodate family, I don’t think any of us ever really expected things to happen this quick after we settled down here. Now we’re down to just Devon and I being the last holdouts.
I’m not sure how to feel about this shit, other than it makes me nervous as fuck. From what I see none of the others had been looking for love and happily ever after. But the shit sure did seem to find them out of nowhere, and that’s the shit that was making me antsy.
Personally, I never thought there were any women out there suitable enough, in the sense that any woman taking on any one of us would have to have a strong constitution and be just as tough. She’d also have to put up with six nosy over bearing brothers who’d protect her with their lives.
Not the one of us is easy and our standards are high. But, as with everything else in life, my brothers have chosen wisely and my new sisters fit right in with us. It’s getting so I don’t remember what our lives were like before they became a part of us.
The whole dynamic has changed and as if by silent agreement, we’ve all adjusted our ways to make things run smoothly. If I have to jump in every once in a while to bring peace between one or the other of the couples that’s fine. Even their fights are funny as shit.
It’s good to see what I’d be up against if I ever did take the plunge, though I’m convinced I’d have more sense than the rest of them. For fuck sake you’d think they were the first men to fall in love.
I’ve never seen grown men, men I knew were hard as they come, cave, whine, moan and groan like this lot. And now with the baby here and the pregnancies that seem like the status quo around here these days, they’re just pitiful.
As happy as I am for them, I don’t see myself walking down that same path though. Sure I get lonely sometimes, and watching the way my brothers are with their women might give me the wants once in a while. But that shit’s not for everyone.
SEAL Team Seven Books 6&7 Quinn and Devon Page 3