by L. A. Witt
I stared at her incredulously. “They’re . . . What the . . .”
She huffed out a sharp breath. “And I mean, they said I should’ve thrown you a life ring. You were unconscious and sinking. How the fuck would a life ring have helped?”
Dalton visibly shuddered. So did I.
Rhodes cursed softly, staring down at her hands as she played with the hem of her T-shirt. “I’m done. My enlistment is up next year, and I’m just . . . I’m done. I’m getting out.”
“Aw, shit,” I said. “Man, I want to tell you to stick with it, but after all this . . .”
“No fucking way.” She snorted. “I jumped into the goddamned ocean in February so my shipmate wouldn’t die, and they’re up my ass about a gun. Best-case scenario, I get a NAM like everyone else because I was just doing my job, not going above and beyond.”
“What the fuck?” Dalton snarled. “You didn’t go ‘above and beyond’? That’s bullshit! And they want to discipline you for doing exactly what any goddamned person in their right mind would have done.”
“Yeah, but if they acknowledge that, then they have to admit their golden MA1 might’ve fucked up and put us in jeopardy in the first place. It’s all . . . Fuck.” Rhodes sniffed, and she turned away for a second. She wasn’t crying yet, but she was damn close, so we gave her a chance to compose herself. After a moment, she wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and faced us again. “I mean it. Come January? I’m fucking done with the Navy.” She shrugged heavily, like there was a phantom waterlogged rifle weighing her down. “I risked my neck, and the best I can hope for is to not get punished for it and maybe get the equivalent of a ‘good job’ sticker. I’m just done.”
Dalton and I exchanged glances, both of us scowling. Rhodes was a damn fine Sailor and an excellent MA. The Navy and the MA rate were better because of her. She had some serious potential to be the kind of leader our rate desperately needed. Getting out after eight years was a hell of a shame.
But I didn’t blame her. There were only so many times you could get fucked with the sandpaper condom of political games and favoritism before enough was enough.
She rolled her tense shoulders and glanced outside. “I have to go. My husband is waiting in the car.” She motioned toward the doors. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Okay.” Dalton sighed. “And I’m sorry you’re getting a shit deal on all of this. For what it’s worth, the only reason I would’ve handled things differently in your shoes is I don’t think I have the balls you do.”
She eyed him uncertainly, then broke into a quiet laugh. “Nah. You’d be amazed how fast your balls drop when your friend is in trouble.”
He smiled and gathered her into a hug. “Thank you again. And fuck everyone who says you didn’t do the right thing.”
“If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t have done anything differently.” As she let him go, a little smirk played at her lips. “Aside from maybe tossing Anderson over.”
Dalton laughed softly. “Maybe that’s why they haven’t let him come back to Harbor. They know half of us would do it if we got the chance.”
“Amen to that,” I grumbled.
“Yeah,” Rhodes said. “Okay, I have to go. I’ll see you guys at work tomorrow.”
My stomach lurched. Just what we all needed—another shift with all this crap hanging over our heads.
After Rhodes had gone, Dalton looked around at the food court options, and it wasn’t just the fluorescent lights that made him look a bit green.
I nudged him with my elbow. “Not hungry anymore?”
“Not really, no.”
“Come on.” I nodded in the direction Rhodes had gone. “Let’s get out of here.”
When we went to work the next night, Dalton was still obviously rattled from the shit before the exam and with the interrogator. Er, investigator. Neither of us had slept much. We’d both been too wound up and pissed off.
Now, as we trudged up the walk from the HPU parking lot with coffee cups in hand, he looked about as awake as I felt. Heavy shadows under his eyes. No expression on his face. Hand shaking whenever he sipped his coffee. Shoulders down. It was probably good we didn’t have to carry a rifle aboard anymore—he’d have fallen over under the damn thing’s weight.
Rifle or not, I didn’t like the idea of him going out on patrol tonight. He shouldn’t have been on the water at all, but especially after yesterday, he had no business out there. Not until Lasby and the investigation were out of his head.
Thank God he’d mostly recovered from the concussion. The first week had been rough, but after that, he’d been a lot better. He still sometimes had to stop and think before he found a word, and his balance wasn’t a hundred percent, but the worst had cleared up pretty fast. The last thing he needed was to still be untangling his brain while Lasby and the investigator circled him like goddamned sharks.
Dalton was on the first watch too. He wasn’t even awake yet, but half an hour after we’d arrived, he was on his way down to the boat with Powers and Simmons.
Rhodes joined me next to the HPU building’s second-story window. “How’s he doing?”
I sighed. “Not good.”
She scowled, watching the boat move away from the pier. “I wish I knew what to do. I’ve thought a hundred times about going to one of the chiefs in security, but . . .”
“Yeah. Me too. But if Lasby’s getting away with monkeying with this investigation, then I don’t trust any of the senior enlisted. If we take it above their heads, we’ll just get our dicks slapped for jumping our chain of command.”
“No kidding.”
We watched the boat in silence for a long moment.
“Kind of funny, isn’t it?” She turned around and leaned against the window. “They tell us from day one we’re supposed to use our chain of command, and if someone’s being sheisty, go above them until we find someone who isn’t.” She looked at me, and damn if she didn’t have exhaustion written all over her just like Dalton did. “But we all know if we do, they’ll just send us back down, and then we’ll be in deep shit for going over our boss’s head. Like, what’s the point, you know?”
I nodded. “I know. But man, there has to be something we can do. This investigation is in violation of—”
“And the minute we do, they’ll find all the protocols Dalton and I violated.” She let her head fall back against the glass with a heavy thunk. “We can take those assholes down, but I guarantee they’ll drag us right down with them.”
I stared out at the boat, which was getting smaller by the minute. I wanted to argue, but she was right.
Rhodes faced the water again, scowling hard. “Sometimes I still think about going to Chief Jackson or Senior Chief Curtis. They’re good guys, you know?” Deflating slowly, she shook her head. “But . . . chiefs look out for chiefs.”
“Yeah. They do.” I sighed. Some things were true no matter what. The tide went in and out. The sun went down in the west. And chiefs looked out for chiefs.
There was nothing we could do. We had no allies. We had no proof of wrongdoing. Nothing to show Lasby was playing favorites. Nothing we could take to the Equal Opportunity officer to nail Chief Lasby for his homophobia. No write-ups, emails, orders, or witnessed comments that could get his ass hemmed up for trying to gaslight us and sandbag our statements against Anderson.
We had nothing except he said, we said, and the word of two MA2s and an MA3 didn’t hold water against a chief. Not when we were taking it up with two other chiefs.
I wished like hell we could go above Lasby’s head and get the rest of our chain of command involved, but we couldn’t. Not only would they back him up over us, but Chief Lasby was the most dangerous kind of chief. He knew where the lines were and exactly how to cross them in practice without crossing them on paper. He knew how to keep Rhodes and Dalton in line by making it risky for them to tell the whole truth. He knew how to order Dalton and me apart without openly saying he was ordering us apart. With a few benign emails, he
could have us on different shifts or kick one of us out of Harbor or . . . fuck, God only knew what he could do to us or to Rhodes.
I had no idea how to fix this.
All I knew was that we were on our own.
As he came in off watch, Dalton wasn’t quite steady on his feet, though he did a damn good job of trying to hide it. He walked a bit slower than usual, stepping more carefully.
When he reached the landside end of the pier where I was standing, I asked, “You okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Just, uh . . .” He motioned toward the harbor. “We hit some waves out there, and it was . . .” He chewed his lip.
“You have a flashback or something?”
“No. Kind of. I don’t know.” He rolled his shoulders and shook his head. “Just kind of a panicky thing. I got a little seasick, and when I hurled off the stern, I lost my balance, and . . .” He shuddered. “I’m all right, though.”
“All right? You’re getting seasick and—”
“Chris.” He patted the air. “I pulled myself together. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, but has this happened before?”
He thought for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Yeah, but not very often.”
“Not very . . .” I stared at him. “How many times?”
Dalton sighed, shaking his head. “Relax, okay? I can handle it.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“No, but I don’t have much choice. It’s not right, but it’s not like I can do anything except move forward, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” I watched him for a moment. God, the way his shoulders were tense and heavy at the same time, how he seemed rigid and so exhausted he could barely hold himself upright, was heartbreaking. It killed me that I couldn’t touch him. Not here. “I hate seeing you like this.”
“I know you do.” He smiled faintly. “Sorry?”
“No, no. Don’t be sorry. Just . . . you sure you’re gonna be okay? You’re scheduled for another watch later on.”
Dalton nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah. One day at a time, am I right?”
I scowled. He was getting noticeably better every time he went out on the water, but he was still noticeably not okay.
He must’ve seen it in my expression because he added, “I’ll be fine, Chris.”
“You were fine until that fucker messed you up,” I growled. “It’s bullshit they’re not taking care of you and keeping you onshore until—”
“Chris.” He gave my arm a light squeeze. “It sucks, but it is what it is. All I can do is work on getting better. And I am.”
You shouldn’t have to get better. You were perfect before.
He smiled. “Relax. And don’t you have to go out on watch pretty soon?”
I glanced past him. “They’re refueling. I’ve got some time. And I need to go get my gloves anyway.”
Dalton nodded. “Okay. I should probably get to work on the boat reports.”
As we headed inside, I asked, “You’re doing all right with the reports? With your head and all?”
“Yeah. Sometimes I have a dyslexic moment and switch digits on a timestamp or something, but I just have Rhodes check them for me.”
I grunted in acknowledgment but didn’t say anything. I didn’t like that he still had even that much trouble, but I supposed it was better than the problems he could have had after a concussion like that.
At the top of the stairs, he headed into the main office, and I went to the locker room. I took my gloves out of my locker, shut the door, and spun the dial. As I was tucking the gloves into my belt, someone came into the room. I grinned to myself. Had Dalton followed me in here? Maybe we could steal a minute as boyfriends instead of shipmates. I wasn’t in the mood for much, but a kiss or two might be enough to salvage some of my mood.
I stepped out of the bank of lockers and halted. “MA1.” I tried to make myself sound more surprised than irritated. “Didn’t expect to see you down here.”
“Yeah, I know.” MA1 Anderson motioned toward a bank of lockers. “Just came down to get a few things.”
“Oh.” It occurred to me right then that Lasby still hadn’t brought in another LPO to fill Anderson’s position. After what had happened, Anderson’s transfer out of HPU should have been permanent, or at least long enough to warrant bringing in someone else to take over. Long enough for his locker to be reassigned.
My stomach turned to lead. Lasby hadn’t replaced Anderson because he didn’t think Anderson was going to stay gone. Which did nothing to instill any faith in this investigation. I completely believed Dalton about how the investigator had come at him sideways, and this cemented what we’d already figured out—that this investigation was nothing more than a formality, and that Anderson was going to get off with, at worst, a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile, Dalton would be dealing with the physical, mental, and professional consequences for . . . I didn’t even want to think about how long.
Anderson looked around, releasing a sigh that sounded almost nostalgic. “Man, I miss this place. Even this shitty locker room.”
I gritted my teeth.
You deserve to miss this place.
“I’m sure,” was all I could say.
“Hopefully not for long, though.” Anderson flashed a bright, if kind of tired smile. “I’m so ready to come back to Harbor. Working in admin is fucking boring.”
“It’s . . .” I blinked. “It’s boring?”
“Yeah.” Anderson laughed dryly. “Going from driving boats to pushing paperwork is—”
“Is about the best thing you could have expected after what you did out there.”
It was his turn to blink in surprise. “Excuse me, MA2?”
I clenched my teeth. “You’re fucking lucky all they did was dump your ass behind a desk. You almost got two Sailors killed.”
His eyes narrowed. I was on seriously thin ice, but right then, I just didn’t care. He outranked me, but that didn’t change what he’d done that night.
“You think you should come back to Harbor?” I demanded. “What the hell makes you think you have any right to be at the helm of—”
“It was an accident,” Anderson snapped. “There were fishnets under the damn water. And Taylor and Rhodes are fine.”
“No, MA1. They are not fine. They got out of the water, and thank the Lord they weren’t seriously hurt, but don’t you dare tell me they’re fine.” In the back of my mind, I could hear my parents warning me about military bearing and respecting rank, but I was too far gone to rein it back in. “Do you have any idea what something like that does to someone?”
His lips tightened, but his eyes darted away for a second. Some of the bravado slipped out of his posture. “Look, I—”
“What happened out there, that has been front and center in Dalton’s life ever since that night. Front and fucking center, MA1. Do—”
“And you don’t think it has been for me?” He glared at me, fury filling in where the bravado had pulled back. Jabbing a finger at me, he stepped closer. “You have no idea what my life has been like since that night. None.”
I shrank some more of the space between us, glaring right back at him. “Boring, from the sound of it. That’s gotta be rough, pushing papers around. Man, I think that would be even worse than, I don’t know, getting smacked in the goddamned head by a boat.”
His lips peeled back. “Watch yourself, MA2.”
Fresh anger flared in my chest. “Or what? You got the brass balls to complain about being bored in admin after your reckless ass almost got two people killed.” I was distantly aware of the locker room door opening and of boots on concrete, but I was too heated to stop or look. “What were you thinking out there? That boat couldn’t handle open seas in those conditions, and anyone with half a fucking brain knows that. What were—”
“What else was I supposed to do?” he growled. “There was a disabled boat out there. I couldn’t just—”
“You call in the fucking Coast Guard and let them handle it!”
I threw up my hands. “Or did you think it was better to have two disabled boats out there, plus our personnel in the water, so—”
“Hey! Hey!” Dalton wedged himself into the narrow space between us. Anderson took a few steps back.
Me, I kept going. “How many SAR swimmers and coxswains did you want to put in danger, MA1? Huh? Was it that hard for you to listen to an MA2? Did you have to be right so bad that—”
“MA2.” Dalton put a hand on my chest. “Don’t. It’s not worth it, and you know it.”
I turned my glare on him, but the look on his face stopped me dead. His tone had been gentle, almost pleading, but his eyes were hard.
Stand the fuck down, Chris.
I swallowed. Then I drew back a little and exhaled.
His expression softened. His hand stayed on my chest for a few seconds, but then he drew it back.
Anderson was about to say something, but right then, the locker room door banged open. “Taylor. Ingram.” Chief Lasby. Son of a bitch. “My office. Now.”
I cringed. Dalton swore under his breath. There was nothing we could do except follow him into the office he’d claimed. I didn’t dare steal a look at Anderson to see if he was being a smug asshole. I didn’t need to.
Lasby didn’t even wait to make us uncomfortable this time. He slammed the door and immediately snarled, “What did I tell you both about discussing the incident with MA1 Anderson?”
I straightened, staring right at Lasby. “We were told not to, Chief.”
“Exactly. And what were you doing in the locker room?”
I swallowed. “We were discussing—”
“You were discussing the incident.” He stepped closer and got right in my face. “Did I not make it abundantly fucking clear that you weren’t to discuss the case, MA2?”