by Selena Scott
But time was of the essence.
With that he stepped back onto the shop floor.
Jay did a double-take to ensure that his friend was back to normal again. “Maybe we can do the questions later?” Jay said.
“Might be best. I know how you love detail. Although what I’m about to tell you, well, it explains a lot. Including tonight.”
“Will, should we ring the police?” Andrea asked. She was happy that this time Will had pulled his seat in beside hers. Their legs rested against each other. Pretty innocuous stuff, Andrea thought, but it still felt good. With that she ran her little finger along the side of Will’s leg. Will put his hand on top of hers. It felt right. For both of them.
And whatever was coming next, Andrea felt ready.
“I don’t think so. Well, wait; hear me out first and we can decide together.”
Jay was ashen-faced, there was no question about it. Again, Will felt bad as he looked at his friend. A more compassionate, open-minded man you would find with real difficulty. But even this was hard for him.
But there was a tightness in the atmosphere. They knew they needed to act fast. But they needed to all be on the same page.
“Can I smoke inside?” Will asked Andrea.
“No way,” would have been her answer on a regular night. But there was little about the night that was regular. Tension was in the air. A helplessness that they couldn’t control the situation. That Sally was gone and they had no clue where she was.
Well, until Will got the text message.
Now he had a decent idea.
Will lit his cigarette. He handed it to Jay, who didn’t intend to hand it back.
Andrea poured some water into one of the discarded ceramic mugs that sat in the corner of the window ledge. It made do as a make-shift ashtray.
Will placed a hand on Andrea’s knee. It felt good for them both.
But not for the first time tonight, Will was going to be delving back into his past. His past as a Navy SEAL. A past where he wasn’t too sure what he really was. Until it happened for the first time.
And this is where everything tied in together.
“As you both know, I was a Navy SEAL.”
Jay and Andrea nodded their heads. This seemed like the type of story whereby questions were best off left ‘til the end.
“Right,” Will paused and took a deep pull of his cigarette. As he exhaled, the smoke sat thickly and stubbornly in the still café air. “Up until a few years ago.”
Again, Andrea and Jay didn’t interrupt.
“What I’ve never spoken about is my time in Iraq, during the Iraqi war. I was brought out there from California as part of a specially trained warfare group. We weren’t registered. Not officially. We were brought to support some of the rifle platoons in battles. Some of these platoons were primarily made up of kids. Just trained kids.”
“Rifle platoons?” Andrea asked.
“Yeah,” Will said as he looked at her. “It’s a unit in the army that would have two or more sections to it. They vary. Our job was to act as a support to them on missions that were, let’s say, pretty fucking dangerous.”
Andrea knew loosely of Will’s past. But he had never spoken of his time as a Navy SEAL. Even when Sally would joke with him, he would laugh, but not divulge. She felt as attracted to him now as she ever did. For a brief moment, she lost sight of the situation and craved to have him back in her home. Him on the brink of his dick dancing around her essence. His rock-hard erection unveiled. To hold it in her hands. To have him maraud his way around her breasts…
Shit, Andrea. She stopped herself.
This man, though.
“We worked closely with one high-end platoon.” Will looked at Andrea and felt her trust, her warmth. What was it about this woman? He felt he could tell her anything. And he loved that feeling. He didn’t realize how much he had craved it
“The platoon was headed by Todd Wright. Wright was a Sergeant First Class in the US Army.”
Jay was pensively giving Will the time and the space to speak. He didn’t want to rush him. But he also had his own reason to stay quiet.
“Wright was in charge of 30 soldiers in one of these rifle platoons on this tour. In the platoon, there were three squads. The squads were, I suppose, sub-units. Bear with me guys.”
Jay smiled kindly. But the smile hid the fear of what he thought he was now going to have to do. How was he going to explain this?
Andrea immediately understood the structure of the platoon and the squad. What she was wondering was, what was Will’s role?
It was like Will had read her question from her mind. “What was our function? Well we were there but in an unorthodox role. We were asked to support, militarily, some of the riskier missions. We would flank the squads and offer an extra layer of protection.
“On March 5th, 2003,” Will continued, “Wright led an expedition that preceded a significant battle - the Battle of Umm Qasr. It was an approach on a town that was believed to be occupied by Iraqi armed forces. The town was called Ad-Awiyah. Ad-Awiyah is the last port town en route to Umm Qasr from the east. Our intelligence was always water-tight, and we were told that there were between fifteen and twenty troops. We had them outnumbered and we were thoroughly prepared.”
Andrea could see in Will’s face and hear in his words that what was coming next was going to be hard for him. But she knew that he was going to get the words out. This man. This man that she loved.
Jay felt his heart sink.
Especially the name. That name, Todd Wright.
“We had two SEALs for each of the three squads. As I said, we were just extra protection.”
“Sacrificial?” Andrea wondered.
“Not at all,” Will answered. “It was structured in a way that we all supported each other. But what happened next, as we approached Ad-Awiyah, was unforeseen. The maximum of twenty Iraqi soldiers was quadruple that. And more. The intelligence was off.”
“Quite off.” Jay thought he should at least say something. He had been unusually quiet listening to Will’s story. A story that Will thought he knew nothing about.
“It was, Jay,” Will said, looking at his friend. He noticed that the ash on Jay’s cigarette was falling onto his lap. Jay was distracted. Which Will thought was odd, considering he was mid-story. But that was Jay, he thought to himself.
“Yeah. We were ambushed. And they were waiting for us. When a kid about four yards from me went down, it happened so quickly, with such precision, that we had to act immediately. But we couldn’t. Only yards from the main settlement and everywhere we looked there were armored vehicles, soldiers with launchers, soldiers with small arms and rifles in tandem.
“And they were relentless. The ambush was all-out for complete obliteration. We didn’t have time to berate the intelligence. We had to retreat. This wasn’t a battle we were going to win. Not at that point. Wright, he was calling shots of fear from the back, protecting himself.”
“Coward,” Andrea said, involuntarily. Will nodded in unison.
“But the battle they thought was over, was far from it. We aimed to retreat about a mile down the coast. The port stretched down quite a bit and eventually we found some grounded fishing boats, to base ourselves at.”
“How many of you made it?” Andrea asked.
“Four,” Will said, looking at the ground. “No SEALs. Two soldiers. And Wright. The older of the other two was a strong, militant, mouthy guy. All power and voice. But he bled out from his stomach. The lighter soldier, a jovial guy from Arizona, had fought with purpose, possibly too much of it. He died a couple of hours later in my arms.”
Will’s eyes reddened. The tears didn’t come, but it was obvious they were ready. “Watching him, choking on his own blood, freezing cold on a warm evening. While White looked out. Barely able to believe what was happening. Bodies of comrades littering the path back. He wanted to wait for dusk to fall and retreat. I wanted to die right there. The sadness of the situation was
over-written by the horror. The anger I felt built with each second. The wasted lives lay all around me. And a waste of a life sat beside me. Consumed by his fear.
“And then it happened,” Will said. He lifted his eyes. He wanted to cry. But he wouldn’t. Not here. Not now. But he wanted to be in Andrea’s arms.
“Go on.” Andrea was encouraging, not pushing.
“The anger took over me. It consumed me there, as I sat in other men’s blood. I felt it so strongly, with such complete form that I felt like I was transforming. I felt like I was physically changing. I remember catching Wright’s eye. He had too much self-immersion to care about my pain, so the look in his eyes, it surprised me. He saw something in me and then he saw me. He probably knew that it was happening before I could properly realize what was happening. I put down the change in my muscle space as a physical reaction to horror.”
“But it wasn’t,” Andrea said. Not asking, but understanding the scenario he was setting.
“No, it was me, becoming what I didn’t realize I was. Anger had overpowered me and before I knew it, I was my new form. Wright was really squealing now. But before I knew it, my four legs were taking me east of the town. It was a physical response. I looped around and back into where the Iraqi Soldiers were holding position.”
“Except they couldn’t have known it was you. You had changed,” Andrea said.
“Exactly. I had shifted. It’s difficult to explain. I knew I had changed. I was aware of it. My raw anger, though, had taken over. I was in a mental state that I had never experienced, let alone envisaged. The horror of having watched these young men slaughtered.”
Will stopped. The faces came into his mind and it was hard for him to focus on what he was saying. The light going out of the eyes of these young men. The images that kept him up at night. The haunted feeling he tried to block out, but always came in on top of him.
Jay stayed silent. He knew now the mistake he had made.
Andrea looked at Will. She knew this was hard for him. But she also knew there was more to come.
Will looked at Andrea. And Jay.
He prepared himself for their reaction.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Will pulled his hand out of the clutch of Andrea’s. He couldn’t face her pulling her hand away when she learned what he was about to tell her.
He then looked over at his friend Jay’s face. But there was a distance in Jay. He was looking past Will.
Will thought it funny. But he wasn’t in a position where he could start asking why people’s moods were what they were.
He rubbed his hands together nervously.
Andrea felt nervous for him. She didn’t want to push him. But there was also the practical side of her that knew that time was not on their side. Whatever Will was about to say, well, she was just going to have to deal with it there and then, or later. One or the other. Because she, and they, didn’t have time to mull over things. Tease it out until they were all talked out. Sally was missing and she needed to be found. She didn’t think it was getting lost in the mix. But at the same time, she was anxious to get on with things.
“Will, just tell us.” Andrea was forthright but warm.
Will didn’t want to prolong it.
“It’s not pleasant, what happened next.” Will stopped briefly but felt an impatience from Andrea. Get on with it, he thought to himself.
“As I said, I was in a pretty heightened state. Of shock and fear and absolute raw anger. I had seen men die before in battle. But I had never experienced such a bloody, disgusting annihilation. Being in the form of a wolf, as strange as it sounds, wasn’t the most intense emotion I felt at the time. It was the horror and the anger.”
Will closed his eyes.
“I tore them apart.”
He looked at Jay and Andrea. Jay was making eye contact now. Andrea was waiting for more depth.
“I tore several of them apart. It was enough to force a retreat. They didn’t know what had hit them. They were dispersed, so I could pick them off. They were generally in twos. And they hadn’t a clue what was happening. I tore flesh from muscle. I opened up men’s necks with one bite. I destroyed as many men as I could.”
Andrea tried to envisage and take in all the details. She felt the horror he had felt as he watched all those soldiers and Navy SEALs die. She felt his anger and she felt his want for revenge. The latter part, it was a lot to take in. How, as a wolf, Will had slaughtered all these men. But the connection they had. For some reason, she felt she knew there and then she could deal with this.
And that was enough. Knowing that she could deal with this was enough. She, they, needed to find Sally.
But she knew there was more.
“Keep going,” she told Will. In saying it, in how she connected with his eyes, Will knew that this woman was something more than he had even imagined. She wasn’t offering absolution. But she seemed to get it, at least some of it. More importantly, she was listening and not passing immediate judgement.
Neither of them were.
There was no immediate upheaval, no throwing of her arms, or storming off in disgust. Just a knowing that she could handle this. She could deal with this.
“Okay,” Will answered. “I know this isn’t the time for too much of the backstory. I know the priority here is Sally. But I needed you to know that before I told you the next part.”
Will didn’t draw out the apprehension.
“Needless to say, the Iraqi soldiers withdrew. There was another platoon drawing in close behind us to support us. They would help capture the town, eventually. But they were confused as to what they saw. Shocked and confused. From the state of some of the bodies of the Iraqi soldiers, it was impossible for them to understand what had happened. By this time, I had shifted back to my human form. I was wounded somewhat myself. Wright was in shock. Shock at everything. The surprise of the ambush, the speed at which our men were taken out. And then…”
“You,” Andrea finished his sentence. “The shock of seeing you shift.”
“Exactly,” Will said. “We never spoke one word. Not one word. To be honest I didn’t see him again. We gave our statements once we were back at base and rested up somewhat. I never saw his and he never saw mine. I don’t know how he explained what happened. I stuck to the truth best as I could. I described the slaughter that took place. Some of the hand-to-hand combat. Whether it was because we were in the fullness of war, or my group wasn’t officially registered as being there. For whatever reason, I heard no more.”
“And that was that?” Jay had said little to nothing. But his mind was distracted. He needed to know the outcome, though, to be sure. There must be more.
“Well, so I thought. I was based primarily back in San Diego. The Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado. Sitting between San Diego and the Pacific Ocean. I was affected by what I saw and what I did. I didn’t go into combat again. I trained SEALs for different operations. The Philippines and Somalia. I tried to prepare them for the horror. But nothing really does.”
“But Todd Wright?” Andrea asked.
“Yeah,” Will took a deep breath. “Todd Wright. Well, he took his time. Nothing. I would never see him again. Or so I thought. And then one day, out of nowhere, he showed up on the base.”
“To chat?” Andrea raised her eyebrows.
“Sure,” Will smiled. “No, not to chat. But to tell me. To tell me what I had done to him. How I had traumatized him.”
“He was alive because of you,” Andrea said, interjecting quickly.
“Maybe,” Will said, “but that wasn’t relevant. Not to him. What was relevant was the hurt I had caused him, mentally. He had questioned what he had seen. In me. There was no hiding it. He had seen me. As a wolf. And he didn’t like it. And he didn’t think the upper echelons of the Navy SEALs would, too. Particularly since he had such a close, working relationship with a couple of the admirals.”
“So, he blackmailed you,” Andrea said.
“Yes, he did. For years.
And for years I bought his silence. No questions asked. I had no idea what would happen to me. I wasn’t sure how they would look into it, but Wright had weight. He had influence. He knew people.”
“Asshole.” Andrea was pretty certain in her choice of word.
“Well, yes,” said Will, “quite the asshole. But the thing is, ultimately, I made him look like a prize asshole. Every few months he would turn up, visiting men in power. He would linger and he would talk of his issues. His expenses. How he needed money. How he was haunted. And he would then more or less hold out his hand.”
“Really was a coward,” Andrea said.
“Oh yeah, he was. But he was a fool. Well at least in his banking. We eventually agreed on making banking transfers. Just a few a year so as not to draw too much suspicion. He was getting tired of lengthy trips to San Diego. I transferred the money on each occasion. But after a few transactions, it dawned on me how lax his banking behavior was. It really wasn’t too hard to get access in the end. And that was when I thought I’d just clear him out. One fell swoop. I left the navy the same day. Every cent he had taken from me, I had back. Plus, a handling fee.”
Andrea smiled at that part. And she knew now this was what he had touched on earlier, in the car. The bit of luck.
Not Hollywood luck, but luck all the same.
So, that was what he meant.
“I don’t think that was unfair of you,” she smiled.
“Neither do I,” Will smiled back.
“So, the message on your cell?” Jay asked.
“Yes. It’s him.”
“How can you know?” Jay said.
“The words. This is fun. Those words, those three words, were the message he sent me, every time I had paid up. Three, innocuous words. But I hated them. Still do.”
“But how did he get your number? I mean your new number. You obviously changed it,” Andrea said.