“Too easy,” it was Jenson’s voice behind me and I turned to him and smirked. I was the company commander, but I was also one of my men. In action, I was back to being their commander again and orders were obeyed. That was our way of life.
“Are you going to make a diary entry tonight about how Alton made you feel bad? How he hurt your feelings by hitting all the targets?” I laughed and slid down the surface of the boulder I was crouched behind. The metal ID tags tinkled around my neck and Jenson shook his head. Some of the others chuckled.
Jenson had always been competitive, which was a healthy trait to have in the Army; as long as you weren’t putting someone else’s life in danger in the process.
“Take up your position O’Dowd,” I said and he switched places with me behind the boulder.
I stood beside Jenson as I watched O’Dowd aim and hit the target, another rock. We cheered for him too and I passed him a high-five. Four others went after him, and my conviction in my company was re-affirmed. I’d trained them well. We were all high performing soldiers, and we never missed our target.
My bullet-proof vest felt heavy on my chest as I stood and watched the men shoot. Our guards were down today, although my sniper rifle was always cocked and ready to shoot at a second’s notice. Our re-con from the previous two days of this spot gave us a good enough estimation that this place would make a good place for a training exercise. It was off base, but not far off to where we were on our enemies land. Besides, my men hadn’t been off base for over ten days now, we all needed a change of pace. And in the middle of war, shooting practice was the only kind of fun we could get.
How long was it since I had an ice-cream? That was a strange thought to have at that moment, but I had it nonetheless. I wasn’t even an ice-cream kinda guy! But the desert was making my mind swim and I could hear an electrical buzz in my ear as I blinked furiously against the harsh blinding rays of the sun. The sweat was sliding down my cheeks. Drip. Drip. Drip. The white noise cleared when I sensed the others looking at me.
“What’s the score Sarge?” Sanders had said. I wasn’t keeping count. I was thinking about ice-cream.
“Doesn’t matter. Isn’t it your go Jenson? Or are you pussying out because of hurt feelings?” I thumped Jenson’s back as he scowled. Some of the others were chuckling again.
“I was waiting for you to come out of your day dreams,” Jenson said and flipped himself in front of me. “Wanna bet?” he added and I watched as he started walking backwards.
“Bet what?” I said, still grinning as I watched him cross the boulder we were all shooting from.
“See that rock?” he said and pointed far out in the distance. With my brows crossed, I looked through the viewfinder of my rifle till I’d located the rock he was talking about. With a grin on my face, I lowered my rifle and looked Jenson in the eye.
“Yeah, you’re on,” I said and he nodded his head. This was going to be an easy win. I knew my men’s strengths and weaknesses, and as competitive as Jenson was, there was no way he was going to shoot that rock.
“I bet you ten grand,” Jenson said and I laughed.
“Ten grand and a pack of cigarettes,” I called out to him as he continued to walk backwards. He had already gone a few yards further away from us. He gave me a mock salute, before flipping around and taking a few more steps. I was still laughing at his impending obvious loss of the bet when the telltale sound of a metal click rang out. Loud and clear and metallic.
The smile dropped from my face. I knew exactly what that sound was. Jenson had stepped on a land mine. The white noise in my ears became louder as I screamed.
“Don’t fucking move!” I yelled and I hadn’t even realized that my feet were carrying me forward. I was running towards Jenson in reflex.
“Jenson stay where you fucking are!” I yelled again and I saw the color drain from his face. I was getting closer to him, but then he moved a foot. Jenson was stepping off the land mine…
My body bolted up in bed and the sweat was real. I was covered in it. My back was sticking to the cool bedsheets. My heart was thumping hard in my chest. The panic was real. I could feel it coursing through my veins. It was all real. I could taste the sand in my mouth. The screams of my men. My yelling. Jenson’s deathly white face. Did I see a hint of a smile? Was I imagining it? Did he smile when he realized what was going to happen in the next second?
I jumped off the bed, grabbed the bedsheets tightly in my two fists and I jerked it off. I could hear the deep guttural growl that was rising up in my throat.
I didn’t get there in time. I didn’t run fast enough. I shouldn’t have allowed him to walk that far. I should have made better decisions. He was gone and it was all my fault. I needed to break something. Something had to break. Without thinking, I ripped the bed sheet in my hand, right through the middle.
***
I was on the ground; my cheek pressing against the warm wooden floor of my bedroom. The ripped up bed sheet was lying in a crumpled ball beside me. There was no way I was going to be able to get any sleep tonight.
This was a recurring nightmare, and not a week went by that I didn’t have them at least twice…even three times…sometimes every night till I stayed awake all day and night, walking around like a zombie, surviving on shots of espresso. Only thing was that it wasn’t just a nightmare. This had actually happened. I’d lost one of my men.
I was the only one to blame. I was responsible for my men and I got carried away. Jenson had always been a brazen motherfucker, and I should have known to not let him take it too far. And now he was dead and I was left knowing that I was responsible for his death. If only I could have got to him in time. If only I’d been able to run fast enough.
Enduring sleepless nights, waking up in cold sweats…was a small price to pay for the loss of his life. I was willing to do much more. I was ready for any kind of redemption that life had planned for me. I didn’t think I deserved any ounce of happiness anymore.
I heard my phone buzz on the bedside table above me, and I reached for it in the dark.
Glock was calling again. Fucking Glock. We’d been buddies since I could remember but this guy just never took a hint. I didn’t want to talk to him, or talk to anyone for that matter. I needed to be left alone and repent for the loss of Jenson’s life.
Ever since I got back from the tour, Glock had been calling me nonstop. I tried everything, from switching off my phone, turning it to silent…nothing worked. It was always ringing and Glock was leaving me a dozen voicemails a day, pleading and then threatening me to answer his call. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to come by the Bad Disciples MC Bar, and I just didn’t have the mind space for that shit. I had my own problems to deal with and my family’s Motorcycle Club wasn’t one of them.
It was supposed to be some sort of a family tradition, and I knew the expectations they had for me. My dad was one of the guys who founded the club back in the early seventies. Now that he was gone, and my older brother Bryce was gone too…there was no reason for me to associate with the MC any longer.
I cut the call and flung the phone on the bed, far away from me. It was 2AM. I had to at least try and get some sleep. I couldn’t even remember the last time that I’d slept a full night.
The phone started to ring again.
Growling and cursing under my breath, I got up and picked the phone off the bed. It was Glock again, obviously, and I muttered a few more curses. We’d been best friends…we were still best friends, since we were in kindergarten. He probably didn’t understand why I was shutting him out.
“It’s 2AM, Glock!” I grunted into the phone when I answered.
“Gunner! Jeez man. You’re a hard guy to get a hold of,” Glock was in a club, I could hear the sounds of thumping music in the background and his voice was louder than it needed to be.
“What do you want, Glock?” I said.
“No hugs? No love for your main man? Where have you been?” I heard him say, and I got up to pace the f
loor of the room.
“I’ve been here. At home. Where else am I supposed to be?” I growled and ran a hand over my dark brown hair. I could feel that it had grown a little. I wasn’t expected to get military buzz cuts anymore, now that I had been honorably discharged.
“Anyway, Axel wants to see you,” Glock said and I scrunched up my face in confusion. Axel was the new President of the Club, he’d taken over the position ever since dad died.
“Why does Axel want to speak to me? How does he even know that I’m back?” I said and Glock was laughing.
“Everyone knows your back man. Did you think you were going to hide under a rock forever? Get your ass down here,” Glock replied and I took in a deep breath of resignation. I was in no mood to make conversation with a group of people. I needed to get rid of the voices in my head first.
“I don’t think I’m going to go,” I said and Glock had stopped laughing by then.
“What are you talking about? If Axel asks to see you, you go see him. That’s what your dad would have expected too,” he said and even though I knew he was right and he was making complete sense, I had to grip the bed posts with my hand…my knuckles turned white. I was good at taking orders. I was trained to take orders from a young age. However, right now I was at a breaking point.
“Fine. Whatever. Tell him I’ll stop by,” I told him and Glock seemed half satisfied with my answer.
“Like soon,” he urged me.
“Yeah, soon. Night Glock,” I said and cut the call before he could say anything else. Flinging the phone back on the bed, I sat down on the floor again. At least now maybe Glock would stop calling me constantly and my phone would stop ringing. One factor less to affect my lack of sleep.
I pressed my eyes closed but I saw Jenson’s face again. Laughing as he walked backwards closer and closer to the land mine. That sound of the metallic click and then the white noise.
It might as well have been me because I was as good as dead.
2
Brooklyn
I sighed as I tied the black apron to my waist, a mandatory part of the uniform at the bar. I was in the back room where I usually changed after my waitressing shift at the diner a few blocks down. Today, I’d barely had time to grab a coffee before I ran to the bar. I’d tried to drink the coffee from a styrofoam cup as I got in, and loads of it had dribbled on my blouse. Thankfully, I never left my apartment without a fresh change of clothes stuffed in my bag.
I stared at myself in the small plastic framed mirror on the wall of the back room. I looked tired and I thought I detected dark circles under my eyes. Twenty-six with dark circles and exhausted green eyes. That was the best description anyone could give for me if I ever disappeared. My hair was long and just like most days, I’d styled the brown waves into curls. I tied it up into a loose bun on the side of my head now. Working shifts at the bar wasn’t exactly the time or the place to look my best, and besides, I’d stopped putting in much of an effort. Not since Luke…
I tucked in some stray strands of hair haphazardly behind my ears as I walked out to the bar and pasted a smile on my face. No matter how tired I might actually be, I still needed to pretend like I was enjoying myself. No matter how intense the pain in my back was from standing all day, I had to keep that fake smile pasted on my face. I couldn’t lose these jobs. I needed both of them. I wasn’t even thinking about the money anymore. I just needed to keep busy so that I wasn’t thinking of Luke all day.
I began by polishing the glasses, just as the doors of the bar were opened to the general public. These few minutes of standing behind the counter, polishing the glasses with freshly washed cotton towels were my moments of peace. In an hour, the place would fill up with regulars and strangers alike, and I’d be too busy to even notice how my shoulders ached and how the smile on my face was beginning to droop.
Even though these minutes were restful, they were also dangerous. The lack of having to make small talk with customers; gave my mind a chance to wander. And Lo and Behold! I was thinking of Luke again.
I had to remind myself that he wasn’t my older brother anymore. That he didn’t actually exist. When I got the call two months before, I didn’t know how to react. Even though the possibility of his death…of all our deaths…loomed at the back of my mind as an inevitability, I was just not prepared. He was my brother, my flesh and blood…and he was all I had.
Daddy was dead, but his death was easier to deal with because I had Luke then. We were going to look out for each other, be there for one another. Luke made sure that I was under his wing at all times, that I never felt alone. And now who was I supposed to turn to?
Mom…well, I didn’t know our mother at all. She left when I was a baby, when my memories hadn’t even begun to form. Luke claimed he remembered her, even though he was just two years older than me. He claimed that I had her green eyes, and the same long brown hair but daddy had removed all photographic evidence of her from the house. So, I had no way of confirming if that was true. Luke was capable of saying anything to make me feel better. He would have done anything for me, and I knew I would have done the same for him.
I gulped as I remembered him. My hands were mechanically wiping the glasses. Even though my mind was elsewhere, I was handling them with care. Wiping and polishing to remove water stains and placing them on the drying racks in front of me. Then picking up the next glass to carry on the same procedure.
Luke was twenty-eight, too young to die and he would have had a successful life ahead of him. He was passionate and stubborn and fiercely protective of me and if he was still alive, I would have been just a regular, happy and normal girl. I might have even wanted more from life than working late hours at the bar. But I wasn’t that same girl anymore. I was half of the person I used to be. The other half had died along with Luke and nothing was going to be the same again.
“Hello, sunshine,” the guy with the deep brown eyes said, taking a stool at the counter in front of me. He’d become somewhat of a regular at the bar, and I was aware of how all these guys liked to flirt. I didn’t mind because it gave me something else to think about, but I also made it abundantly clear to them that I was in no way interested.
This guy had longish dark hair that reached his shoulders and a ready smile on his lips every time he saw me. At least he was younger than most of the middle-aged men who frequented the place. Sometimes I wondered if I was leading him on, if he was coming to the bar so often because he thought he had a chance with me.
“The usual?” I asked him, and didn’t wait for a response before I started pouring a finger of Jack into a glass for him. He grinned widely when I slid the glass over to him and he leaned over the counter, to bring his face closer to me.
“Did you get a new haircut darling?” he asked and I looked at him from under my heavy lids, trying to grin, trying to forget Luke who was always at the back of my mind.
“No,” I said, as blankly as I could, so that he wouldn’t feel encouraged to continue this conversation.
“Okay, then it’s your makeup. There’s something different about you,” he said and I noticed the way his eyes roamed over me, over my body…dropping to my breasts, before settling on the spot between my legs.
I felt my cheeks flush and I turned from him and walked some distance away. There was no way I was going to return his advances. I had no interest in him or any of the men who frequented this place. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I was interested in anyone. If it was…it had to have been before Luke died. Because since then, all I’d felt was emptiness.
“Where are you going, honey?” I heard the guy’s voice, while I had my back turned to him.
“Nowhere,” I replied and I continued to polish the glasses, just at some distance from him.
“Come back here. I want to talk to you,” I heard him say and I kept my back firmly turned to him.
“Get outta here before I kick your ass!” I heard a voice, and before I’d even turned around, I knew that it was Viper. I
let out a small breath that I didn’t realized that I was holding in. When I turned around and looked at them, Viper was holding the other’s guys collar bunched up in his hands and pulling him off the stool. When the guy had scurried away, Viper took his chair and fixed a smile on me.
“You didn’t have to do that. I can take care of myself,” I said to him, rolling my eyes indulgently at him. As much as I hated to admit it, I was thankful that Viper scared the guy off so I wouldn’t have to dodge his advances for the rest of the night.
“It was my pleasure,” Viper said and reached for the bottle of Jack Daniels and poured himself half a measure as I watched him.
I’d tried being polite with Viper already, letting him down gently every time he asked me out, but he just wasn’t getting the hint. Besides, these guys weren’t anything if not persistent. Luke was just like them. He was just like his friends.
“Here by yourself? Where are the others?” I asked him, walking up to him with two glasses in my hands and the towel thrown over my shoulder.
“Just me. I thought I’d stop by and check up on you before I go meet the others,” Viper said, and even though I wasn’t looking at him, I could feel his eyes on me. Searing my skin as he watched my every move. Would it have been very bad if I was attracted to Viper? He belonged to the MC world that I knew so well. He was a friend of Luke’s. I’d known him for a long time…but I couldn’t just conjure up feelings for him when they didn’t exist.
“You don’t need to check up on me every day, Viper. I’m fine,” I told him, trying to smile as genuinely as I could. Ever since Luke’s death, the guys were constantly checking up on me. They were afraid that I was depressed…and they felt the same protectiveness towards me that Luke had felt. In essence, I’d inherited a dozen new protectors in the place of my older brother, and I wasn’t exactly thrilled.
Tank (The Bad Disciples MC Book 3) Page 25