by K. C. Crowne
"That long? Ah screw it, I'll get them myself."
I meandered through the crowd to the bar and saw the pink haired girl was gone. In her place was a tall, lanky guy with black dreadlocks tied up in a bun. In front of him was a long queue of impatient drinkers who looked as though it would take an eternity to get through.
"Ugh, screw this. I'm going to the bathroom." I pushed my way into the ladies’ room where girls clumped around the mirror to heap on layer after layer of highlighter and lip gloss. A couple of them were giggling and pointing toward the nearest stall.
"Think someone's getting nasty in there," one of them giggled.
"Gross," her friend replied, screwing up her face.
At that moment, through the crack in the door, a hint of pink hair could be seen.
The bartender...I should have minded my own business, should have walked away, but something was drawing me closer to the stall until I was standing right in front of the door that banged rhythmically as someone pounded against it. From inside came a girl's groan followed by a grunt I recognized.
Looking down, I saw white sneakers beneath the door, sneakers I had cleaned myself dozens of times until they sparkled to perfection.
"Todd?"
Suddenly propelled by an unquenchable anger, I shouldered the door. The banging and groaning stopped as I tried to push the door open.
"Hey!" the girl screeched. "Leave us alone!"
Ignoring her, I pushed the door again and it fell open, victim to the rusty broken lock that so often adorned nightclub toilet doors.
And there he stood, all six feet of him with his pants around his ankles and his face flushed. He stared at me for a moment, slack jawed as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
The pink-haired bartender was stuffing herself back into her clothes, looking annoyed at the interruption.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked.
“I'm his girlfriend.”
I didn't know who I wanted to hit the most, her and her snooty little face or him and his cheating ass. Thankfully, I didn't have to decide because she did it for me.
“Girlfriend?” she gasped and looked up at Todd. “You told me you were single!” She shot her arm out and slapped him so hard across his cheek I could visibly see his skin ripple as his face turned purple.
Grabbing her shirt, she stormed off, leaving a group of stunned girls gawping after her.
“Gabby...”
“Whatever you're about to say, I don't wanna fucking hear it.”
“Please.”
He edged toward me and I raised my hand.
“Come any closer and I swear to God I will beat the ever living shit out of you.”
I may have been five-foot-four in heels and a good hundred pounds lighter, but I truly meant it.
“I'm sorry,” he said, almost pleaded.
I just stared at him for a second, wishing I had dumped him sooner.
“Fucking douche bag,” I yelled as I walked away. “Don't ever come near me again!” Now that that was done, I needed another drink STAT.
Chapter 2
Jackson
The searing heat penetrated my clothes and doused my body in a thick layer of sweat. Above, the sun was shining, bleaching everything it touched. Around me, broken rocks, rubble, and bombshells littered the ravaged landscape.
"They're in there," Denny said, the stock of his gun pushed hard into his shoulder.
His face was burned from the sun, his nose peeling, and his lips chapped. I could see a bruise on his right cheek, the result of the previous day's fight with insurgents.
"Let's go." I edged closer to the door.
In front of us stood a small shack with blown out windows and crumbling walls. It was hard to believe anyone lived there, let alone a group of insurgents who had been using the small buildings as a factory for their ammunition. Our unit's job was to clear the place out, taking the insurgents as prisoners for later interrogation. It was a straightforward job I'd done a dozen times before. There were just two simple rules to follow: always watch your buddy's back and don't get yourself killed.
I looked around for the rest of the unit. They were by our side all the way here, the rumble of their engine matching ours as we navigated over the sand dunes. But as I glanced around, I noted they had vanished, and so had their truck.
“What the fuck? Denny! Where are the guys?”
He didn't reply, but just stared off into the distance as though he couldn't hear me.
“Hey! I swear they were right here two seconds ago!”
But he didn't appear concerned as he walked in the direction of the house, his body consumed with the heat haze.
I kept an eye on him as he walked. He was always a wildcard, always eager to be the first person storming through the door on any operation as if he was born without the part of the brain that processed fear.
"Let's hurry the fuck up," he said, raising his gun. "Get this done, and we'll make it back to barracks for a few beers. It’s hot as fuck out here."
How is he so laid back? There's a chance we could die on the other side of this door, and he's thinking about beer?
I envied his fearlessness. Or was it stupidity? Whatever it was, it pulled him closer to the door.
"Think this is the right place?" he asked as he looked around.
"Intelligence said it is."
He nodded and gave me one last look over his shoulder. “Okay, let's do this."
With a solid kick, he booted the door, and it instantly clattered off the hinges. He stepped inside, gun raised and ready to fire. After checking all corners, he turned to me.
"There's nothing here. Just an empty room."
"Check the others."
We swept from room to room, but all we saw was dust and debris. The place looked as though it hadn't seen a human in decades.
"Intelligence was wrong," Denny said. "Useless bunch of bastards."
But they were never wrong.
"They said this was the place."
We stood in the darkened hallway for a moment listening for signs of life. From somewhere inside a wall came a scuttling sound like rats clawing at the rock.
"Fuck it, let's go," Denny said after a few moments. "There's nothing here." We turned and walked toward the front door, and that's when we heard the creak of a door.
It all happened so fast. I saw the hatch to the underground lair open in the floor, the sight of the young man popping his head out from the bunker and raising his Kalashnikov, the sound of rapid gunfire that echoed around my skull. Then the thud of Denny's body as he hit the floor.
"Denny!"
I fired my gun at the hatch, peppering the door with bullets until it was more hole than wood and the body of the young man lay slumped across the floor.
"Man down!" I yelled into my radio. "Fucking man down!"
I dragged Denny's body outside into the burning sun and saw the blood pumping out of his thigh. It flowed out from him, viscous and dark red, before it bubbled and clotted in the scorched sand.
"Denny, listen to me, you're gonna be okay. Just look at me. Look at me!"
I grabbed his face and turned it toward me. For the first time, I saw something I didn't even think was possible to see in his eyes: fear.
"I'm dying," he mumbled.
"No. No. No, I got this."
I tore off a strip from my shemagh and wound it around his leg, pulling it tight to stop the blood flow, but it was no use. He had lost so much already, and his skin was turning a deathly shade of white.
"They're on the way," I promised, holding pressure on his wounds. "Denny. Denny just listen to me."
But the blood wouldn't stop streaming out of his leg no matter how hard I pulled on the tourniquet.
"Help me, Jackson."
His voice was weak and croaky. I looked into his face and saw he was fading fast. All around me, his blood sunk into the earth and saturated my clothes.
"I've got you," I assured him. "I’ve got you."
"Jackson, I'm..."
His voice broke one last time, then it froze in his throat as he took his last breath.
I looked into his eyes; his fear was gone, but in its place was something so much worse. The extended pupils and glassy stare told me one thing.
He was dead.
One second I was asleep, the next I was sitting upright in bed with a cold sweat streaming down my face.
Not again. Not again! How much longer am I gonna have this nightmare?
It had started as soon as I’d come home from my last tour in Afghanistan, the last one I spent with Denny. For so long, I had fooled myself into thinking I was over his death, but as soon as I returned to American soil and civilian life, I'd go to bed every night and relive the same day over and over and over again. And it never got easier. Each morning I'd wake up sweating and shaking with the memory of losing my best friend.
The doctors told me pills would help, but they never did. Meanwhile, all my pals said drinking would numb the pain, but all it did was make me forget about it for a few hours before it came back even stronger.
Clawing my way out of bed, I shuffled to the shower and turned the water up as hot as I could stand it. Standing inside the steam, I soaped myself and felt the ache in my shoulders subside. As I did every day, I hit the gym like a maniac the day before and my muscles hurt like a motherfucker.
Once out the shower, I toweled myself dry and looked in the mirror. The v-shaped lines that pointed down from my waist were looking more defined than ever, as was my six pack. Meanwhile, my shoulders looked broader, my biceps larger and rounder. I looked better than I'd ever looked, so why didn't I feel it?
Looking closely in the mirror at my face, the turmoil in my head was reflected in the bags beneath my blue eyes and how my blond hair stuck up wildly from a restless night tossing against my pillow. I yawned, slapped my cheeks to wake up, and ventured to the kitchen, where I made myself a large cup of coffee. Half an hour later, I was in my pickup truck on my way to the diner I owned with my three buddies. The four of us had served together in Afghanistan along with Denny and had formed an unbreakable bond strengthened by the fact that one of the team was my own little brother, Jared.
He was a spritely little thing as a kid, but as soon as he found out I wanted to join the Navy, he was right behind me wanting to be by my side. At first, I'd laughed at him. A scrawny little thing like him would have lasted all of two minutes in war. But the little squirt was determined, and soon enough he had risen through the ranks along with me until we were both serving for the prestigious SEALs. I was proud as hell of him, even if to me he would always be my kid brother.
Just like me, he had taken the death of Denny hard, but we all had. Of course, it would never affect them like it had me. I was the only one with him when he died, the only one who could have saved him but didn't. At least that's what I kept telling myself. They all told me there was nothing I could do, that what happened to Denny could have happened to anyone. But I never saw it that way. It was impossible to not blame myself.
In my truck, I turned up the music and opened the windows to blast myself awake with the cold mountain air. Ten minutes later, I was at the diner and saw Jared was there already, eating an alarmingly tall stack of pancakes as he flirted with the waitress, Tracey. She was leaning over the counter toward him and batting her eyelashes as she giggled. But the moment she saw me enter, she pulled away.
"Morning Jackson! The usual?"
"Please."
She smiled and sauntered off to the kitchen, but not before taking one last look at Jared as she went.
"Are those wedding bells I hear?" I teased.
"Shut up," he said and flung a strawberry at me, then stared for a second before returning to his food. With a full mouth, he asked, "What's up with you? You look like shit."
"Thanks," I said, taking the stool beside him. "Got a crappy night's sleep."
"Again?"
"I always do."
"You should really see a doctor about that."
"I've seen about five. There's nothing they can do. They all say the same thing. Work less. Learn to relax. Take up a hobby. You know, like watercolor painting's gonna make things all better."
I plucked a blueberry off Jared's plated and tossed it into my mouth. He was still looking at me, studying my face.
"You really look rough, man. I'm worried about you."
"Don't be."
He was silent for a minute with the only sound being his thoughtful chewing. From the kitchen, we could hear Tracey slamming pots and pans around as she fried up my usual breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs, and muffins.
"You're still blaming yourself, aren't you?"
"What?"
"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. You were having that nightmare again. The one about Denny."
I could feel a headache start to thump around the base of my skull. Did he really need to have this conversation now?
"It's not your fault," he repeated. "Those asshole terrorists killed Denny. Not you. You don't have to carry the guilt around like this."
"I do," I replied. "I was supposed to have his six."
"Hey, look at it this way. It could’ve just as easily been you who was shot and killed, and Denny would be sitting here today crying in his breakfast."
"Yeah, but then the diner wouldn't be called Dirty Dens."
He laughed and mopped up maple syrup with his pancake.
"Guess not," he said, shoveling it into his mouth. "But look, I am worried about you."
"Since when did you get so soft?"
Tracey emerged from the kitchen with a big grin on her face and a plate stacked to the heavens with bacon strips.
"Bone apple teeth," she joked with a smile.
"What?" I laughed.
"Do you mean bon Appetit?" Jared asked with a smile.
"Whatever," Tracey replied happily and walked to the kitchen.
"Anyway," Jared continued, turning back to me. "You'll never guess who's coming to town tomorrow for the Roxi Lane concert and staying at my place?"
"Who?"
"Guess."
"Just tell me, Jared."
"No. You have to guess."
"Ugh! I dunno! Is it the Dalai freakin' Lama?"
Jared laughed and shook his head, then offered him a conspiratorial smile. "Carly."
Carly. Our little sister who I permanently remembered as five years old was now a grown woman, a thought that worried the hell out of me. Little sisters were supposed to stay little, but Carly was turning into an independent, sassy-ass grown woman who never listened to a word I said.
"Cool," I said. "Is she coming alone?”
Jared's eyes were twinkling as he dropped the last of his pancake into his mouth with a smug grin.
"Nope," he smirked. "She's coming with Gabby."
At first, I thought I heard him wrong, but no. Gabby… The name sent shock waves through my body, made me feel lightheaded.
"Gabby's gonna be in town?"
It had been years since I'd seen her. The last time I did, I'd waved goodbye from the back of my dad's car as he drove me to the first day of Navy training. She'd been crying hard then, and the image of her tear-streaked face had stayed with me ever since.
Gabby... Gabby... Gabby...The name floated around my head like a mantra. Butterflies erupted in my stomach. Hundreds of them, all breakdancing. I had to stare into my breakfast and pretend I wasn't as bothered as I really was.
"Cool," I replied with a shrug.
"Cool? Is that it? You’re not worried about seeing her again?"
Worried? I was as excited as a kid on Christmas Eve. Not that I would have openly admitted that.
Although it had been years since I'd seen her, I'd never forgotten about her. The day I broke up with her was one of the toughest things I'd ever had to do, and I'd fought terrorists face to face with my bare hands.
In my dreams I would have stayed with her forever. We would have had the pe
rfect marriage, the two kids, the big house with the huge yard where two golden Labradors would run and play. But the truth was that I could never have that with her.
She had remained faithful to me throughout my Navy training, and I knew she would wait for me, no matter how long it took. But on the day I found out I was going to Afghanistan, I had to end our relationship her. Long distance relationships were hard at the best of times but almost impossible when one of you was in a war zone. I never knew if I would see her again, and I didn't want her waiting for me knowing that I could leave for war and never come back. Just like Denny.
It felt cruel to hold her back. She deserved to be happy, deserved to have a man who could be with her always and spoil her, give her all the things I couldn't.
"Yo?" Jared snapped, waving a hand in front of my face. "Earth to Jackson."
"Sorry, was just thinking."
"About Gabby?"
Thankfully, before I could answer, the bell above the door chimed and in walked the other half of our team, Dylan and Lucas.
"Morning fellas!"
"Morning." Lucas grinned, as chipper as always.
"Morning," Dylan grumbled with a yawn.
He looked hungover as hell. He rubbed his eyes and climbed on a stool.
"Tracey? I need the biggest motherfucking pot of coffee you got."
She looked thrilled to fulfill his request and hurried to the coffee machine.
As always, when I saw the four of us in one room, I felt a sense of pride. When we'd left the war and came home, we struggled to return to civilian life. It wasn’t like you could just step off the plane and go get a job in an office. Life had changed and our mindset had altered. We'd seen things no ordinary person had seen, experienced the worst humanity had to offer.
When the four of us discovered we were all struggling to adjust in the real world, Dylan came up with the first idea of what would become our business.
"What if we use our skills from the SEALs in everyday life?" he'd said. "Like start an elite security firm to protect people and their families. With our expertise, we could really help. And if some rich dudes want to pay for our services too then all the better!”
It was a light bulb moment that set things rolling at lightning speed, and six months later, we were sitting in the office signing our names to the deed that would set us up as equal partners at Elite Securicorp, the most exclusive, sought after security agency in the state.