Chapter 25
They deployed early August. It wasn’t the official big parade with hundreds of loving wives and husbands waving off their significant others. It was just the six of them getting dropped off on the flightline to board a cargo plane waiting to fly them to their final destination.
He caught a ride with Marcus and Sabine. They were the last to arrive, Sabine—heavily pregnant—began to cry long before they hugged her goodbye.
JD was dropped off by his wife, waving goodbye and trying to smile through her tears as she drove away.
Carlos’ mom hugged him and there was a long-winded goodbye in rapid-fire Spanish.
Ghost’s daughter hugged her father goodbye, and he tossed her up in the air one last time before giving her a final kiss on the cheek.
Oliver had arrived before Aberlour. As a result, Aberlour had the misfortune of witnessing Abby give Oliver a goodbye kiss. It was a long one. With far too much tongue.
Abe quickly turned away and when he turned back around, duffle slung over his shoulder, she was pulling away from hugging him. Catching sight of Aberlour, she waved, unaware of his disgust.
“Hi, Gavin!” she greeted him warmly, although she too looked like she was about to cry.
Aberlour had neither the desire nor the words to pretend he was happy to see her. He gave her a curt nod and strode rapidly past her to board the cargo plane.
He was first to step into the cargo hold, leaving the others to catch up. They had goodbyes to give, hugs to hand out, tears to wipe.
Not Aberlour.
Marcus was the next to board. He hadn’t wanted to extend the goodbye session any longer than he had to. He was smiling tentatively as he boarded, but he looked troubled.
“Next time I see her, my daughter’s gonna be born,” he said with a look of wonderment, sitting next to Abe.
“It’ll be good,” Aberlour said, smiling encouragingly.
They hadn’t talked since Marcus had picked him up from jail, which was a topic carefully avoided.
Yet, he’d meant what he’d told Marcus. He was happy for him.
Happy that Marcus would get to enjoy his family when he returned from their deployment.
He was bitter—certainly—but nonetheless happy for his friend.
“Sabine looks beautiful,” Oliver said, as he took his own seat on the other side of the plane, directly across from Aberlour.
“I’m going to be a dad! Can you believe it?” Marcus asked, scoffing in amazement as he shook his head and adjusted his seatbelt.
“Of course, I can,” Oli agreed, softly. His gaze landed on Abe, but he looked away quickly. Not quite ready, just yet, to be faced with the intense blue gaze.
“You’ll be a great dad,” Aberlour said, trying to fill the silence.
Marcus nodded in thanks.
“Who’s gonna be a great dad? Darling?” Carlos asked, loud and clueless, as he stumbled his way to his seat, his stuffed backpack slipping sideways off his shoulders.
“Abby’s pregnant?” JD asked, clearly shocked as he followed right behind, Ghost on his heels.
“Is that even legal with your sort? Shouldn’t you have like—wed her first, or some shit?” Carlos squinted suspiciously at Oliver.
“My sort?” Oliver asked, ignoring his questions to focus on the social status label.
“You know—rich, white Christians.”
“That’s pretty fucking racist!” JD said, which earned him a slap to the back of the head by Ghost, who also called him an idiot under his breath.
Team Specter all took their seats, buckled up, and made sure their duffle bags and backpacks were secured. Flying in a cargo plane was rough at the best of times, no need to add a flying duffle bag to the face to enhance the experience.
“We were talking about Marcus,” Oliver clarified, shaking his head, as the engine roared to life.
“Ah, yeah!” Carlos said, like it made much more sense. “So you didn’t get on one knee,” he said, seeking confirmation.
Aberlour’s gaze accidentally got tangled up with Oli’s, and he couldn’t look away. While feeling as if he was looking directly into Oli’s soul, he heard Oli’s short reply, his chest seizing.
“Not yet,” Oliver replied.
It was the deployment from hell. There was no other way to describe it.
The missions were far too close together, and all of them were run on too little intel to ever be labeled as well planned.
It felt like they were bait, tied on the end of a fragile string and paraded out for the biggest predator to grab.
When they weren’t getting shot at, chased, or assaulted, then it was just the six of them, stuck in two small rooms, the tension thick enough to choke on.
Aberlour kept trying to shrug off this new dynamic.
He wanted it to be like it had been, but every time he tried, someone said something that made him tense up with frustration or made Oliver bristle with annoyance.
They were off, and it showed. They were—Aberlour could only think of one word for it. Wrong. It was wrong. All of it.
Marcus had been right when he’d said that if Aberlour didn’t figure it out, he’d tear apart the team. He just—he wasn’t sure how to fix it, even if he’d wanted to.
It was the deployment from hell. So of course, when JD’s wife had called to let him know she was pregnant, Aberlour should have known the good news would have to be balanced out with yet more shit. The next day, hell rained down on their heads.
They were about to die. Or they were as close to biting the bullet as they had ever come. The mission had gone tits up only two minutes in. They’d gotten separated and their target was compromised. If any of them made it out alive, it would be a goddamned miracle.
“Man down!” Carlos screamed in Aberlour’s earpiece, struggling to be heard over the relentless, deafening gunfire surrounding them.
“Get him out, C! Rendezvous later!” Aberlour ordered over the comms as he struggled to keep his shit together. He was stuck in the corner of a room with a sniper waiting to take his head off if he stepped even an inch to his left.
“I have the sniper in sight,” JD stated calmly, most likely working on steadying his aim. He wasn’t the best shooter on the team, so if he was taking his time, he was probably at a distance.
“Tell me when and I’ll make a run for it at the same time,” Aberlour instructed, peering to his right at the open door where he’d have to make his exit.
He knew he would just be running towards another hell after he left this one, but at least he’d be on the move and not feeling trapped like he was now.
“In three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
“Go,” JD said just as another round of gunfire echoed around them.
Aberlour immediately threw himself to his right, ducking and rolling.
While the enemy sniper was distracted, he ran to the doorway, prepared to fire, and peered into the hallway.
All clear. Aberlour crossed the hallway in two strides, grabbed the handrail and swung over it.
He braced himself for a hard landing on the stairwell, tucking and rolling to absorb the shock.
There was no one there other than a few dead bodies.
“I’m out,” Aberlour said, sprinting to the exit while evading enemy fire.
“We’re at point B.”
He ran like a mad man, while scanning the area for any remaining enemies.
“Does anyone have the target?” Aberlour shouted over the comms hoping to be heard over the latest round of shooting.
Suddenly, there was an explosion followed by burst of flame he felt through his BDUs, its percussion launching him into the nearby forest. He was fucking lucky that he didn’t hit a tree or get tossed over the cliff behind the house.
He laid on his back for a minute, dazed and confused, his ears ringing from the explosion.
Then everything seemed to stand still as he laid there gasping, staring up at the starlit sky, too stunned to move.
Something wet hit his face repeatedly. A minute later he realized it was raining.
He tried to flex his muscles and move his arms and legs, fearing he’d lost a body part along the way.
After doing a full assessment, all body parts accounted for, his breathing evened out and the ringing in his ears faded.
Now, he could hear the screams. Screams of pain and fright as the world burned.
Although slightly muffled by the sound of rain hitting the tree leaves and the forest floor, Aberlour still managed to hear them.
“Abe!” Somebody yelled into the comms. They screamed at him to wake up, sit up, get to his feet, but he couldn’t think straight or recall which direction he’d been running in before the blast.
“Aberlour! Do you copy?”
Aberlour, right. His name. Yes, he knew his name. Aberlour sat up slowly, taking in the world around him. At least he’d made it into the cover of the woods. No one else was around.
“I’m here,” he whispered, still out of breath. He struggled to get to his feet, but had to stop for a minute to kneel, trying not to pass out.
“Medevac is on the way,” JD called over the comms. “Meet us at the rendezvous point, now!” he ordered urgently.
“Roger,” Aberlour acknowledged, finally standing up and finding his bearings. He looked in every direction, searching for, and eventually spotting, the right landmark. He took off running.
Aberlour could hear the sound of a chopper in the distance as he approached the landing zone to see his team waiting for him. Five of the men were standing, and one was laid out on a makeshift stretcher.
“How is he?” he asked, gasping for breath and falling to his knees next to Oliver.
“Chopper is one minute out,” Marcus said, ignoring Aberlour’s question. He had a hand pressed to Oliver’s chest, and even under the dim light of the moon, Abe could tell his hand was covered in blood.
“Oli?” Aberlour asked.
Oliver was white as a sheet and could barely hold his eyes open.
“Darling, you hear me?”