Chapter 7
Five Years Later
“Vhause. You ready?”
The room always felt smaller when something important was about to happen. Maybe not physically, but it just felt… compressed all of a sudden.
Everyone inside had decided without speaking that breathing was optional until the magic moment passed.
I noticed the weirdness before the Captain had even opened his mouth to ask the question—his fake tension and fake stillness.
People always liked to pretend they didn’t care about promotions or any kind of ladder-climbing, really. The military bullied any open enthusiasm out of us. When you got whipped like a damn dog enough times, treats didn’t matter anyway.
We learned to be indifferent to who moved up, who got stuck, and who just stayed invisible. We all tracked it, regardless. The innate human nature to feel pride at stepping over someone else and knowing...
I’m fucking better than you.
It was a quiet yet constant theme. All of us decorated soldiers were really just animals, measuring hierarchy without admitting we even had one.
My turn to bite.
“Effective immediately,” the Captain said, and the room sharpened instantly. “You’re promoted to SWAT Sergeant.”
There it was, the roar inside my head screaming ‘I’m the best.’
I could see the slight shoulder hunch of the other drones wanting my new position, and I stood a bit straighter just to drive home that defeat for them even more.
There was no buildup needed. No ceremonial bullshit that actually meant nothing. It was all words that changed how everyone in the room would look at me tomorrow and from here on out.
The hallways would be interesting, listening to my secret enemies acknowledge me as their superior.
A couple of heads turned toward me, but I kept my own head down and hid my smile.
I didn’t react right away. I wanted to marinate in this shit and let it sit in the air a second longer than necessary so others would feel it too.
Finally, I nodded once.
He started blabbering the minute I leaned back in my chair, but the words blurred until he shut up.
“About time,” I said with a laugh.
That got a few laughs, nothing loud, more like the controlled forced shit people thought they had to do to fit in. Some looks were timid, and others challenged me. Marty, in the back, was about to piss his pants, and I met his gaze.
He was the kind of person who was always testing whether they were allowed to relax around you, and now that I was top dog, he’d be my little bitch of choice.
The Captain’s eyes stayed on me. “You think you earned it, Hollis?”
My name.
Nobody said names around here. Not your first one, anyway.
What else did he say? Earned it? Ha.
That word always made me want to laugh.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was dumb as fuck to ask.
Earned.
Did anyone in the high ranks really earn shit?
Maybe.
Hell, most of us ‘top ranks’ had just been promoted after suffering here the longest amount of time. That was what built promotions in this world, suffering the abuse of the current top dog to become the next abuser.
I straightened just enough. Not aggressive, but enough to remind everyone I was paying attention and that I actually gave a shit. Maybe.
“I don’t think about earning it,” I said. “I think about results. I produce them. Other people don’t, and that’s why they aren’t where I am now.”
Silence followed.
Good. I meant what I said.
Someone near the back shifted and said it out loud for the first time.
“Sergeant Vhause.”
God damn, that feels good.
I glanced over my shoulder just enough to acknowledge them, and schooling the giddy, dumbass female inside me that was trying to surface at the title.
“Nah. Try again,” I said. “But without making it seem like you’re asking me to dinner, Striker.”
That broke the tension, and a few real laughs sounded, even if they were short and nervous. The biggest thing I heard was the respect mixed in.
Mounds and mounds of fucking paperwork came next. Always does. Authority doesn’t arrive without ink.
Can’t we just slice our wrists and bleed on the badge for fuck’s sake?
I signed without reading more than I needed to read.
Names…
Dates…
Obligations…
The usual illusion that any of it mattered more than what I’d already agreed to by staying in this stupid job.
All the paperwork really meant. “Do you agree to continue to be a drone to the government and break the psyches of men while you’re at it?”
The Captain slid the file back. “You’ll run tighter oversight now. SWAT coordination, plus patrol liaison. You’re the face of response.”
“The face?” I repeated, practically tasting it on my tongue.
He didn’t flinch when he eyed me. “Don’t make it complicated.”
I smirked faintly. “I don’t do complicated.”
That was a fucking lie.
I was a closeted gay man working as a fucking SWAT cop in the bumfuck boonies. I was the definition of complicated, but it was still a useful lie.
The room started to loosen again after that.
Chairs shifted, low voices returned, people pretended the moment was already over so they didn’t have to deal with what it meant for them, and, to be honest, not much had changed.
I stood first because I always did, just like I had to sit facing the door and couldn’t handle being near fucking walls.
Old habits…
I adjusted my vest and rolled my shoulders. My men’s stares were always weighted, but yet another title under my belt made that weight feel even heavier on my shoulders.
Protect the line, Vhause. These dumbasses’ lives and what they inevitably fuck up are all on your ass now.
“You’re dismissed,” the Captain said.
Like I needed permission.
I didn’t respond. Just turned and walked out.
Behind me, I could feel the shift already, and my chest tightened. It was the way people recalibrated when someone moved up: some got quieter, some got louder, and some acted like nothing had changed until it was too late to pretend anymore.
Then there was Marty, just pissing his pants, waiting to talk to me.
It never mattered to me which type they were. All of them were idiots bound to get my ass chewed out for their dumb shit. Boots never listened and were just larger toddlers with a penchant for cursing and worse hygiene.
None of them liked me.
I didn’t build my position on being liked. I built it on being the person they called when shit hit the fan, and they knew that this asshole would fix their fuck up.
Outside the building, the air felt colder than it needed to be, and I gritted my teeth at the frigid temperatures.
I paused just long enough to pull my phone out of my slacks and check it.
No emergencies.
No urgent calls.
Just the normal noise of other people’s lives continuing without me.
Good.
I slipped it back into my pocket and started walking again to my red Honda, Bettie, in the back of the lot. My Durango was my usual ride, but Allen lived too far outside the city to justify using it. That left driving the piece of shit, which shocked me every time she turned it on.
The car ride home was quiet, as opposed to the usual grinding sound of Bettie’s purr.
Kinky girl growled more than I did.
“Keep moving. That’s my good girl.”
My car sputtered for a minute before continuing the usual routine. I never called any actual female anything but fish, but social media was enough to see they must like that shit. The fact that Bettie kept puttering along was testimony to that.
Traffic lights.
Stop signs.
Endless cars.
Dumb twats who shouldn’t be fucking driving.
All while I had to act like a damn plebeian without my Christmas lights.
“Move, you fucking bagel!”
So many idiots owned a license. If I ever got promoted high enough, I would make it my mission to revoke them all.
“Not for nothing, my dude, but if you’re gonna text while driving, at least do it right and get out of the speedway!”
Idiots. All of America was stupid for sure, and while I didn’t travel, I assumed it was a safe bet to say the whole world, full of homo sapiens, was all full of fuck ups.
It was all muscle memory doing its job of driving while my mind drifted somewhere else entirely, not to anything specific, just the way it always did after a long day.
Promotion days were never celebrations.
They were transitions.
You didn’t become something new. You just inherited more weight and pretended it didn’tchange how you moved.
By the time I pulled into the driveway, the sky had already started dimming.
House lights were on inside, and I couldn’t stop the dead muscle inside my chest from skipping at the thought of what was inside.
Allen had always changed something in me.
Not softening me, exactly. I wasn’t a fucking chick. I was still the asshole I was born and bred to be, just…different with him. It was like a door I didn’t realize I’d been holding shut all day came ajar when little pieces of him bounced around my brain.
I stepped out of Bettie and shut the door, already loosening my tie before I’d even reached the front steps.
Habit, relief, and small permission settled inside me, and the heavy weight of the day felt like it was dissolving.
Inside, Allen’s house didn’t demand anything from me.
That was the difference.
No radios. No voices clipped with urgency. No expectations layered under every sound in the damn room.
Just quiet.
I shut the door behind me and dropped my keys into the fish-dish by the entryway. Allen had made the goofy-looking flounder thing as a teen, and it was the weirdest shit I’d ever seen, but it matched the goofy creator.
I smiled to myself at the memory of his dumb ass putting that thing down and demanding I use it while popping my boots off without caring where they landed.
“Hey.”
The voice came from the kitchen, and I didn’t answer right away. Just stood there for a second, letting the shift happen properly. Work to home. My real home. Steel to something less useful, but so much quieter.
Let go of the noise. Work is done for the day. You are home. You are safe.
The mental pep talk felt so damn girly, but it was needed to transition me from one mask to the other.
I waited for him to say something one more time before I got up and walked into the kitchen.