Chapter 18 #2
This is so much more than I thought I was signing up for, but my pride is too strong to back out now.
Rev walks over to me. “Gun at the ready, Dante. You’ll be at my six. You’ll follow my orders. When we clear a building, we work in a specific order. We communicate through comms. We stay alert.”
Adrenaline pumps through me as we line up at the doors where the red team slipped through moments ago. On Rev’s command, we enter swiftly.
A long hallway funnels us into a building that resembles an abandoned structure in West Bank, littered with broken furniture and rubble. Red and blue paint covers the walls from previous training sessions, reminding me that this is, in fact, only a simulation.
But my brain doesn’t care. It slips into survival mode, convinced someone is lurking behind every door and window, ready to bury a bullet in my head.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fear death. I’ve felt the cold chill of its breath on the back of my neck most of my life.
I watched it rob me of a father.
The blast of a gun snaps me into focus. Rev dips into the first room along the hall. I hesitate when I spot movement in my peripheral vision. Forest is quicker to pull the trigger on our enemy. There’s a curse, and then we keep moving as if nothing happened.
Did Papi’s murderer do the same? Did he feel any trace of remorse after his actions? Or did he carry on with life, no thought to the family he shattered?
My body turns cold as we clear the first and second floors with four casualties, putting us up by one. I manage to clip Cain Vincent in the shoulder on the third floor, but my surge of pride is short-lived because it’s not a killing blow.
When Cain turns in my direction, my heartbeat falters. Rev steps in front of me as a shot fires.
“No!”
The scream tears from me without warning. It’s obviously the wrong thing to do in a combat situation. Our team comes under fire within seconds. Orders fly on the comms, echoing through the building, and paint rounds splatter everywhere.
Rev’s eyes glint in satisfaction. “Aw. You do care.”
“I…Rev…”
My chest heaves, and his expression darkens. “Shoot him, Dante.”
I lift my gun and aim it around Rev’s body as he shields me. The marker hits Cain, painting his vest with a little splotch of blue. Cain nods in approval, but it doesn’t make the sickening feeling in my gut go away.
“I’m down,” I hear Forest call out.
Which leaves me and Neff for the blue team.
“Ezra’s still out there,” Rev warns me.
Fuck. I hope he doesn’t aim as well as he fights.
Neff and I split up. While she sneaks to the fourth floor I work my way down to the basement level.
Heart thudding against my ribcage, I peek my head out of the stairwell. A gun cracks, and I drop to my ass, cursing under my breath as red paint hits the steps behind me.
Okay, so we’re not fucking around.
Sucking in a deep breath, I dart out of the stairwell and take cover behind a concrete column. It’s too dark to make out where Ezra’s hiding, but when another pain marker splatters against the column I’m hiding behind, it gives me an idea of where he’s shooting from.
Charging in his direction, I fire off rounds like a madman. Only, I soon find myself surrounded by darkness. Feeling around with a gloved hand, I figure I must be in a narrow hallway. Are there rooms down here to clear? Should I turn on my flashlight?
My pulse throbs beneath my skin. I’m not scared of the dark, but I am scared of the shit that hides in it.
Using the wall to guide me, I ease further into the unknown. Something gives beneath my fingers. Buttons. The elevators, maybe?
I keep moving until I hit a dead end. When I turn around to backtrack, something sweeps my legs. Air gusts from my lungs as I hit the ground. Seconds after, a flashlight clicks on, revealing Ezra standing over me, the barrel of his gun pointed at my head.
Lowering his weapon, he crouches beside me. “Sorry, Dante. Hope we can still be friends.”
“How did you…it’s so dark…”
His smile is solemn. “I was kept in a space like this for a long time. In a way, the darkness is familiar to me.”
Something ugly twists in my chest. Hurt laced with fury over learning this horrible truth about him.
“Ez,” I murmur.
“It’s okay. I escaped. Sinro took me in.” His nose scrunches. “Well, they kind of held me here, but I didn’t mind. Anyway, I learned how to turn my fear into something powerful. Something that gave me an edge against my enemies.”
Frowning, I roll up to a seated position. “I don’t know that I’m strong enough to do that.”
It’s not necessarily a fear of death controlling me. More like a fear of letting go and then having things ripped away from me all over again.
I think I’m afraid to love.
Ezra tilts his head to the side, his hazel eyes softening. “That’s why you’ve got us here to encourage you.”
Words stick in my throat as something like a motor hums to life in the walls. The elevator doors open, bleeding light into the confined space.
Rev takes one look at me on the floor and sighs. “Oh, baby boy. I warned you.”
Ezra bounds over to his husband, standing in the elevator, and stretches up to kiss him. Cain doesn’t give away much in his expression, but his arm wraps around Ezra’s lower back to keep him close.
“You playing nice?” Cain asks his husband in a low tone.
The elevator doors shut on the scene, and I’m left with Rev in the dark.
“As much as I wish I could be in your head, I can’t always read you. Communicate, Dante.”
I bite down on the words threatening to spill out. That I want his arms around me. That I want to soak up his warmth and fill my lungs with his scent. That I want him to take me home and run his fingers through my hair and whisper sweet praises in my ear.
That I never want to be sitting in a basement, clutching a gun ever again.
And that might be the scariest thought of all.
If I don’t have revenge to keep my heart pumping, how do I live?