Chapter 5
brEAKER
Avoice boomed, “Wake up.”
My body jolted, and I came to with a start.
Darkness surrounded me, and for a moment, I forgot where I was.
Then I heard it.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I sat bolt upright in bed, woozy with sleep. My eyes veered to the clock beside me that flashed the time.
3:01.
“Is that Espinoza?” Benny muttered from the top bunk, his voice groggy
“He needs to fuck off,” I muttered, waiting for Benny to agree with me, but there was just silence. “Benny. Wake the hell up,” I croaked. “Someone’s hammering on the door.”
Through the pitch black, I saw my Containerized Housing Unit exactly as it had always looked.
Our tiny TV sat on top of the brightly colored plastic drawers that we retrieved from storage on our first day of deployment at Camp Eggers.
Our photos from home were stuck to the walls in the same places we’d taped them the day we arrived in Afghanistan.
A soft groan sounded from Benny.
“Get your ass up, Ben,” I ordered. “If we don’t report for duty, Hollister will write us up.”
Another groan sounded from the top bunk just as I heard, bang, bang, bang. Then a voice calling, “Break, you there?”
The room began to spin, and a sharp pain sliced behind my eyes. “Jesus,” I murmured, burying my head in my hands. “What the fuck?”
“Break!” A deep voice sounded from outside my CHU. “Get the fuck up. We gotta go slit some throats.”
I raised my head and looked around the room. My entire body began to jerk involuntarily. Every nerve ending tingled, making my hands numb. Usually, after a minute of me being awake, the dream would clear and the CHU would disappear, and I’d be back in bed with my Kitten, but this time, it didn’t.
I swallowed down the bile that rose through my throat.
What the fuck?
“Kit!” that voice bellowed again from the door. “Wake up!”
I looked around, confused to my core as I heard Benny’s groan from above me, but I couldn’t have heard shit; it was impossible.
Benny was dead.
“We'd better get to Espinoza’s office,” Ben groused, his voice tinged with exhaustion. “A device may have gone off outside the wire, and the EOD no doubt needs their two best bomb disposal experts to sort their shit.”
“What’s goin’ on, Ben?” I croaked.
A thud sounded on the floor beside me, and I turned to see Benny standing there, his chest bare, wearing jeans and a leather fucking jacket with the Speed Demons’ patch sewn on the front. My stare fixated on the patch, and I whispered the road name out loud.
“Ghost.”
Benny’s mouth stretched wide, then he gave me a chin lift and asked, “How you doin’, Bud?”
My shocked eyes took in every inch of him.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Benny since he’d died in an explosion. Taliban insurgents targeted our Humvee when we were on a kill mission in Kabul more than ten years ago. However, it was the first time I’d seen him looking even remotely like himself.
Usually, in the split second between being awake and asleep, I saw Benny in the corner of the room with black voids for eyes and charred skin, begging me to help her, Snow, though admittedly, it hadn’t happened for years.
Since reconnecting with my woman and kids after ten years, I’d taken steps to overcome the PTSD that had plagued me ever since that fateful night when Benny, our friend Kyle, and our Sergeant Espinoza were all murdered in an IED attack.
It wasn’t easy, and I couldn’t say I hadn’t struggled with it since, but my life was better than it had been in the aftermath. With the help of my family, some days I felt like my old self again. I could laugh and joke, and revel in the love of my wife and kids, and the support of my brothers.
I still dreamed sometimes and suffered episodes in my sleep where I relived everything. The flashbacks had never fully gone away, but they were few and far between and weren’t as bad as they were at the peak of my condition.
Except for tonight.
Tonight I was seeing ghosts again. And going by the way that Benny and I were frozen still and taking stock of each other, they weren’t leaving anytime soon.
“Are you okay?” I asked him, “Dude, I’ve missed you.
” I looked around the room and saw we were back in my bedroom at the clubhouse.
Kennedy had taken Kai and Kady back to our house down by the creek because he’d argued with Sunny and felt like a dick, but I’d stayed because we had Church early the next morning.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “I know. I’ve been here. Was sitting with you up on the mountaintop the day you left the VA at Grand Junction.”
Air whooshed out of my lungs. “You were?” I croaked.
He grinned cockily. “Yeah, and you were playin’ that cheesy fuckin’ Raleigh Ritchie song. I swear, Snow, you always were too sensitive.”
I chuckled. “Yeah. You were the only one who ever saw it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he murmured. “Your girl sees it, too.” He moved toward me and sat his ass on the edge of the bed. “I need to thank you for everything you did for Carina and Gigi. She was drowning, Snow, and I tried so fucking hard to get through to you, but you were too lost to understand.”
“I hated seeing you like that,” I rasped.
“But I never was like that,” he assured me. “That was your state of mind projecting your shit onto me. I was always this way; it was you who was tortured, so your mind made me the same way. I’m at peace, bro. I always was, and Kyle and Espinoza are good too.”
A burn hit the back of my throat, and I choked out a sob because the weight I’d carried around for ten years had suddenly fallen from my shoulders. It lifted away like a steel sheet that had suffocated me for so long that I’d gotten used to it being there.
Tears filled my eyes, and I leaned toward my friend, reaching out to grab him and pull him in for a hug, but my fingers went straight through him as if he wasn’t there, even though I could see him as clear as a summer’s day.
He chuckled. “Pain in the ass, huh?”
I shook my head, my eyebrows knitting together, and asked, “Are you a ghost?”
He pointed to his name patch and grinned, “Well, yeah, but also no. I’m whatever you believe in.
I could be a ghost, a dream, or a figment of your imagination.
I could be your PTSD, or I could even be an angel, though that’s fucking unlikely, seeing as most of them are pious sons of bitches who wouldn’t know a good time if it smacked them in the ass.
Still, the warrior ones are fucking awesome. ”
“Benny,” I cut in. “Help me out here. Am I going crazy?”
“You’re not crazy, Snow. You’re as sane as the next man. With that in mind, I need you to believe in this enough to do me a favor.”
I nodded emphatically. “I’ll do anything you ask, brother. Is it something to do with Carina?”
Surprisingly, he said, “No. Rina’s moving on now. Her new life in your Virginia chapter suits her, and she’s safe there. I’ve got no worries about my woman or my baby girl. They’re both doing exactly what they should be doing, in the place they’re meant to be.”
“Okay,” I nodded, “that’s good. So tell me what you need?”
“It’s Hollister who needs to move on,” Benny announced quietly. “You gotta help him, Snow.”
Lieutenant Hollister was in the Humvee with me the night our brothers died.
We were following Benny and the others and were also attacked.
Our truck never exploded; instead, we rolled and crashed, resulting in Hollister losing a leg.
I’d sought him out a few years before and recruited him into the MC.
He was the VP of our Virginia Chapter. “How?” I asked. “He won’t listen to me.”
“Make him,” Benny ordered. “If you don’t, he’ll miss the one opportunity he’s got to be happy, and he’ll end up living with even more regrets than he already does.
He may not have PTSD on the level you have, brother, but that doesn’t mean the asshole ain’t got demons.
Go visit, you’ll see. You’ll feel it. Tell him I’m good with it, and I just want her and Gigi to be happy.
Tell him life’s too fucking short to sweat the small stuff. He’ll know.”
“I’ll call tomorrow,” I promised. “Arrange a visit to Virginia.”
“Good,” He nodded toward the pile of clothes on the chair. “Now get your ass dressed, minus the Coke can. You’ve got bigger fish to fry tonight.”
My gut jerked at his tone. “What?”
“The kids were playing Ouija board earlier, and let’s just say they put a crack in the Veil big enough for a bear to get through.”
My head reared back. “Veil?”
“There’s no time for questions. Go get dressed. Atlas will be here for you soon.”
I nodded, pushing the comforter away and swinging my legs over the bed. Barefoot and buck ass naked, I padded to the chair to collect my clothes, stopping at the drawer to grab clean shorts before heading into the bathroom and leaving the door cracked open while I got dressed.
“Hey, Snow,” he called through the door. “Did you hear the one about the lieutenant and the cannibals?”
My chest twisted so hard it felt as if I was getting shredded from the inside out. Jesus Christ, I’d missed this so goddamned much.
I missed my brother’s good heart and corny jokes.
I missed his voice of reason, his dark sense of humor, and his authenticity.
I just missed him, but I knew he wouldn’t be here much longer, and that knowledge killed me.
My eyes squeezed shut, and I pushed down the emotions, just like my old lieutenant used to order.
Shut it down, Snow.
Shut it all down.
“No, Ben,” I croaked, lowering the toilet seat so I could sit down and pull myself together. “Tell me.”
Benny’s voice drifted into the bathroom,