Chapter 14 #2
I swallowed hard. My chest tightened like it always did when the dream came back. “Extraction was waiting for us—a chopper just over a clearing. But to get there, we had to break cover. Open ground, no protection. You run and pray the enemy’s slower than your legs, that’s it.”
Emberlynn’s fingers traced absent patterns on my ribs, chest, and arms, grounding me in the present, but my head was already back there.
“I sprinted. Made it halfway across before the crack of a rifle split the air.” My hand tightened reflexively against her hip.
“The bullet hit me in the thigh—tore right through. Dropped me face-first into the dirt. That’s where the scar came from.
I can still smell the iron in the soil, the dust, my own blood. Feel the piercing stick and glass.”
Her breath caught, but she stayed quiet. Listening.
“I tried to push myself up, to crawl or even drag, anything to keep moving because the chopper blades were pounding nearby, my men were screaming, and I knew if I stopped, we were done. But I couldn’t. Men left that chopper to come and pick me up, take me to the chopper and get me to safety.”
I closed my eyes, Barrett’s face flashing in my mind. Hurt. Strong. Alive.
“Barrett was behind me. He was my brother—SEAL through and through. He’d covered me more times than I could count.
That day, I thought he’d make it out, too.
I heard him shout my name, and I turned just in time to see the round tear through his chest.” My voice cracked, low and harsh.
“One second he was there, the next he was falling. I couldn’t reach him. Couldn’t carry him. Couldn’t save him.”
The silence in the room was deafening, broken only by my unsteady breathing.
“In my dreams, I try.” My jaw clenched so hard it ached.
“Every damn time I try. I run back for him. I throw myself over him. I drag him through the clearing. I do everything I didn’t do in reality.
And every single time, he dies. Repeatedly.
My body wakes up drenched in sweat, heart pounding like I’m still there.
Because no matter how many times I replay it, Barrett doesn’t make it. I fail him. Every. Damn. Time.”
My hand raked through my hair as I let out a shuddering breath. “We saved Raya’s mom that day. I’m proud of that. But we lost Barrett. And that loss… it never leaves me. Not when I’m awake. Not when I close my eyes.”
Emberlynn’s fingers pressed against my chest, right over my heart.
She kissed the spot gently, her lips warm against my skin.
No words. Just presence. Just love. I let the silence after the story sit.
Didn’t fill it. Didn’t hide from it. Just let myself feel the weight of it—with her holding me through it.
Then she did the most selfless thing she could have done.
She removed the blanket from my body and kissed over the scars on my thigh.
Every cut, rigid line, then she kissed over my stomach and the light scarring there from light scars from random missions.
Last, she kissed over the scar on my face, then she caressed it softly.
“Thank you for sacrificing yourself to get Raya’s mother to safety.
For living to tell Barrett’s story. More than any of that, thank you for being so brave, baby.
For seeing everything that you’ve had to witness to keep this nation safe.
I’m sorry that you lost Barrett, but I’m happy that you had him in your life for as long as you did.
Remembering the golden brotherhood between you and him has to be heavy.
The love you have for him… I’m so happy that you feel it so deeply that you want to change the past. If he loved you half as much, then I know he wouldn’t want you to keep torturing yourself.
He’d want you to honor him differently. Whenever you’re ready to do that, let me know, and if there is something I can do for you, I will. ”
I nodded because my throat was so thick with grief and sorrow that I couldn’t speak.
Emberlynn’s love surrounded me, and that made it that much more difficult not to feel the weight of this conversation.
I pulled her mouth to mine and held her by her neck to keep her in place.
She melted into me, letting me control the kiss.
I didn’t hide the tears streaming down my face, and she didn’t point them out.
Instead, we kissed until we were both breathless.
Unsure of what to do, because I was feeling everything that she’d said, the story that was Barrett’s truth, and also the weight of how much I cared for her.
It was too much. Emberlynn sat beside me and pulled my head into her bosom, the warmest embrace.
It broke me, shattering everything inside me that wanted to fight for strength.
I couldn’t stop the sob that burst free.
I wrapped my arms around her, and she stroked my shoulders as I let go of it all.
The fears… the regrets… the hatred…
He wasn’t here. I was.
“It’s okay to live, King. Everyday make sure that you give it your all for him.”
I nodded hard, understanding the assignment.
Barrett, I’ll never forget you, brother. Don’t worry, the rest of our brothers took them down. We made it right, man. We did. We fucking did.
Then every thought faded out as I cried harder, letting everything I felt out. Right here in the arms of my woman. Afterward, when she was asleep, I made a call.
Emberlynn was asleep in the next room, curled up soft and peaceful in a way that should’ve eased me. But the silence pressed in heavy, louder than any battlefield, and my chest wouldn’t settle. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Barrett. Heard him. Felt the ground shake under my boots again.
I stared at my phone for a long time before I finally made the call.
“Hardison?” Andy’s voice came rough with sleep, but steady. “You alright, son?”
My throat tightened. “Yeah… no. Not really. I just—needed to hear your voice.”
I could hear him shifting, probably sitting up on the edge of his bed. “Talk to me.”
“I had one of those nights again,” I said, dragging a hand down my face like I could scrape the images away. “Dreams. About the field. About Barrett. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, I can’t stop seeing it. Hearing it.”
“You were close to him,” Andy said quietly.
“Yeah. He was my brother out there.” My voice cracked, gravel rough. “I keep thinking I should’ve done more. Should’ve gone back for him. He didn’t make it out because I—”
“Stop.” Andy’s tone cut through me like a whip.
Not unkind, but sharp enough to hold me in place.
“Don’t you do that to yourself. You hear me?
You did everything a man could do. War isn’t clean.
It sure as hell isn’t fair. You carried out your duty.
You brought people home. That counts. That matters. ”
I leaned back against the wall, staring at the ceiling. “Doesn’t feel like it matters when his face is the last thing I see before I wake up.”
“I know,” Andy said, his voice softer now, low and solid.
“And I wish I could tell you it goes away. Truth is—it doesn’t.
But it changes. What you’re feeling now?
That’s grief still chewing on your bones.
But you can’t carry guilt for things that weren’t yours to carry.
Barrett made his choices. You made yours.
Sometimes survival feels like punishment when you’re the one left breathing. ”
I swallowed hard, fighting the sting in my eyes. “How’d you learn to live with it? You lost brothers too.”
“By remembering them in the light, not the dark,” Andy said simply.
“By talking to them when I’m out working the fields, by raising a glass when I know they’d laugh, by telling their stories so they’re never gone.
And by leaning on people when I can’t hold it in anymore. Like you’re doing right now.”
My chest tightened. “Feels weak.”
“Hell no.” Andy’s voice was firm, steel-edged. “Takes more strength to admit you’re hurting than to bottle it up until it eats you alive. Weakness is silence, son. What you just did—calling me? That’s strength.”
I pressed the heel of my hand to my eyes. The words hit deeper than I wanted to admit. “I don’t know why you do this for me. You don’t have to.”
“You’re family,” Andy said without hesitation. “It doesn’t take blood to make that true. You’ve been like a son to me. And I’ll keep reminding you until you believe it.”
I couldn’t find the words. Just sat there with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to his steady breathing.
“You’re not alone, Hardison,” Andy said finally. “Not in this life. Not in your grief. Don’t forget that.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Thanks, Andy.”
“Always, son. Now get some rest. And when you wake up, don’t think about what you lost. Think about what you’re building now. That woman asleep in the other room that you told me about? That’s your reason to keep walking forward.”
He was right, and something in my chest loosened. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“Damn straight.” He softened. “Goodnight, Hardison.”
“Goodnight.”
I ended the call and sat in the dark for a while, his words still ringing in my ears. Emberlynn’s too. When I finally went back to bed, I pulled Emberlynn close, her warmth grounding me.
The ghosts felt quieter. Almost silent. That’s when I rested.