Chapter 4
MIKEY
Like white noise, the chopper blades thumped rhythmically in the background. The crisp air twanged with that scent of metal. Familiarity was all around me. Off to do something that I was good at. The one thing that I was good at.
And the timing had never been better. What in the actual fuck was that strange interaction with the new sniper earlier? It stole my balance, despite being the one to steer the conversation. The intention had been to apologize for my reaction earlier. She was not the target of the rage that twisted my soul. However, she was a woman. But then I heard that nickname. Squib. Bernie was as derogatory as they came, but that was something even lower than he’d ever sunk.
“Everyone know the plan?” Dom asked, finishing his instructions. The clank of a magazine reverberated around the helicopter as someone loaded their weapon. Leaning my head back against the chopper wall, I gave a quick nod and rested my rifle against my chest. Out of habit, my fingers tucked beneath the collar of my desert camo shirt and slipped the dog tags over my head. Bernie reached forward with his own tags, ready to toss them into the same container that wasn’t there.
“Not this time,” Dom stated, patting his chest. “They get to stay on.”
Nodding once in confirmation, Bernie retracted his hand as I let my tags fall back around my neck and beneath my tight shirt.
Scottie’s brows flickered briefly in confusion, her face pulled tight as she sat next to me. But she didn’t open her mouth to say anything. Not a sound had left her since the announcement of our departure other than the occasional clack of her teeth.
Part of me wasn’t sure what to make of the conversation we’d had right before gearing up and heading out. The other part was intrigued by the possibilities that it presented, and I hated that.
“Relax, Corporal,” Ford said, seated across from her and chambering a bullet.
“I’m relaxed,” she hissed. Her gaze blazed with a fire. Rage—a familiar sight since I was so often motivated by that feeling.
Ford cocked his head, clearly not believing her. “This one’s a fairly simple mission. In and out. Leave nothing behind. Bernie’s favorite kind of missions ’cause that means he gets to blow shit up.” The massive man wiggled his brows as her dark eyes stared at him, narrowed.
Bernie clapped Ford on the shoulder. “I don’t think that helped, dumbass.” His green eyes slid back to Scottie and smiled. “You’ll be far away from the danger, perched up on a hill making sure that no one surprises us. I’ll make sure the explosion doesn’t reach you.”
“I don’t need you to protect me. I’m not some helpless girl you have to save,” she snarled, and I bit back an unintentional smile.
“Nobody wants to be saved by Bernie, that’s for sure.” Duncan winked. A chuckle reverberated deep from my chest, and she shot a quick glance my way. Dom shook his head but said nothing as Scottie inhaled deeply.
Digging through my pocket, I found the worn pack of cigarettes that Griffin had given me on his last tour. I’d smoked only one since, carrying it more as something to ground me than anything else.
Without a word, I offered one to her. She merely shook her head, and so I stuck one between my teeth, then shoved the rest back in the pocket. Rolling it around on my tongue without lighting it brought a sense of ease to the excited nerves tossing in my stomach. The unrest was not a result of the impending op, but because of her.
How the hell were we supposed to just trust that she’d keep us safe? We’d met only a couple of hours ago. She’d never been through BUD/S, hadn’t even been out on an actual combat tour before. Everything in her file read training after training, which was great, but training only goes so far. Being out in the actual field, killing someone for the first time, was an entirely different thing.
“Ask something, it’ll help calm the nerves,” Duncan quietly said from the other side of her. “It did for me.”
Bernie snorted. “You should’ve seen Duncan on the first flight out on a mission. Dude pissed his fucking pants the moment our boots touched the ground from the chopper ride. We should’ve decided to make entry by water ’cause that would’ve at least covered his shit up.”
Duncan’s face turned red as he shook his head. “I didn’t shit my pants,” he grumbled.
“Still pissed them.” Bernie grinned.
Scottie tipped her head and scanned the rest of the team. “Why do you care so much about making sure I’m not nervous?” she sternly asked, her voice holding not a single ounce of wavering inflection.
“’Cause I’m not exactly in the fucking mood to die during some shit as simple as this,” Ford stated, adjusting his tactical vest.
Her gaze narrowed. “You don’t think I can do this, do you?”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to shoot straight if your knee keeps bouncing like a crackhead tweaking out,” he coldly answered and leaned his head back, closing his eyes.
Scottie clenched her jaw and slammed a hand over her leg. Fingers now braced against her knee, her leg continued to twitch. But she refused to acknowledge Ford’s soft jab at her. Defensive when needed, silent when not.
Feisty one. Kinda hot…
Get a fucking grip, I silently scolded myself and stared across the black chopper.
“You got a nickname or something from sniper school?” Dom asked, changing the subject but not admonishing Ford.
Scottie blinked, clearly confused by the question as my stomach twisted into knots. She cast me a brief glance, knowing that I could easily share the information with everyone about what they called her. But instead, I made no move to say anything. There was a morbid curiosity to see how she handled this question swirling in my gut.
“What’s wrong with my given name?” she asked, lifting a brow at Dom.
Resounding chuckles left all of us, including me, and my gaze drifted away from her to land on the floor.
“It’s for your call sign. Can’t very well be saying ‘Scottie’ over the comms. I mean, I guess we could, but that would not be good for your personal protection.” Dom clasped his hands in his lap.
“Oh,” she muttered, the first hint of embarrassment rising in her sharp cheeks.
“We can change it later, but we need something. I’m Phoenix,” Dom said and then pointed at Ford. “His call sign is Tank.”
Scottie snickered. “Fitting.”
Ford pursed his lips. “It’s for my damn rate, I’ll have you know.”
“Nah, it’s for your big ass,” I quipped, and he tossed a crumpled up gum wrapper my way.
“Duncan is Matrix, Mikey is Viper, and Bernie is…” Dom paused and glanced at the redhead sitting next to him who was grinning from ear to ear. “Bernie is Bernie.”
Scottie’s head shot up, her gaze rising from the rattling metal floor. “Your name is your callsign too?”
He shook his head. “My name is Benjamin, but everyone, since my first tour as a SEAL, including my mom now, calls me Bernie. You know, because I like to blow shit up. Bernie the Blaster.” His grin widened like a kid in a candy store.
Scottie arched her brows. “You know, I have been wondering something. Why do you guys use your first names? Pretty much since bootcamp, I’ve been called Aleck—my last name.”
My heart twanged, reminded of something I hadn’t thought about in years. “It was Griffin’s idea,” I answered. My tongue slapped to the roof of my mouth as I clenched my jaw.
“Griffin?” she asked.
“Our old commander,” Ford answered and sat forward, opening his eyes. “And the best damn sniper I’ve ever met. The guy who you’re temporarily replacing.” Ice slipped across his words, as cutting as his gaze that narrowed in on her.
She hesitated in her response, but there was no sign of her backing down to a man built like concrete, just merely a pause. “Why’d he do that? It’s different from everyone else.”
“Exactly that. He wanted us to be different. And it clearly fucking worked because no one’s been killed or seriously injured from this team since he took over. Shot a few times, concussed, broken bones, but nothing permanent. Not anyway, yet,” Duncan answered, casting a questioning glare at Ford.
“And your name is really Duncan?” Scottie shifted in her seat, her shoulders relaxing as we flew closer and closer to our first destination of death.
“I know, right?” Bernie answered, casting a wink at the man seated beside Scottie. “What was your mom thinking? Imagine bumping uglies and trying to moan the name Duncan.” He leaned his head back and let out a high pitched “Duncan” that sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“And that right there is why you don’t have a fucking girlfriend, asshat.” Duncan reached across the chopper and flicked Bernie on his forehead.
“Tell me one girl who’s ever been able to properly moan your name. Just one, and I will take it back right now.” Bernie lifted a cocky brow at Duncan.
“But who the hell wants to moan Bernie in the middle of fucking someone?” Ford backed up Duncan and then backhanded Bernie on his chest.
Scottie’s eyes slowly widened as I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. “At least those girls aren’t coming to a fucking vehicle brand,” I jabbed with a crooked grin, and Ford snapped his steely gaze toward me.
“Low, Mikey, very very low,” he hissed with a wink.
Scottie’s eyes were ready to bug out of her head, but she seemed to be only half listening to the conversation at hand.
“Alright, shitheads,” Dom said, attempting to rein us back in.
“But really, are you guys being serious about your legal names?” Scottie asked, ignoring Dom. “Like Ford. Is that really it?”
He nodded.
“And Mikey? On your birth certificate it says ‘Mikey’?” she added, turning toward me.
“It’s Michael,” I answered, and she inhaled deeply. Her eyes lingered on mine, long enough that I mindlessly began counting the dark flecks speckled within her glowing amber irises. They seemed lighter now compared to earlier. How intriguing and rather unique. Now a color somewhere between a roaring fire and a deepening sunset stared back at me. Calculating. She may not have said much, but she sure as hell was absorbing it all.
A flash of something more innocent crossed her gaze. Ever so briefly, I doubted it had even happened, yet my heart latched onto it. Almost as if she’d nearly found herself asking something of me. A whispered secret, one that held fear unlike I’d experienced in my life.
Maybe that made me clinically insane, or a psychopath, but death—whether being met by his outstretched hands or delivering the grim reaper to a target myself—had never been something I feared.
But now, a twinge of uncertainty graced my darkened soul. For the first time in my life, I thought twice about what was coming. And while I still wasn’t afraid to meet death or deliver that final blow, there was a new urgency to make sure that every single movement and choice of mine was deliberate.
Silence settled over the group as the pilot let us know we were about five minutes out from drop. Adjusting the headphones over my ears, my fingers started the mindless checklist of my gear. There was a sense of something new in the air. But not one that I could place or decipher—yet.
Just a shift in the atmosphere. A change that smelled stuffier and more permanent than anything I’d experienced yet. The tips of my fingers tingled, itching to deal more than a warning blow during sparring but for reasons I couldn’t place. Anger roared in my heart, fueling a fire that started the moment everything at home had changed—maybe that was it. But something in the dark silence of this metal box told me that wasn’t entirely the issue.
Even joining Griffin and Jane during her MMA training had done nothing to satiate this strange need for blood. Maybe Griffin had been right. Maybe I was bottling up my emotions that all related back to Rachel instead of addressing them and letting them go.
Violence stirred in me, warning me I was on the verge of tipping into something dangerous and teetering on the edge of uncontrollable.
“Squib,” Scottie muttered lowly beside me, snapping me out of thoughts that shouldn’t be crossing my mind. “My nickname was Damp Squib.”
Dom’s brows creased, and shocked faces of the team faced her. Unexpected rage seized through my bones hearing her say it, tightening that deal with the devil I’d made the moment I signed my name to enlist.
Dom shook his head. “You were top of your class and they called you fucking ‘Squib’?”
She nodded, refusing to meet anyone else’s gaze.
“Well, we sure as hell won’t be calling you that.” Dom pulled his balaclava up over his mouth, shielding everything but his eyes.
“How about Eagle?” Bernie offered, mirroring Dom’s movements. I slipped the fabric over my nose and adjusted the mask around my collar.
“Nah, doesn’t fit her,” Ford answered, slipping sunglasses over his eyes.
“Scottie, when you think about your childhood, what’s the first thing that pops in your head?” Dom asked, shifting in his seat.
Buckling my helmet over the balaclava, my gaze slid to Scottie. Her eyes glazed over, drifting to a memory that twisted her features with both pain and yet a tenderness. “I used to sit and feed the birds that came to our yard. Crows. Specifically, they were crows.”
Everyone slowly nodded except for me. “Alright, Crow it is,” Dom replied.
Crow. I let the word tumble around in my head and coat my tongue. How fitting. Those beautiful black birds as black and sheen as her beautiful hair that my mind had been tormented with since I laid eyes on her.
What the hell was going on with me?
Luckily, it seemed that no one noticed my unusual silence as Bernie joked, “She doesn’t fear death, does she?”
Not a single person noted that not a word had left my mouth.
Except for Scottie. Her eyes held a fire, a blazing question within the saffron swirls flecked with black.
I wondered if she could sense it. This strange thread that seemed to weave its way toward her. It was unintentional. I was struggling with the idea that she was supposed to have my six during our missions, let alone her being someone more than just a stranger with a gun on my side of the war.
No, there was no way that I would ever jump into something that risked more pain, more anger, especially since she was merely temporarily assigned to our team.
Being here, doing this job, was where I was needed, and she would be gone by the end of this tour.
All I had was the here and now, with my team.
And this stranger, seated next to me, who would disappear within a few months.