Chapter 33
SCOTTIE
“Mikey,” I mindlessly whispered into the nothingness. A team I didn’t trust surrounded me. People I didn’t recognize silently walked ahead of me, except for Dom. He lagged behind, keeping pace next to me as we continued our ruck home.
Another wave of tears slid down my cheeks. I’d long since abandoned wiping away the stains on my skin. I clutched my sniper rifle—retrieved during the ruckus somehow—to my chest. Mikey would’ve helped clean the blood from my hair. He would’ve asked me how I was doing.
Or maybe he wouldn’t have. Not after how I’d told him off again. I shook my head, desperately trying to rid myself of whatever lesson I didn’t want to learn from this. All he’d asked was if there was something more between us. And I’d pushed him away for fear of what would happen to my damn career. Which pained me even more since he’d promised he wouldn’t say anything to anyone, and Mikey kept his promises—all but one. This was my burden to bear, this consequence and pain knowing that the one man who was worth risking it all was gone.
“I had to do it, Scottie,” Dom’s voice sliced through my thoughts. He didn’t look at me, simply stared out into the distance. The sun breaking the horizon had never looked so beautiful. The pinks painting the cotton balls in the sky were hauntingly stunning.
“No, you didn’t have to,” I hissed, choking down the tears. “You could’ve killed Karim instead.”
“I didn’t have a clear shot. If I had missed, he would’ve escaped with—”
“He still got the damn coordinates! We could’ve had a chance to rescue Mikey, but instead…” I closed my eyes, squeezing back the tears.
“He didn’t get the right ones. Mikey gave him fake tags,” Dom quietly explained.
“Wh-what?” I stammered, cracking open my eyelids as my feet stumbled beneath me.
“Mikey gave him fake tags. We made up the coordinates on them,” Dom said again.
Indescribable rage and emptiness flooded my heart. “You knew?”
He nodded. “It was Mikey’s idea to give him fake coordinates.”
“That’s why you didn’t fight?! Why didn’t you try harder before fucking shooting him? Did everyone else know too?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“No. But I asked them to trust me,” he explained.
“That’s what you said over the comms,” I whispered. My bones ached as we plunked steadily onward. “You still killed Mikey…”
Dom hung his head, wetting his lips. “There was no other way. Mikey was aware of the possibility. He agreed to it.”
I shook my head, denying every word that came out of his damn mouth. “No. I don’t believe it. There’s no way. Mikey wouldn’t…” My breath hitched. Every inhale felt like I was sucking through a thin straw. “Mikey wouldn’t leave me like this.”
“Don’t be mad at him,” Dom quietly said. There were no words to describe what I was feeling. Anger didn’t cut it. But also, there was nothing. Not an ounce of feeling left in my veins. “Be mad at me. I pulled the trigger despite knowing he loved you. So, be mad at me.”
“You… You what?” I gasped, sniffing.
He chuckled, half-heartedly. I followed his gaze that slid to the piercing canvas above us. “The sky is unusually beautiful this morning, isn’t it?”
“Don’t do that,” I snapped, swallowing the pain. Though the sky was quite breathtaking.
Dom finally looked at me. “You’re not that good at hiding your emotions. And Mikey’s not that good at being subtle when it comes to those he’s loyal to. I put two and two together, especially after the sandstorm.”
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, staring out at the desert. It was as desolate as my soul. “I’ve never been in love before,” I muttered. “And I’m pretty sure Mikey died thinking I used him. That he didn’t mean that much to me.”
“I guarantee you’re wrong there,” Dom replied.
I pulled my bottom lip into my teeth. “I feel like I can’t breathe,” I whispered, gasping. Curse Mikey for showing me it was okay to be vulnerable.
“Me too, Scottie,” Dom whispered. And the man next to me looked so small.
Mikey died alone. All because of me. It was my selfish choice. Dom knew this entire time and—
“Wait, why aren’t you upset that Mikey and I…?” My voice trailed off, unable to complete the thought knowing that it was all in the past.
Dom chuckled. “Because it clearly only made him a better operator and you a better sniper.”
“And you still fucking killed him,” I hissed. I couldn’t stop the waves of agonizing anger and pain, crashing against the rocky shores of grief and emptiness.
“I know, Scottie. I know.” His eyes glazed over. Mikey may have given him permission, knew the risks, yet it still burdened Dom.
“But you weren’t willing to ask anyone else to do it, if necessary,” I muttered, realizing how much I didn’t envy Dom’s position as team leader.
He shook his head, his gaze slipping down to his boots. We trekked along in silence, the muffled conversation of the men in front of us indistinct, garbled words. I needed Dom to keep talking. This unexpected moment of silence scared me. Every thought of mine returned to the man left dead. A bloodied hole in his chest. His body strewn at an awkward angle from the impact of the bullet.
“He loved me,” I whispered, tears clouding my vision once more.
“I’m just as surprised as you, Crow,” Dom gently said.
“Why? Is it really that unbelievable that I might be worth loving?” I snapped at him.
He slowly shook his head, a soft smile widening on his face. “No. I’m surprised that Mikey could love. He’s always been so angry. So burdened. His ex-girlfriends always seemed to be people he cared about so he simply wasn’t alone, but it was never…more. I met Rachel a couple times, and he never once looked at her the way he did you.”
A tear slid down my cheek. “It wasn’t anger, Dom. I don’t even think Mikey realized it was never anger.”
“Then what was it?”
“Grief.”
Dom furrowed his brows. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times like a snapping turtle. But even if he’d asked questions, I wouldn’t have answered them. That part of Mikey’s story was finally at rest. At least that part of his burden was lifted. He would no longer have to be haunted by pain and grief that was no fault of his own.
“So,” I started, inhaling deeply and wanting to fill the empty silence that surrounded us again. My heart cracked, but I closed my eyes, ignoring the searing agony ripping through my soul. “How’d we get out of there anyway?”
“Well, it helped that Karim seemed so focused on heading to go locate his Black Box,” Dom replied.
“Whatever’s on there has got to be extremely valuable. More valuable than just some logs or shit like that.” I adjusted the helmet on my head, dried blood scratching at the crown. “Wait, two things. One, why did he just accept the tags as is? Wouldn’t he have noticed they’re fake coordinates? And two, what about when he figures out they’re fake coordinates?”
Dom dug into his pocket and pulled out a packet of chew. “Mikey made the fake coordinates in a relatively realistic location that the Black Box might have been stowed. So when he checked them over, they’d pull up a location that was believable. But I’m already banking on him finding out they’re fake before he even gets to the given location. And yes, before you ask, I had the colonel send a squad out to the destination just in case.”
“So, more than you and Mikey know the coordinates,” I stated.
Dom shook his head. “No. The colonel and that team know the fake location.”
“Right.” I ran a palm over my brow, frustrated that things were connecting slowly for me. “And you think that he’ll be warned they’re fake coordinates because of Reyes.”
“We don’t know for sure that the mole is him, but yes.”
“Karim called me ‘squib.’ Plus, Mikey said that Reyes thought he should have my position with the team. You think the kidnapping is related, what better way to ‘prove’ he should’ve been the one and not me than that?”
“Yes, true. Which is why the moment we’re back at base, we’ll have the colonel detain him and interrogate him.” Dom stuffed some tar between his teeth and lip.
“So, what’s stopping Karim from coming after us again while we’re simply walking back to base? We’re sitting ducks. Out in the open,” I asked.
Dom pulled his lips into a thin line. “Nothing. But that’s also why we’re not taking a break. We’re going to ruck straight back to the outpost.”
“You know what, better question, why the hell aren’t we going to the actual location of the Black Box?”
“Two reasons. We don’t have any other mode of transportation at the moment. And since I’m the only one that knows where it is actually located, we aren’t in a rush. I want to check on a hunch about Reyes first and allow us time,” he replied.
“What hunch?”
“I’m guessing he’s already gone AWOL.”
“Why would you say that?” I glanced at Dom. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he spit some nicotine from his mouth.
“Think Scottie. Karim tracked us. Ambushed us right where Mikey assumed he would. The only way al-Jabari would’ve known any of that is if Reyes had informed him. Which leads me to believe that Reyes knew we were onto a mole. Onto him.”
I shook my head. “I just have a hard time believing Reyes did all of this because he was jealous of me.”
“Oh, Scottie. There’s obviously more than just jealousy that caused him to do all of that shit. Money for one. I bet Karim offered him cash that the military could never match. But jealousy is a huge motivator, a powerful emotion. Karim probably offered him power, or a matching position to the one he believes you stole from him.” Dom looked away, spitting out some tobacco as we continued plodding alone.
“I never thought of myself as dumb, but man, hearing all of this, knowing Mikey and everyone else probably already reached these conclusions makes me feel like a real idiot,” I grumbled.
Dom chuckled lightly. “Not an idiot, Scottie. You’re just inexperienced. Besides, you’re not a SEAL. You don’t have the same training as we do, and you forget Mikey and Duncan’s rates are both intel specialists.”
Slipping my tongue across my dry lips, I briefly closed my eyes. “People underestimated Mikey a lot, didn’t they?”
“Yeah. Most of the time they saw a kid with aggression issues and a temper.”
“Your old commander, Griffin, he saw something different.”
“I won’t lie, when it came time to draft a new SEAL, Mikey was not on my list. His scores were unique. Ranking really high, almost too high in things like close-quarter combat and marksmanship. Hell, his fucking skills with a blade were insane. But then it was almost as if he purposefully scored the lowest possible to still pass in other things. So I wrote him off.”
“Seriously?” I furrowed my brows, glancing at Dom. For this brief interlude in my grief, it was nice talking about Mikey like this.
“I learned a lot from Griffin. He pointed out how unusual and deliberate Mikey’s scores seemed to be. Mikey also didn’t go out of his way to draw attention, but everyone knew who he was. So, I, of course, wrote him off again, but Griffin…” Dom’s eyes glazed over, and the volume of his voice dialed down to barely a whisper. “What’s he going to think when I have to tell him?”
I glanced at him, sorrow filling my soul. Not just for me and my plight, but for Dom’s. There were no words able to adequately answer a question as heavy as that one. Nothing I could say would console Dom.
Sighing, I shifted the topic. “What happens now?” I asked, realizing I wasn’t sure what the protocol was.
“Well, Rachel doesn’t get any death benefits if that helps,” Dom muttered, and then he quickly walked away. Leaving me alone, clearly not wanting to talk about things anymore.
And the swarm of hate that ached in my heart flew back in, crowding every corner of blackened death my soul succumbed to. Dom could make up whatever excuse he wanted to in order to justify what happened, but that didn’t change the facts of what happened.
We still didn’t have the Black Box. Reyes was the mole, had somehow figured out the route we were taking despite going dark, and most likely gone AWOL. Karim knew who we were and would be coming after us at some point.
Mikey was dead.
In other words, we lost.
We’d not just lost, but we’d been absolutely annihilated.
Crinkling my nose to fight back the tears, what little of my heart was still beating shattered in my chest as the final fact scored my bones: We would not be returning for Mikey’s body either.
We couldn’t.
In a single moment of destructive fate, I’d lost my friend and lover, before I’d ever accepted him as either.