Chapter 7 #2
The instructors called it a sleep period, as if sleep had anything to do with it. Ninety minutes. Long enough for the mind to remember what rest used to be. Short enough for the body to revolt when you asked it to move again.
The tent smelled like seawater, mud, and unwashed men burning through the last scraps of themselves.
Bodies shivered in damp cots, muscles twitching in half-dreams, salt stains gleaming white under the low red lights.
The rain outside had eased, leaving only the slow slap of water against the steel pier and the muttered groans of men fighting nightmares that were real before they closed their eyes.
Cormac lay flat on his back, staring at the underside of the canvas roof.
His eyelids felt like lead, but his mind wouldn’t shut down.
His pulse was a steady throb in his ears, his hip flexors on fire.
Every joint ached. He tried to stretch his toes.
Nothing. Just a dull echo in the void where his legs used to be.
He could hear Fisher breathing beside him, ragged, shallow. Someone snored once, then gagged awake. Another man whispered a prayer. The word Amen came out cracked and small, like a child’s.
Cormac closed his eyes and saw home, but not the kind he’d left.
Not Boston’s brick row houses or his brother’s badge gleaming under bar light.
This was deeper. Older. He saw green fields, shamrocks spilling over stone walls slick with rain, the smell of peat smoke curling into the sky.
He saw his grandmother’s hands, leathery and strong, twisting a clover stem until it broke clean between her fingers.
There’s always one, Mac, my little lad, she’d said once, voice rough with whiskey and love. One that’s got four leaves when it shouldn’t. If you find it, you keep it. Means you’ve got luck the world can’t steal.
His lips cracked in a smile that wasn’t really a smile. “Aye, Gran,” he muttered, voice barely a breath. That was his gift. He could always find that four-leaf clover.
Outside, a bell clanged, once, twice, thrice, metallic and mean. Somebody had quit. The sound cut through the tent like a verdict. A shudder ran down the line of cots. Nobody spoke, but every man heard it. Then five more times.
He shifted slightly, pain jolting up his spine.
His stomach clenched, empty and sour. He pressed a hand to his thigh, willing the muscle to move, to be his again.
For a second, he thought it might work. Then the tremor hit, uncontrolled, full body, a violent shivering that felt like his bones trying to break free.
His teeth rattled. The cot creaked under him.
He should’ve felt shame. Fear. Something. But all he felt was fury. Not at the instructors. Not even at the pain. At the idea that something inside him thought it had permission to stop.
“Don’t you bloody dare,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “We’re not done.”
The words came out low, half a growl. Fisher stirred beside him. “You talkin’ to yourself again, Kavanaugh?”
He smirked without opening his eyes. “Aye. Someone’s got to keep me company.”
Fisher’s laugh was thin and hoarse, a thread in the dark. “You’re insane.”
“That so?” Cormac murmured. “Guess we’ll see who’s still mad enough to be standing at dawn.”
“God, I hate you.”
“Mutual feeling, brother.”
He meant it, every word. He wanted Fisher there with him at the end, with the sand coating them, the pain and the endurance riding through them, the ocean still trying to claim them, and both refusing to let it.
If this man beside him was even a small dose of the kind of guys who made it through, who earned their Trident and joined the brotherhood, then Cormac Kavanaugh was in fucking amazing company.
Fisher’s chuckle faded into sleep, or something close to it. Cormac tried to follow. He slowed his breathing, counted the rise and fall, let the exhaustion pull him under.
But the mind was a bastard. It didn’t stop when the body begged.
He saw flashes, the surf pounding, the boat slamming against his shoulder, the instructor’s voice like gravel in his skull. You chose this, Kavanaugh. Nobody dragged you here. You wanted to be forged? Then burn.
He wanted to answer back, to laugh, to tell the bastard that fire didn’t scare him. But even in the dream, his mouth wouldn’t move.
Time became a smear. Ninety minutes stretched like a lifetime, then snapped shut without warning.
The red lights flared brighter. “Up!” The voice ripped through the tent. “Let’s go, gentlemen! You’re burning daylight you don’t have!”
Every muscle screamed. Men groaned, cursed, stumbled to their feet. Someone puked and wiped their mouth with a shaking hand. Fisher was already sitting up, eyes glassy, whispering something that might’ve been a prayer or a profanity.
Their gazes met across the dim red light, no words, no bravado, just the raw, simple truth of men who’d been to the edge and weren’t backing down. Something passed between them then, as real and solid as blood. Determination. They would finish this together, and that knowledge soared through him.
Cormac gave the faintest nod. “Let’s go get more fucked up.”
Fisher answered with one of his own, a wide grin tugging at the corner of his mouth along with a low, defiant laugh. That was enough.
Cormac swung his legs over the side of the cot. His body refused to obey, locked in spasms from the cold. He forced his booted feet to the floor. The pain was blinding, electric. He rode it out, one heartbeat, then another.
He looked around at the men who’d made it this far. Some blank-eyed, some wild. They were all ghosts now, half men, running on nothing but willpower.
His body screamed when he stood, every joint locking, muscles trembling under his weight. But that voice, steady, unrelenting, drove him.
Forty percent. That’s what they said. When you think you’re done, you’ve only burned through forty percent.
He’d thought it was bullshit once, something the instructors shouted to fill the air. But now, standing in the stink of sweat and seawater, staring at the dark outside the tent, he felt it. The wall was there, solid and cold, and he was already pushing through it.
That was the test. Not strength. Not speed. Will.
This was what the instructors were hunting for, what they’d been grinding into them all week. The ones who would still move when the body quit, when the mind screamed no. The ones who would keep fighting when the mission went sideways, hungry, freezing, bleeding, and still find a way forward.
He wanted to be one of those men. The one you could count on downrange when the world fell apart. The one who kept moving.
Fisher’s shoulder brushed his as they stepped out into the dawn, a small, unshakable reminder.
The men who finished Hell Week, the one percent, weren’t superhuman. They were the ones too stubborn, too loyal, too humble to stop.
Cormac Kavanaugh was about to find out if he was one of them.
He straightened, shoulders squared and braced to face the cold. Others followed, stumbling with him out of the tents like men returning from the dead.
Chief Petty Officer Brick’s voice hit like a hammer. “Move your asses, or we’ll do a nice round of push-ups before you grab your oars.”
The sea waited, black and endless. The air smelled of salt and pain and inevitability.
The rain had stopped, but the air was thick with mist, a cold haze that clung to skin and salt-raw lips.
The bay lights burned dim, floating halos in the fog.
Boats waited on the sand, rubber IBSs glistening black, slick as seals.
He let the command hang long enough for every muscle to protest, every heartbeat to count the cost. Then, in a tone almost gentle, he added, “If you quit right now, you can be drinking warm cocoa with them tiny marshmallows, steaming loaded pizza with gooey cheese, then a hot shower, warm, dry clothes, pain meds, and we’ll tuck you into bed with a bedtime story.
All you gotta do is ring that bell. No paddling.
No more wet, no more sand, no more cold or hallucinations. ”
He paused, eyes sweeping the line of hollow faces, finding every flicker of weakness and letting it linger in his gaze.
Footsteps sounded behind him, slow, steady. Bear emerged from the mist, his presence solid as bedrock, voice quiet but carrying.
“Just give up your goddamned dream,” he said softly, the calm cutting sharper than Brick’s bark, “and miss out on the best damn experience of your lives.”
His gaze swept over them once, no judgment, just understanding. This man had been here, soaked and broken, and he’d come out the other side. He was living proof it could be done.
Cormac felt it like gravity, that stillness. If this was the kind of man who finished Hell Week, who stood shoulder to shoulder in the Teams, then he wanted to be worthy of it. Of them.
Bear’s eyes caught his for a heartbeat, unreadable but steady. Then he asked, quiet as the surf, “Any takers?”
No one moved. The silence itself became a vow.
Brick’s grin flashed in the dark. “Didn’t think so. Let’s go make history, gentlemen.”
“Boat Crew Two! On me,” Barnhardt said, his voice low, laced with pain, but as determined as the rest of them.
“Hoo-yah, sir!” the five of them responded, voices cracking, but strong in the night.
Brick’s voice shattered the quiet. “This is your last ride, gents. Up the Strand, around the world, and home again. This will take you all night. You’re going to paddle, hallucinate, fight, and you will be watched. You quit now, you get to regret what your brothers earned and you threw away.”