Chapter 16
“Vin, with me!” Sean called out to him as they reached the bottom of the fire escape and joined the Chain Gang in storming the camp’s gate.
Vin nodded in agreement. While Sean might have been keeping his distance on the rooftop, now that the heat of battle was upon them, they needed to watch each other’s back.
Chainz and his men had led the charge, taking the soldiers at the gate by surprise. A pair of industrial bolt cutters were used to cut the chain that kept the makeshift camp secure, and suddenly the door was open for them.
Vin held up his rifle as he crossed through the threshold into enemy territory. The distraction seemed to be working like a charm, and the resistance they were encountering was minimal. Vin knew that wasn’t going to last for long.
He took aim and fired on any advancing enemies he could see, dropping them where they stood. However, as they made their way farther into the camp, resistance started to increase. It wasn’t long before Vin and Sean were ducking behind a grouping of supply crates as gunshots pelted against them.
“Shit,” Vin called out, bracing his back against the wood as he locked a new clip into his rifle. “You get a count?”
“Two dozen at least,” Sean said, his voice low and clinical despite the increasingly dire situation. “Likely more on the way.”
“Breach!” a number of voices could be heard calling out into the night. “Breach!”
These were the remnant soldiers communicating with their fellows. They knew their defenses had been breached, and now the full might of the remnant camp was going to come down on them. Vin had known this would eventually happen, but he thought they’d have more time.
They were completely pinned down with enemy forces advancing. It was a situation Vin was familiar with, and he had a tactic in mind that he hoped would work as well now as it did back in the day.
He reached over toward Sean, pulling a hand grenade off of his old friend’s belt.
Sean’s head snapped toward Vin at the sudden motion, but he could clearly see what Vin was planning and nodded in agreement.
No words were needed between them. Sean popped up and provided some covering fire while also taking in the lay of the land.
“About sixty feet, three o’clock,” he said, and Vin nodded in understanding.
He pulled out the pin of the grenade and lobbed it overhead in the direction Sean had instructed. A few seconds later, a booming explosion rang out and the air was filled with the sound of screaming soldiers and bodies slamming into the ground.
Vin and Sean popped up, opening fire at everyone who had been displaced by the blast. They were soon joined by Legion, who fired a massive shotgun that threw the corpses of his foes back and away.
They had broken through the line and were free to advance farther into the remnant camp.
Vin had been in many battles since his forced retirement from the service, but this had been the first that truly felt like a war zone.
It was so different and yet so familiar at the same time.
His life as a bounty hunter seamlessly integrating with his former life as a soldier.
In the back of Vin’s mind, he could feel the grating edge of panic starting to set in. The unrest that had birthed itself within his brain years ago from the sight of too many gruesome battlefields was starting to creep back to the forefront of his mind.
He started to feel his hands shaking, and his brow was sweating profusely. Vin gritted his teeth, trying to gain control of this PTSD response. This wasn’t the time. It couldn’t happen here. Not now. Not while Deb and Jimmy’s lives were at stake.
But as time wore on and their slow but steady advance became more and more difficult to maintain, the cacophonous din of battle became all-consuming for Vin.
The explosions, the shots, the screams—it was starting to press on the walls he had built around his psyche, and the panic and unrest that had driven him away from his family began to regain its vice-like grip upon his beating heart.
He ducked down behind a large metal barrel, gritting his teeth and setting his rifle on the ground between his legs.
He pressed the palms of his hands against the sides of his head, trying to close off his ears and block out the hideous noise.
But it was ever-present. Eventually, the sound of his own quickened heartbeat matched the insane rattling of gunfire, and it was all Vin could do to stop himself from screaming.
“Freeze!” a voice called out beside him, and Vin turned in horror to see that in his moment of weakness, an enemy soldier had managed to break through and was pointing his gun right at Vin’s head.
But Vin could tell by the look in his eyes that the command he issued was simply a kneejerk reaction.
He wasn’t taking prisoners, and the intent to kill was marked on his face.
Vin froze, paralyzed by the moment, when suddenly a shot rang out from behind him, striking the soldier in the face.
He fell like a sack of potatoes, and Vin scooted back from his body as though it were made of fire.
He was stopped by a strong hand clamping down on his shoulder. Vin looked up, wide-eyed, to see Sean looking down at him with a grim expression. His savior looked concerned, but Vin wasn’t sure whether that concern was actually for him or whether it was more for the mission itself.
“Get a grip on yourself, man,” Sean called down to him over the rattling sound of battle that shook Vin’s bones. “I know how you’re feeling but remember what we’re doing here!”
Vin shook his head, unable to get a grip on himself. The noise, the death, the blood, it was all bringing his mind back to any number of battlefields where he watched some of the worst atrocities man committed upon man unfold.
Sean’s hand came flying at him, slapping him on the face. The pain barely registered as his addled mind rattled about in his skull.
“Listen to me, soldier!” Sean called out to him, looking right into his eyes with a fiery determination. “There’s a woman and a kid out there we both love! If that’s not a reason to pull your shit together, then there’s nothing I can say!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled photo.
He held it up to show a wallet-sized image of Deb holding Jimmy at the lake. They sat on the sand, and Jimmy had his arms thrown up toward the sky. Deb was sitting there in her bathing suit, laughing with a huge smile.
The sight of them reminded Vin of who he was and who he was fighting for.
As his eyes settled on the image, the sound of battle decreased, still present but not all-consuming.
Vin found the willpower to push aside the demons of his past, to shed the horror he had experienced and the haze and panic that overrode his mind faded away like morning fog.
Sean could clearly see a change in Vin’s eyes because he smiled down at him and offered him a hand of support.
Vin reached out and clasped Sean around the forearm.
Vin rose to his feet, shouldering his rifle and feeling renewed intensity light up his world.
There was a job to do, and he was no longer a soldier fighting in a war against a sea of enemy combatants.
He was only a man, fighting for what he believed in, doing battle in the name of family and friendship.
That was enough to pull him back to the surface.
This personal connection transformed the battlefield for him in a way that could never trigger his PTSD response.
This wasn’t a battle of nations, a battle of army against army.
Chainz and his men were there beside them, but they were inconsequential to the true meaning of this fight.
They were fighting for dominance, for freedom, for ideals that were larger in scope than anything Vin could truly conceive as an individual.
But he was fighting for something stronger, something more important than all of those intangible virtues that soldiers swear to uphold.
He was fighting for love. And the gates of hell themselves couldn’t hold him back from reaching his destination.