Chapter 22 #2
You see, this guy wasn’t just a weapons smuggler, he was in charge of recruiting. After a decade plus of us being there, it gets hard to get adult recruits. He’d started recruiting younger and younger. It was getting normal to find teenagers out fighting.”
Swallowing hard as a series of faces flashed through my mind, I shook my head to clear it. There were so many fucked up things we’d seen on that deployment.
"I’m getting ahead of myself. We didn’t know this going in. Intel had somehow completely missed that. We got to his hideout, and as usual we kicked in the door and began clearing the building.
“That’s…when everything went to shit. I was the point man, the one leading us through the building.
I rounded a corner and found a room full of children.
They began screaming and reaching for their guns.
I…I just…I froze. Couldn’t move. Just stood there staring at them in shock.
These were children, some of them only about eight years old.
I had no idea what to do or how to process what I was seeing.
“Jack didn’t freeze. He grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me out of the way, throwing me to the side and placing himself between the kids and me.
Then the gunshots rang out. They’d shot Jack.
Shot him in the back as he was pushing me out of the way.
The rifle rounds ripped through his protective gear, shredding his insides.
He saved my life and came home in a pine box because I fucking froze. ”
My voice was low, but even I could hear that I sounded more like a wounded animal than a man.
My body jerked when her hand covered mine.
I hadn’t even realized I’d put them on the table.
That I was holding the knife that’d been lying there.
Forcing my fingers to release it, I left it there, taking the comfort she was offering.
I didn’t intertwine our fingers because I didn’t want to inadvertently hurt her, but I let her fingers squeeze around the top of my hand.
Used the sensation to keep me grounded to the present.
I didn’t want to slip fully into the past in the middle of a restaurant.
“I broke right there. I didn’t just unfreeze, but completely lost control.
I was holding Jack as the bullets slammed into him, killing him almost instantly.
I saw the life leave his eyes and I flew into a blind rage.
I dropped his body and brought my rifle up, I didn't stop firing until everyone in the room was dead. I killed a child Sean’s age.
Most of them had taken off out the back before I started shooting.
I cost Jack his life. It set a pattern in motion.
If I hesitate, my friends are killed. If I act, children die.
It’s why I was ultimately discharged. I’m broken goods. ”
“Coming home and having to explain to Mary why her husband was dead was hell. Having to watch their two boys go through his funeral nearly broke me again.” I shook my head again, trying to rid myself of the guilt.
It would never leave me. I was able to go on living because he’d given up his life for me.
There was nothing I could do to atone for that.
The money I sent to his family every month was the only way I could help without being a burden to them.
I hadn’t seen them since the funeral, just couldn’t bear to see the sadness and disappointment.
Tears were sliding down Jordan’s face by the time I looked back up. She’d long since set her fork down, but I hadn’t realized the way my story was affecting her because I’d been in and out of the memories. I hated how unaware of the present I was when that shit happened.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. Reaching forward, I brushed one of the tears from her cheek.
That this woman would cry for me shook me to my core.
“That was a lot.” And I hadn’t even told her everything.
Like the pleasure I felt when I had embraced my rage.
That I often used fighting as a coping mechanism.
That I sought out battles now in order to numb myself again.
I took on any and all enemies, whether it was for the club or just for myself.
It didn’t matter who that threat was. I used it as a way to go back to the day Jack had died and redeem myself.
If I hadn’t done my job and killed everyone in that room, more men in my team would have died.
Hell, I might have died. I didn’t tell her how all of this, plus what happened a couple months ago when we’d attacked that cult, affected me.
I couldn’t. This was all I could get out for now.
I’d tell her more at some point. She’d know all of it eventually.
“I-” She swallowed and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry…it just seems so insignificant,” she told me. “I can’t imagine how horrible that was. Losing your friend. Having to do what you did in order to save everyone else…”
The knots clenching in my gut loosened the slightest bit. There was no judgment in her tone. She probably didn’t realize the full extent of what I’d had to do to get my team out of that situation. And that was fine. But for now, there wasn’t any accusation or pity when she looked at me.
“What helps you the most to hear?”
My brows shot up. Most people just told me how sorry they were. Only my brothers had ever asked what I needed. Well, them and one other man. The man who was responsible for me even still being here.
“Come here.” I scooted closer to the little half wall so she could sit next to me. As soon as her body settled on the bench seat, I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into my side. “Don’t cry for me. I don’t deserve it.”
“I doubt that’s true,” she argued.
Leaning forward, I brushed my thumbs over her cheeks again. “There’s still a lot to know about me, but that’s all I have in me to tell for now.”
“I understand.” She leaned her head on my chest, content to let me hold her.
My body began to unwind, to relax as my mind let go of the past. Not forever. These memories were never truly gone, they always popped back up. But I would get a reprieve for now. I was grateful for the woman I was holding and her part in that.