Bear, on the other hand, didn’t believe in breaking men just to see if they’d shatter. He believed in pressure, not punishment. Discipline, not spectacle. The silence he carried unnerved Brick more than any defiance. It wasn’t rebellion. It was confidence that didn’t need a witness.
When Brick barked, Bear listened. When Brick prowled, Bear observed. Neither approach was wrong, but together they created a current that ran beneath the Grinder, noise and stillness, thunder and stone.
Brick called it complacency. Bear called it control.
They respected each other the way predators did—from opposite sides of the same kill zone.
“Welcome to your new religion. The ocean is your god, the Grinder is your altar, and pain is your prayer!”
The men echoed the call, half-fear, half-defiance. The LPO stalked among them, shouting, correcting, driving. Bear stood a few paces back, arms folded, eyes scanning. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to.
He watched their eyes, the ones who blinked when yelled at, the ones who stared too hard trying to hide it, and the rare few who steadied themselves, breathing through the noise. He looked for stillness in the chaos.
One of the candidates, tall, freckled, the sharp edge of Boston in his jawline, cracked a grin at another man as they hoisted a log. Cormac Kavanagh. Fire and defiance, all tangled in one heartbeat. Bear marked him without a word.
Next to him, a California blond, Indigo Fisher, moved with the rhythm of someone who had lived in the water long before he ever feared it. Calm, adaptable, watching the horizon between sets.
Farther down the line, a broad-shouldered athlete, sweat streaking the dark skin of his neck, carried the log as if it were part of him. Smith Jameson. Every step measured, no showmanship, no flinch.
Near him, leaner, balanced on the balls of his feet like a coiled spring, Tenzin Bhandari. His movements were precise, almost too careful, like a man trying to make order out of sand.
The Montana pair came next. Colby Chase’s grin was quicksilver, the kind of charm that hid calculation. Ensign Elliot Barnhardt’s stare beside him was harder, older. An officer already in bearing if not yet in experience. He looked like a man who’d never learned to rest.
They were already forming a shape. A rhythm.
Two others followed, a former Marine, Aaron Hutchins, shoulders squared to perfection, and a wiry kid named Luis Ramirez, his gear a little loose, eyes bright with something close to faith. Bear watched them all. They both moved like they had something to prove, and proof could go either way.
The LPO turned, caught Bear’s stillness. “You planning to join the living anytime soon, Locklear?”
Bear’s mouth barely moved. “Watching the tide.”
“Hell of a tide,” the LPO shot back. “You want a boat crew, pick one. Let’s see if your meditation works when they start puking.”
Bear nodded once and stepped forward. The shouting dimmed in his wake. The recruits felt him before they saw him, the shift in air, the quiet gravity.
He stopped before the line of men, eyes sweeping the faces. “Boat Crew Two,” he said. “Kavanagh, Fisher, Jameson, Bhandari, Chase, Barnhardt, Hutchins, Ramirez.”
Eight heads snapped up.
“From now on, you move together. You eat, run, and bleed as one. You fail together. You pass together.” His voice was low, even, unhurried. “If one of you breaks, you all pay for it. Understand?”
They answered in unison, though some voices cracked.
Bear nodded once more. “Good. Then learn to listen.”
He turned toward the sea. “She’ll tell you when you’re tired. Don’t trust her. Trust each other.”
The LPO barked something about pace. The surf thundered. Bear, watching the men fall into rhythm beneath the weight of the log, felt the faint, forgotten pulse of something steady inside him, purpose.
Bear stayed back, watching the pattern take shape, each man adjusting unconsciously to the others, breath syncing, will aligning. It stirred something he hadn’t wanted to feel.
Bailee’s face rose with the salt in the air, the memory of her hand on his skin, the echo of Not with you. The ocean had taken that sound, too. Swallowed it whole.
He folded his arms tighter.
Discipline first. Emotion later. He’d told himself that for years. But watching these men fight for rhythm, stumble, correct, and find it again, he felt the slow ache of understanding. Discipline without connection was just endurance.
The surf thundered, drenching the sand. Bear’s heart answered in silence.
