Lights flashed.The hum of a chopper vibrated under me. The thump, thump of chopper blades whooshed through my ears. I felt floaty, as if I was lying on my back in the ocean.
“TOC, this is Alpha Three. I am en route with Alpha Two.”
“Roger Alpha Three. What’s Alpha Two’s condition?” Commander Mercer asked.
“He’s in rough shape. His heart stopped, and he had to be shocked. He seems to be stable. Scratch that. The corpsman just shook his head no.”
Is that Brock? Why can’t I see?
“What are you doing here?” My voice sounded rough and far away.
“Damn it! You should know by now…I’d walk through the fires of hell for you,” Brock whispered in my ear.
I gasped. My eyes popped open. They were here.Hewas here.
The last thing I remembered clearly was running out of ammo on that mountain. I’d held them off for as long aspossible, but when I ran out of ammunition, I was overrun. Everything after that was shadowed by the blur of pain.
Despair and defeat and all that fucking negative shit I didn’t need filled my head and overwhelmed me as I was dragged out of my sniper hole. They took turns beating me. When they threw me into the vehicle, one of them smacked me in the head with his rifle.
I was thrown back in the dog crate as soon as we rolled to a stop. Sobs wracked my body. Tearless cries pierced my ears as they echoed off the box. I allowed myself a few minutes to wallow, and then I pulled my head out of my ass.
I had to figure a way out of this fucking hellhole. This was not where I wanted to take my last breath. I had shit to fucking do still. I still had shit to make up for. Things I had said that needed to be taken back and things that I hadn’t said that I wanted and needed to say.
Now that I’d been rescued, I was ready to embrace the good.
Fuck the suck.
Being held captive and contemplating the end of my days, I’d come to a decision about what I wanted to accomplish in my life. Namely, I wanted a family, and come hell or high water, I was going to get it. I envied Foster with his wife and kids. Someone to come home to at the end of an op. Life outside of the teams.
There were so many problems with fulfilling that want, but I didn’t give a flying fuck. Life outside of the teams was difficult to come by—striking a balance when one side of the equation always took precedence and had priority over anything and everything else. But I’d find a fucking way.
Then there was the biggest issue. The Navy wasn’t a fan of different, and my desires had definitely taken a turn toward different since I met Brock. After this, though, I was ready to tell them all to go fuck themselves.
I wanted to spend my life with Brock, showing him what he meant to me and how he made me feel. I wanted to make all his dreams come true. Allourdreams come true.
I was tired of pretending otherwise. I was tired of pretending to date women while wishing the warm body next to mine was my teammate—the man I loved.
I was in love with my best friend, my brother, my teammate. I loved Brock Jones with everything I was and everything I would ever be.
Thinking about the way we’d left things before getting spun up, the Navy might have been the lesser of the two problems I had. There were things Brock deserved to hear, and not in some fucking death letter, either. Things I’d denied when asked outright and avoided every moment we’d been together over the years.
Convincing Brock that I wanted us together and that I was willing to do whatever was necessary to have a life with him just might be the most difficult op I ever been tasked with. Well, if you didn’t count escaping from my captors while shot, sleep-deprived, starving, and dying of thirst.
“Brock…” I said, pulling the mask from my face.
I tried so fucking hard to see him. Why couldn’t I see him?
“Leave that on. You can tell me about all the fun you had when you aren’t trying to fucking die on me,” Brock said, putting the mask back in place.
I nodded, and Brock patted my shoulder. “Get some rest, Woody. You deserve it.”
Sleep sounded amazing. But so did food and water and telling Brock I loved him. I tried to pull the mask off again, but my arms were so fucking heavy. My eyelids were so fucking tired.
I love you, Rocket.
When I came to, and my eyes opened, I was relieved that my vision seemed to be better. My eyes still felt swollen, but not like they’d been in the chopper earlier.
I was strapped down on a gurney on a medical transport plane. This wasn’t the first time I’d found myself in this position. I just wished I’d been with it enough to talk with Brock before they’d thrown me on a plane to Landstuhl.
