Daniel continued, “That’s exactly right. The order to invade is on the way. It could be any day now.”
“And that means we gotta be ready,” Parker said.
No shit, Sherlock.
Given the look Daniel and Parker gave me, my face said the words my mouth didn’t.
The morning air smelled of gunpowder and hot lead, and sounded like the Fourth of July. I closed my eyes, blocking out the insanity around me, and inhaled—slow, deep, and even. Everything faded around me until all I heard were the voices of my teammates. Brothers.
Maybe.
We were still gelling, but it felt good, like we were slowly coming together.
“Some squads are heading to Afghanistan,” Sammy Myles said from where he lay a few feet away. His voice held an edge. The same one that crept up on us all over the last few weeks.
Some squads were heading that way, and others, the ones already deployed, were being redirected. The briefings we’d been privy to pinpointed Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in themountains of southern Afghanistan. Everyone itched to get in the fight. Myself included.
“We’ll be getting orders soon,” Marcus assured Sammy.
Sammy glanced at me, and I knew what ran through his mind without him saying a word. He would be in charge of watching my ass and keeping me from doing something stupid—standard procedure for a new guy on their first deployment. I got it. The new guy posed a risk. We were a liability to the team, and between being left behind to sit and spin, I’d take a babysitter any day.
We continued the live fire exercise with minimal yammering and zero direction from our squadron leader. Parker and Daniel had stayed holed up in the ops center since the morning of the attacks. Daniel swore they weren’t together, and I wanted to believe him, but Parker Holt was fucking beautiful, closer in age, and an officer.
He was a much more appropriate match—similar ages, if I had to guess, with similar experience—professionally, personally, sexually.
I closed my eyes, steadied my breathing, trying to reset. That shit shouldn’t matter. It couldn’t matter now. We all had a job to do—a job with lives on the line.
Squeezing the trigger, the sniper rifle slammed into my shoulder. It was off. I knew it. I let bullshit…
“You good, Madison?” Marcus asked, his voice sounded tinny through the fancy headphones issued to me. They supposedly protected your hearing while allowing you to hear everything around you.
Looking through the scope, I groaned at the hole in the target outside the silhouette. Three inches off. Motherfucker. Growling under my breath, I readjusted and fired again.
This time I put the shot where it belonged—the center of the forehead.
“Better, Alex. We might make a sniper of you yet,” Marcus congratulated me.
I held an expert qualification, but Navy sniper school was intense and not included in my advanced training pipeline. Plans had a way of changing quickly, though. We all served how and where the Navy told us to.
“You need backup in your old age, Marcus?”
Parker’s voice cut across the range, calling a halt to the rifle fire.
“Can never have too many shooters.”
“The kid can already shoot. I want to make certain you guys get home in one piece, which means I want another doc on the team.”
Clearing my throat, I pointed out what I felt was obvious, but apparently wasn’t. “Last time I checked, I was a full-fledged adult, so if we could knock off calling me a kid and treating me like one as well, that would be great.”
Laughter followed, and a round of “You got it, new guy” filled the air right before the firing resumed.
Fuck my life.
I turned back to my rifle, rested my face against the stock, and lined up my sight, drew in a deep, measured breath, only for Parker to interrupt me as he dropped to his belly next to me, and he whispered, “He’s a great guy.”
Lifting my cheek from the rifle, I turned my chin just enough so that I could look at him with both eyes and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
