Like getting shot at in foreign countries.
I'd rather not get shot at here in the States, dammit. Though I guess I should have considered that before taking a job as a personal bodyguard.
My mom always said I was the dumbest genius she ever knew. Usually right after I fell out of a tree or got a beat down when I didn't back down from a fight that was well above my weight class.
If my dad was the one home, then he would just look at me with pride and talk about independence. Moving around a lot while my parents traded off deployments taught me the value of only relying on yourself. Now it's my superpower.
The good ol' days. Long before war wrecked my body, and I had to figure out what other ways a penchant for violence might pay the bills.
And so here I am.
I'd say going into a dodgy-looking nightclub would be a cry for help from this rich scumbag, except he's old enough to know better. I'm old enough to know better too, and yet I still trudgeafter him, my steel-toed shit-kickers thumping out my rage in the only way currently socially acceptable.
The bouncer at the door eyes me, his gaze clocking most of my hidden weapons. Knives at wrists, boots, and embedded in my belt. Guns under my left breast and the small of my back.
He missed the knives in the collar of my beat-up jacket and the outer stitching of my leather pants. Probably too distracted by how well my ass fills out the leather.
I suppress a smirk.
He takes a glance at my client, and we're waved through. As we move forward, I'm hoping that not being pawed at by the muscle-bound oaf bodes well for the rest of my night.
I dart a look back at the bouncer as we pass and, sure enough, he's ogling my hips. I feel like a genius for asking for the pants to be designed this way.
With a shake of my head, I bring my attention back to my job and scan the club for threats.
The music is pounding, lights are pulsing, and it smells like a barracks, except with the addition of sex, alcohol, and ganja. I'm sure there are plenty of other temptations in here I've been avoiding in my quest to stay sober.
Well, except sex. I haven't been avoiding it. More like men have been avoiding me.
I scare the shit out of them.
Not to mention they want a different kind of woman altogether. Less competitive. Less aggressive. Just... less.
I wish men were my problem, but unfortunately, it's everything else that causes me trouble.
Especially whiskey.
Nothing like immense pain to make you want to feel numb. The ache in my left arm, which still isn't fully functional, is like an insistent thrumming, all but crying out for me to go see who might share or let me buy.
It doesn't help that no one believed me when I told them a cyborg turned my arm into pulp during that fucked up one-way trip they sent my squad on to Antarctica.
I was the only one to come back alive, and my psych eval afterward claimed stress-induced psychosis. Because cyborgs don't fucking exist. I'll admit I turned to some chemical help to deal.
I'm past that, though.
It was more the mix of shame, guilt, and—most damning—relief that I wanted to deaden. I can't avenge any of my squad now and that rage swirling in my belly is all mixed up with relief that I won't have to face something so terrifying.
Then there's that insistent feeling of being unmoored now that I no longer have a long military career in front of me.
Well, as long as any infantry jarhead makes it, at least. Semper Fi, and all that shit.
It's all a jumble, but what I do know is medical retirement doesn't fucking suit me. I'd rather be around my usual type of chuckleheads than protecting Mr. Tall, Dark, and Half-witted.
A job's a job, though, so I follow like a good little bitch, ready to bite anyone who looks sideways at him or his precious designer watch.
I really don't like how so many people are jostling against us as we push through the crowd. I asked repeatedly to be briefed on his plans and our movements, but, of course, he refused. A niggling thought keeps trying to surface about how that seems really fucking suspicious.
Except Mar would never have sent me to him if he hadn't been thoroughly vetted.
