Page 4 of Ignited

“Bree made me do it,” Boomer grumbled. He turned on the rotary blade sharpener and started running the blades of his wire cutter over it. “I didn’t want to.”

Breanna Carter was the administrative director of the Outlaw Ridge base. The only human among all the wolves, she was mated to Switch, one of their top pilots and electronics experts. Breanna was a friend—she and Boomer had bonded over their shared weakness for teen paranormal TV shows.

Unfortunately, she was determined to make Boomer and his bro normal and festive and shit. It was part of her attempt to give Outlaw Ridge more of a family atmosphere. As if they weren’t all fucked-up burnouts who had only seen ‘normal’ from a distance—and most of them, not lately.

He actually did like the Christmas lights. A little. Except now, when he hated everything.

Above the sound of steel on steel, he heard his brother sit down and start lining up his weapons on the table. After a short silence, Bro said, “They’re still gonna be fucked up, you know. Like us.”

Boomer knew he meant the kids. Maybe all the people on the corkboard. His brother was famous for his brutal realism, so Boomer was used to it, but today it grated on him.

Okay, sure, those kids’ lives would never be the same. He knew that. And you could never tell if what they’d been through would make them stronger, or break them. The guy who kidnapped them, he probably had his own fucked-up past, and look what it had done to him. But maybe these kids would get lucky. Maybe they’d make it, somehow.

“So what? We should have let them die?” Boomer turned off the sharpener and turned to face his brother, who was swabbing out his rifle barrel. “They deserved a chance.” Bro didn’t say anything, and Boomer tried to lighten things up. “I mean, we had a fucked-up childhood, and look how awesome we turned out. Hero soldiers. And today we rocked.”

His brother frowned slightly, still concentrating on his rifle barrel. “That was one of the closest lines we ever walked. All the guys knew it. Why do you think they were so pissed off at you?”

“They’re a bunch of pansy wussies,” Boomer said. They really weren’t—they were a kickass team who put their lives on the line every mission, for people they didn’t know. So why were they pissed about doing it today? “I knew we could do it.”

“Did you?” His brother pinned him with that ‘big bro’ stare.

Fine. “Maybe not for absolute sure,” he said, looking away. Definitely not for sure, but he wasn’t telling anybody that. “But if you’re going to run away and let innocent kids die to save yourself, what’s there really to live for?”

His brother stared at him silently, hands still, and then put down the rifle and started cleaning one of his handguns. “Maybe they figure you don’t have the right to decide that for other people. Gunn and Dobe are good mission commanders because they weigh the risks. They have our backs, and the team knows it.”

“And I don’t?” Boomer was stung.

“It’s not whether you do or not. It’s whether they think you do. If they don’t, how can they trust you?”

Said the ultimate lone wolf. Everyone knew the only person Bro cared about was Boomer.

And Boomer had almost gotten him killed today, along with everyone else. He officially sucked as a brother.

He said, “What about you? Are you pissed at me too?”

His bro was quiet for a tiny bit too long. Then he shrugged. “I could have left when Dobe gave the pullout order.” Which was his way of saying he’d chosen to stay. And that he wasn’t pissed. A man of few words, his brother.

But that hesitation… Bro was the rock. Boomer was the fuckup. It had been like that ever since they were kids, and he’d taken it for granted. Maybe he shouldn’t.

Thing was, Boomer wasn’t good at being serious. Sucked at it, in fact. “Right,” he said, and it came out cocky, like it always did. “Like you’d leave me hanging.”

There was another one of those just-barely-too-long hesitations, and then his brother said, “Can’t. Nobody else has the balls to back up your crazy shit. With superior balls comes great responsibility.” He finished cleaning out the barrel of his Sig Sauer and laid it on the table.

Boomer gave a huff of laughter, and suddenly things were okay. “Yeah well, do you have the balls to be my wingman tonight? I think I might need to go somewhere and drink. Somewhere there’s people.”

“Outlaw Ridge has people.”

“Not the kind I’m looking for.”

“They’re all the same.” That was his brother’s philosophy of life in a nutshell. Everyone was the same, and they all sucked. Except maybe Boomer. And now it seemed the jury was out on that, too.

“Probably,” Boomer said. “But some of the people out in the real world have boobs and pussies, so there’s that.”

“There’s a few people here with boobs and pussies.”

“They only share their woman parts with their mates, so what good does that do me?”

“You looking for a rabbit of your very own?”