by Layla Reyne
“Come in, Major,” Ayers called.
The assistant held the door open wider, and Brax entered, exchanging salutes with the other gathered officers.
“I only have a minute,” Ayers said. “I need to meet with the chaplain before the Christmas Eve service.”
Brax ignored the familiar twinge of being overlooked and nodded. “Of course, sir.”
“What do you need, Major?”
“To be on the strike team going out tomorrow morning.” No sense beating around the bush.
“How do you know—” Turner started.
“You all know as well as I do this place is a sieve.”
“And for the past five years, you’ve been everyone’s introduction to it,” Kwan said.
Brax gave her a knowing smile. “Including yours.” She’d been one of the first soldiers to come through under his command—a unit of junior officers—and she was still one of the best soldiers he’d worked with as proven by her rapid ascent through the ranks.
“They tell you everything?” Marshall asked.
Brax bit back a smile and shrugged as much as he was able with his hands clasped behind his back. “Or I’m just familiar enough none of you notice me in hearing distance.”
“Why do you want on the op?” Turner asked. “You were MP, then orientation. When’s the last time you were actually in combat?”
Fair question. He wasn’t Turner or Kwan or any of their unit, who regularly saw action on the front lines. But he regularly sent other soldiers out there, including the one who mattered most to him.
“Enlisted soldiers and officers arrive here, and I spend six months with each unit, orienting them to camp and to the prospect they may see action on the front lines. I try to make them better prepared for you”—he nodded to Turner and Kwan, then to Marshall—“so they can be better prepared to do their jobs, which may include going into battle. I need to be out there with them, put my own skin in the game, so they believe the bullshit I’m shoveling them.”
“Major,” Ayers chided.
“Apologies, sir,” he corrected out of deference, but by the twitch of Ayers’s mouth, Brax knew his point had been made. “Lead by example. That’s what you taught me.” He cut a glance at the rest of them. “I’d like the chance to do that.”
He’d rehearsed his argument a dozen times the past two days, during each spare second he wasn’t occupied with his current unit or reviewing combat tactics with Holt. And Brax genuinely believed it. He needed the gathered officers to believe it too… and believe it was the primary reason he wanted on the team.
“What if we lose you?” Kwan said. “You don’t think you’re more valuable here?”
“I can be—”
“No, you can’t be replaced,” Ayers said. “Not easily. You’re damn good at what you do, Major Kane. Since you’ve been in charge of orientation, morale here is noticeably improved among the enlisted personnel and the new junior officers. You make a difference in their lives.”
“He’s not blowing smoke up your ass.” Marshall crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the table. Brax could imagine him back home on a Texas farm, big body leaning against a post, cowboy hat lowered over his strong, handsome features. “I’ve seen it myself,” he added, and Brax wondered if they were talking about the same particular enlisted.
“I’m glad,” Brax said. “And this will further the effort, strengthen the message.” He shifted his gaze back to Ayers, making the final pitch and needing it to succeed. “Give me a chance to show them that what I’m training them to do makes a difference in others’ lives and in this war we’re fighting.”
Ayers glanced at Turner and Kwan, the latter of whom wore a small smile. “You willing to take orders from someone you introduced to base?” Turner asked.
Brax raised his hand in salute to Kwan. “At your command, ma’am.”
She unleashed a smile, and that seemed to convince the others, including the final arbiter of the decision.
“All right,” Ayers said. “Captain Kwan, get him up to speed. Major Kane, make sure you get yourself and all of them back home.”
“Yes, sir.” He’d do whatever it took to make sure his soldiers returned, especially Holt Madigan.
“I’m in.” Marshall stood from where he’d been crouched in front of the door lock, picking it open. A skill Brax hadn’t known his fellow officer possessed. And thank goodness for it. Surveillance had told them the compound’s tech hub was on the third floor. It had not told them about the series of locks on the door they’d have to get through to access it.
Brax flicked off his flashlight and stepped back, and Kwan turned the doorknob, carefully pushing open the door. They’d picked up no heat signatures inside, but they entered cautiously, Brax on her six. Moonlight streamed in through the open window, enough to see without their flashlights or night vision goggles. Confirmed empty, except for the single neatly made bed in one corner, a small table next to it with a vase of poppies, two rolling chairs, and the desks pushed against the other walls, all laden with computers and wires.
“Clear,” Kwan reported, and Holt entered next.
Brax almost laughed at the giddy delight that streaked across his friend’s face. Marshall slipped in after him and made a similar assessment, whistling low. “Tempting.”
“No time to play, nerds,” Kwan chided, sounding all business despite her upturned lips.
She was right, though. They had a narrow access window before the occupants returned, and they’d already lost valuable time on the locks.
“Eagle,” Turner radioed Kwan from his post downstairs with the rest of the team. “We’ve got bogeys a half mile out.”
And their window just got shorter.
“Fuck,” Kwan cursed.
“Go,” Brax told her. “I’ll cover them up here.”
She took off for the stairs while Marshall claimed the chair next to Holt. “Let’s figure out which unit you need,” he said. “Then I’ll bag or rip the brains out of the rest.”
The hackers sorted their tasks in less than a minute, and Holt went to work, typing furiously on one of the desktop units while Marshall attacked the laptops, disconnecting wires and shoving the computers into a pack. Brax kept watch, pacing from the door to the window.
His pulse ratcheted up another twenty levels when a flash of headlights appeared in the distance, cutting through the slowly lightening horizon. Brax had never been afraid in the field before, still wasn’t where his own welfare was concerned, but for the man in the chair behind the computer… “How much longer?” he asked.
“Five minutes,” Holt replied.
“You’ve got maybe three.”
Holt’s fingers flew faster as the chatter over their comms continued, Kwan and Turner moving their troops into position. Marshall sped up his efforts too, bagging the last of the laptops and dismantling the other desktops in the room. He’d just finished when AR fire erupted outside.
“Under fire!” Kwan radioed. “Under fire!”
“Fuck!” Brax cursed. He scrambled to the window, back against the wall, splitting his attention between the outside and the door. He did not like what he saw through the window. Two trucks were converging, men standing in the beds, AKs braced on the roll cages and firing at the ground floor of the building. Brax could provide cover, but doing so would give away their location.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
They were sitting ducks if Kwan and Turner couldn’t hold back the enemy combatants. “How much longer?” he asked again.
Still typing, Holt hunched over more with each blast of rifle fire. “Almost there.”
“Brooklyn, report,” Kwan called, using Brax’s call sign.
“Oski’s almost got it,” Brax returned. “Just needs a minute more. Hold them back.”
“Roger that.”
“Another truck spotted,” Turner radioed. “Possible RPG on board.”
Brax’s thundering heart sank. “Fuck!”
Marshall hitched the load
ed pack onto his back. “Anything I can help with?”
Holt shook his head. “Spyware is injected. Should be spreading. Just setting the redundancy on the kill switch.”
Kwan appeared in the doorway. “We need to go!”
“I’ll stay with Oski,” Brax said. “Clear us a path out of here.”
“Roger that.”
Kwan and Marshall disappeared out the door and rifle fire erupted immediately. Much closer. Too close.
“Cap?” That awful tremble from two nights ago was back in Holt’s voice.
“Keep going, Private.” Brax started for the door. “I’ll protect—”
There was a pop the opposite direction, then a second later, a bullet whizzed past Brax, so close he could feel the shift in the air next to his ear. He spun on his heel, fast enough to catch the moonlight’s glimmer off a sniper’s scope in the building across from them.
Another pop.
He threw himself at Holt, rounding over top of him, hunching him over farther as bullets screamed through the window. “Sniper fire!” Brax radioed. “From the structure to the west. Need cover!”
“Backup en route,” Turner radioed. “ETA two minutes.”
“Stay down,” Brax said to Holt. “Birds are on their way.”
Their location no longer a secret, Brax stretched an arm out over Holt and fired, aiming to keep the sniper back.
“RPG is gonna beat the birds,” Kwan radioed. “Brooklyn, Oski, get out of there now!”
“Two more commands and I’ll be done.” Holt’s declaration was greeted with another flurry of bullets through the window. Brax returned fire, holding Holt down. Until the other man pushed up violently against him.
“Stay do—”
With at least twenty pounds on him, Holt easily shrugged him off, and Brax saw the future he wanted but could never have flash before his eyes.
The two of them together in bed, naked and wrapped in each other’s arms, Holt moving on him and in him.
Holt rolling his eyes as their kid, with Holt’s same warm brown eyes, no trace of fear in them, hacked the DOD mainframe.
Two old men, one gone gray, the other starting to, sitting on a porch together someplace cool and green, sipping ginger ale and playing double solitaire.
Saw it all and with a single pop of a pistol saw it die.
Except the bloom of red he expected to see on Holt’s chest didn’t materialize. Nor did Brax jerk with the impact of a bullet. He spun half around, just in time to see an enemy soldier fall in the doorway as Holt lowered his weapon.
The big brown eyes from Brax’s vision snapped to his in reality. “I saw his reflection in the computer screen. I had to protect you too.”
Everything exploded inside Brax’s chest.
“RPG incoming!” Kwan yelled.
And everything was about to explode around them. Confirmed by the terrifying high-pitched whistle that cut through the shouts and rifle fire.
Growing louder.
Closer.
“Take cover!” Marshall shouted over the comm.
The quietest voice was the loudest. “Cap?”
Brax threw his arms around Holt, hauled him to the ground, and rolled them under the bed, holding on to the other man with everything he had, holding on to his dreams of an impossible future, while the walls came tumbling down around them.
Falling, forever, and all the while the sounds…
Wood groaning, stone crumbling, all of it crashing to the ground below.
The shouts and AR fire that continued and the high-pitched whistle of another RPG headed straight for them.
A BOOM even louder than the one that had sent them tumbling.
The world around them shuddered, and they fell faster.
It was all so loud Brax would have covered his ears if he wasn’t holding on to the man in his arms for dear life.
And then the descent ended, and blessed silence reigned, together with darkness. As if his eyes and ears and brain had given up. No more processing. He wanted to give up too.
But he had to be sure.
He started to move, and fire seared through his body, through his bones. He’d never felt pain like this before. Was this how his mother had felt the day the Towers had fallen? That thought, more than any other, cleared enough of the fog, made all the pain worth it, to tighten his arms around the body against his.
Around the most important person left in his life.
He hadn’t been there to save his mother, but he was here now. He hoped like hell he’d managed to save Holt.
The arms around him clenched back, crushing and painful in their brute strength. The best fucking pain Brax had ever experienced.
Holt’s body shook against his and his breaths grew ragged. For a terrifying moment, Brax thought he was losing him. Until wetness hit his skin.
Holt was crying.
Brax gritted through the pain and lifted a hand to cup the back of Holt’s head. His knuckles scraped the splintered wood and rubble atop them, but the bristles beneath his fingertips were soft. So soft. Nothing like he imagined, and everything he ever wanted. He raised his other hand to the side of Holt’s face, wiping away the wetness there. The warmth of Holt’s skin was reassuring as was the absence of any sticky liquid. No blood.
Unlike the slow trickle oozing down Brax’s temple.
“Breathe, Private.” His voice was hoarse and rough, and forcing air through his lungs, words out of his mouth, sent another wave of fire crashing through him. But Holt needed the reassurance. Needed to keep breathing. Needed to not panic if he was going to get out of there alive. “You’ll be okay.”
“We’re trapped.”
Brax opened his eyes and ears to more than the crevice they were trapped in. Listened for other sounds. Looked for any break in the darkness. Muted shouts reached his ears and a streak of light filtered through the darkness, dust dancing in its beam. “They’ll find you. Shh, listen.”
Holt’s lips trembled against Brax’s neck. “What if they don’t?”
“They will.” Words were getting harder, more painful. An inferno burning through him. Maybe if he just shut his eyes again. Slowed his breathing.
“Captain!”
The body on top of his moved, began to lift and shift the rubble pinning them. Arms curled around either side of Brax’s head, protecting him. Bringing more blissful darkness. The giant green scientist of Brax’s favorite comic came to mind. “Hulk out.” He chuckled, then winced.
“Captain!” Big warm hands framed either side of his face. “Stay with me. Please, Cap.” Holt coughed, then raised his voice. “Help!”
“Did you hear something? Over there!” A woman’s voice. Familiar. Kwan.
Good.
“You’ll get home,” Brax wheezed. “I’ll protect…”
“Cap, no!”
“Here!” Texas. “I think I heard someone here!”
Lips against his forehead. “Come on, Brax, stay with me, please. I can’t lose you too. I won’t.” Then a hand covered his eyes. “Keep these closed.”
A mighty shout followed, a ragged howl, and more rubble and wood shifted around them.
So loud.
More shouts and scrapes.
Even louder.
Until light filtered through Brax’s eyelids and the morning sun and desert heat hit his face.
They were out. Holt was safe. His job was done.
And the darkness called.
The beeping woke him up.
The hand around his, the man it belonged to, brought him back.
Chapter Four
Eleven Years Ago
Brax cheeked the caramel candy in his mouth and laid the two and three of hearts faceup on the chow hall table. “Two points for me.”
Grinning, Bailey gathered them into the discard pile while Teague tapped the eraser end of his pencil on the table. “How many points, Madigan?”
Holt tossed his cards on the table, three heart-suited cards and the queen of spades. “Got st
uck with the bitch again. Sixteen total.”
“That’s game,” Teague declared, and everyone around the table rolled with laughter, including the several other soldiers from Holt’s past and current units who’d joined them.
“Jesus, Madigan,” Bailey said. “You really are bad at this.”
“Leave him some dignity,” came a Texas drawl from behind Brax.
The enlisted soldiers scrambled to stand and salute. Marsh must have come from duty, still uniformed.
Brax merely shoved the empty chair beside him back from the table with a grunted, “Marsh.”
Holt had been Brax’s most frequent visitor during the month he’d been laid up after the raid, recovering from a concussion, two broken ribs, and a fractured ankle. Emmitt Marshall and his portable chess board had been Brax’s second. In the four months since, the other major had become a close friend. Someone Brax could share a beer with as they watched shitty replays of NFC East games, played chess, or talked base politics. Talk other politics, the UT-Austin grad was delightfully liberal.
Someone who’d been there that day, who’d argued with the infirmary staff to allow Holt access, who could talk computers with Holt when Brax didn’t have the energy to pretend he understood, and who didn’t blink twice at the close friendship between an officer and an enlisted soldier.
Someone who’d shown up at Brax’s room one night, drunk off his ass, because his boyfriend back home had dumped him. Brax had handed Marsh a bottle of water and a shoulder to commiserate on. Had told him how he’d been deployed less than a year when his college boyfriend had done the same. It felt good to have someone else on base he could trust, could be himself with, and who was also in Holt’s corner, even if he did rag on his specialist mercilessly.
“At ease, soldiers.” Marsh caught the chair with his toe, turned it around, and straddled it backward. Total fucking cowboy. “Except you.” He pointed at Holt. “I’m here to take the rest of your dignity.”
More hoots of laughter, and the hilarity continued as Holt quickly ran up the count and lost another game. He groaned and face-planted onto the table. “I can’t even go out with dignity.”
