HUNTER

by Blanc, Cordelia

  I was startled by a knock on the bathroom door. “Kyla?” Liam called out. Liam was supposed to be at work for another three hours.

  “Liam?”

  “Where were you?” He opened the door and let himself in.

  My heart was still pounding from the scare. “Why are you home?” I asked.

  “I got off early. What were you doing out?” His eyebrows were raised as if he was accusing me of something.

  “I went down to the airstrip.”

  He slumped his shoulders down, but his reaction wasn’t convincing. He already knew the answer to his question before he asked it. “C’mon, Kyla. Why would you do that? You know that was a bad idea. We talked about this.”

  “I wanted to see them for myself.” The night before, when they made the announcement that Hunter and Greg were found alive, Liam suggested I not go see them land. He thought that seeing Hunter would “bring back too many damaging memories.” I told him I needed to go for my own peace of mind, so it was surprising to see his frustrated reaction.

  “Kyla…”

  “I just wanted to see. I was there and back in ten minutes. What’s the big deal?” I smiled but his concerned expression stayed the same.

  “You don’t need him back in your life. He’s poisonous.”

  I didn’t need to ask to know that he was referring to Hunter. “He’s not back in my life, Liam. I just wanted peace of mind.”

  “Peace of mind? What does that mean, peace of mind? You knew that Sammy wasn’t with them. What difference does seeing it for yourself make?” I couldn’t tell if he was angry or genuinely curious. Either way, I didn’t feel the need to explain myself.

  “I’ve known Hunter and Greg my whole life.”

  “And how was Greg?” he asked. Again, it sounded more like an accusation.

  “I didn’t see him—”

  “—Of course you didn’t.” He shook his head.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  In three years, Liam had never accused me of anything more serious than washing his favourite jeans in the wrong laundry cycle. That’s what made Liam different. He wasn’t like the rest of Nintipi. He never jumped to wild conclusions, he never made mean accusations. He understood what it was like, living with a mistake. He was in the sniper with the Marines for three years, stationed in Afghanistan, but he never finished his tour.

  He was stationed on a hill, a mile from the town where his squad was on ground patrol. His Captain was on the hill with him, scanning for threats with a pair of binoculars. There was a little kid running towards his squad. His Captain suspected the kid was wearing a suicide vest, and ordered Liam to shoot. Liam had the kid in his sights, but he couldn’t do it. He thought the kid was harmless. Turned out, he was wrong. The kid blew up, along with five of his close friends. The Captain blamed Liam, and so did the rest of America. He was discharged on the grounds of “cowardice.”

  Now, he was accusing me of having a thing for Hunter.

  His expression dropped and his lips parted. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, suddenly using a calmer tone of voice.

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “Kyla…”

  “Tell me what you meant.”

  He stepped up to me and wrapped his arms around my body. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything. I had a tough day at work.”

  “Is everything alright?” I asked. His body felt tense, but it wasn’t the first time. All week, even before they said Hunter was alive, he’d been getting tenser.

  “Yeah. Just stressed out. I don’t think I slept at all last night.”

  “Why not?”

  “I dunno. I guess there’s just a lot on my mind. Work’s piling up faster than I can keep up with it. Not to mention all the work that needs done around the house. I still haven’t had a minute to fix that damn washer.” It was true. Our house was practically falling apart.

  Our washing machine had been broken for four months, two of the burners on the stove had stopped working, there were burnt out lights in every room, and a dozen small cracks in the siding, letting cold air in and hot air out. The problem wasn’t the lack of time as much as it was the lack of money.

  “We’ll figure it out,” I said.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know, babe. But we have each other, right? Isn’t that what you always say?” I leaned into him and planted a soft kiss on his lips. Wrapping my arms around him, I could still feel the rigid tension in his body.

  “Yeah.” He said it in a deflated tone, as if he wasn’t so sure.

  “Just relax.” I tried squeezing harder, but he remained rigid.

  “Believe me when I say I want to. If I knew how, I would,” he said in that same deflated tone of voice. I smiled.

  I knew what to do.

  I sunk down to my knees, running my fingers down his sides.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. He wasn’t very good at playing dumb.

  I pulled down his zipper, slipped my fingers through his fly, and wrapped them around his flaccid member. I started by massaging with a gentle grip. It didn’t take long before he was hard enough that I could transition into a stroking motion. A few long strokes, and he was rock-hard in my hand.

  But his cock wasn’t the only part of him that was as stiff as a stone. His whole body was tense. Usually by this point, his shoulders would’ve relaxed and his fingers would be nestled in my hair. Instead, he stood straight like a plank of wood.

  He hadn’t been this tense since we first started dating—when he just came back from Afghanistan. Weeks would go by where we couldn’t have sex at all. We would try, but his mind would drift back to the battlefield, to god-knows what kind of violence he saw over in the Middle East. It took him years to get past it. From time to time, I would see that look in his eyes—that look he used to get when his mind went back to his days with the Marine Corps.

  I used to ask him if he was okay when I’d see that far away look. But I stopped asking. I’d learned that the trick was to distract him from it, not to get it out of him.

  So I kept stroking.

  And slowly, he started to melt. His shoulders sunk down and he let out a long exhale. His member twitched as I ran the tip of my finger up to the tip of his cock.

  “Maybe this isn’t the best time, babe. I’ve got a lot of work I need to catch up on.”

  He caught me off guard. I couldn’t remember the last time he turned me down. Had he ever turned me down? Even when his mind would drift back to Afghanistan, he wouldn’t decline sex.

  “I won’t keep you long,” I said, tightening my grip.

  “I know, babe, but—” Before he could finish his sentence, I had my lips around his cock. He went silent, probably wondering why he ever considered turning down sex. I was wondering the same thing, but I was happier ignoring it, hoping it really was just a bad day. Finally, his fingers slipped around my head, nestling into my hair. He pulled me in towards his pelvis, sinking his hard dick into my mouth, pressing his tip against the back of my throat.

  Mission accomplished. He was distracted—for now, anyway.

  His grip released from my head, giving me a moment to pull back for a breath of air. It was a short moment, only long enough for him to drop his pants down to his ankles, letting his hard cock spring free.

  I couldn’t count the number of times I’d seen Liam naked in our three year relationship. But in all of those times, I was always caught off-guard by his scars. All across his abdomen, his chest, and his legs were the remnants of deep gashes—gashes he earned in the Middle East. He never told me how he got them, and I knew better than to ask. When we met, the scars were still new, still stitched up. I thought they would go away, but three years later, they still looked just as fresh and clear as ever before.

  He pulled me back in to his pelvis, forcing his cock back into my mouth. After a few seconds, his grip painfully tightened. I tried to pull back to let him know, but he held my head in place.


  My heart fluttered. Something was wrong. His little outburst, his initial reluctance to have sex, and his sudden aggression—this wasn’t the Liam I knew.

  I gagged. Neck locked in place, I looked up. Through a blur of tears, I could see his red face. He kept his eyes closed and his jaw clenched tight. I had to squeeze his thigh to get him to release me. He did, but before I could speak, I needed to catch my breath.

  “What?” he said. His tone was deep, aggressive, unfamiliar.

  “Let’s go to the bedroom,” I said between breaths.

  “No. Here.” His short words were blunt, relentless.

  Our bathroom was not the ideal room for sex. It was small, cramped, there was nothing to hold onto. The shower-rod was flimsy, and the sink couldn’t support much more than the weight of our toothbrushes and a bar of soap. A year before, our landlord said he would fix the place, but that never happened. “Where in here?” I asked.

  “Right here. Suck me off.”

  Before I could respond, he pulled me back in, guiding his long, slick cock into my throat once again. What’d gotten into him? Whatever it was, if that was what he wanted, that was what I would give him.

  I hardly had to give him anything at all, other than the use of my face. He did most of the work himself, holding my head in place, thrusting himself down into my mouth. I tried to use his thighs as supports, gripping them tightly with both of my hands. But no—Liam wouldn’t even give me the luxury of support. He grabbed one of my hands and brought it over his crotch. He didn’t have to say anything for me to know that he wanted me to cradle his balls.

  Ouch. His thrusts became harder. He was taking all of his anger out on my face, becoming less and less concerned about my wellbeing as he came closer and closer to finishing. His hard abs nearly knocked me out as they struck me in the forehead.

  Whatever was bothering him was really bothering him. I wished he would just tell me what was on his mind, but at the same time, I kind of liked this side of him. It was a side that never came out, that I never knew he had. I couldn’t help myself. I reached down with my free hand and started to rub my clit. God—I just wanted him to push me down onto the ground and pound my pussy raw. Instead, he was ramming my brains out the back of my skull. I hadn’t been with this kind of power, this kind of strength since—

  Since I was with Hunter.

  I couldn’t breathe. I squeezed his thigh again for a chance to resurface, but this time, he did nothing. He didn’t seem to care. He was close, and all he cared about was finishing. His toes curled against the tiled floor as the muscles in his legs tightened and bulged.

  He released a louder grunt with every thrust. The walls of our little house weren’t very thick; had there been anyone nearby, they would’ve though Liam was beating me to death. I usually didn’t worry about things like that that. Liam was usually the one to remind me we had thin walls.

  No warning. Liam pulled out, grabbed his cock in his hand and unloaded his come on my face. I would have turned away, but he continued to hold my head in place.

  The feeling of his hot load hitting my face was ecstasy, enough to tip me over the edge. A shudder ran through my body and I came, moaning and squirming on my knees.

  I smiled and looked up but his eyes were still closed. He was breathing deeply, his mind was elsewhere. Again, I wanted to ask if he was okay, but I already knew the answer—and I knew he wouldn’t tell me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  There should have been enough in my bank account to buy a nice house, but I didn’t have a bank account anymore. When I died, they emptied my account and gave all my money to the only person they could think to give it to—my cousin in Colorado. Bremkin, the military’s lawyer, told me they tried to get the money back, but my cousin passed away shortly after he got my money, and it all went to his kids.

  And my apartment was no longer my apartment. Now, a young gay couple lived there, according to Bremkin. It wasn’t like it was an incredible apartment or anything, and I didn’t have any sort of emotional connection with it. Had Bremkin not pointed it the building out to me, I probably wouldn’t have remembered where it was.

  It was strange that Bremkin knew where my old building was. It seemed like everyone knew everything about me, except for things that would be remotely useful, like where my dead cousin’s kids were living now, so I could get my years’ worth of military salary back. It’s not like they inherited a fortune or anything like that—but it would have been be nice to have at least a few bucks to my name to get a new apartment.

  Instead, the military was putting me up. When they found out I was still alive, they were nice enough to go out and find me little house on the edge of town. At first, I thought they were giving me the house. I didn’t think twice about it; I mean, five years of service, the least they could do was buy me a nice little house. Nope. As we pulled up to the little shack, Bremkin let me know that there was only a one year lease on the property. After the first year, I’d be on my own.

  “Are you shitting me?” I asked. Based on the glance exchanged between Bremkin and Anders, it was safe to assume that that was the reaction they’d anticipated.

  “Funding cuts.” That was their big excuse. While I was stuck in the Congo, they pretty much got rid of the whole Special Operations Unit. Apparently, it was easier to get the job done with drones. Drones? How sophisticated were these fucking drones?

  I asked if our mission could have been carried out by a drone. Anders hesitated but before he could answer, Bremkin said, “Don’t answer that.” It was a lawyer’s way of saying, obviously, but don’t try to sue us.

  With my year lease, I was also given two years of pay—to be paid out over the next two years. That’s it. That’s all I got—locked up in a goddamned bamboo cage for four and a half years, and I got a shack and two years’ salary.

  “We’re trying to do better, Hunter. We might be able to get you more,” Anders said. “Trust us, we’re fighting for you.”

  “But we can’t promise anything,” Bremkin was quick to add.

  It was too bad I couldn’t charge for interviews. Within minutes of pulling into the shack’s carport, the house was swarmed with reporters. Bremkin went out to the yard to remind them all not to cross the property line while Anders gave me the tour of my new house.

  In the bedroom was a giant, framed Special Ops uniform—matte black with the Kevlar mask, the boots, the works.

  “Why the hell is that there?” I asked.

  “All vets get them. It’s the military’s way of saying thank you.”

  “It’s not even mine.” It wasn’t even the same model that I wore in the Congo. It was a newer model, pimped out with a bunch of fancy electronic gadgets. In the Congo, my outfit was green, and loose-fitted. The thing in the frame looked like a goddamned superhero’s costume.

  “Well, yours was lost, so they made up a new one for you. You should be more appreciative; these outfits aren’t cheap. And they’re just trying to say thank you.”

  “How’s about some money?” I asked.

  “It’s not in the budget.”

  He took me to the kitchen and showed me how to use the coffee maker. The dumb thing only made a single cup of coffee.

  “What if I want more than a cup?”

  “Make another cup. Just put in another pod.”

  “Pod?” Had I been gone for five years or five-hundred years. Next he was going to tell me the coffee came from Jupiter.

  “That’s what they’re called. Coffee pods.”

  “What if I want ten cups of coffee?” I asked.

  “Then make ten.” He smiled as if his answer wasn’t completely demented.

  “Is there even ten in that box?”

  Anders inspected the box and then smiled again. His eyes lit up. “There’s exactly ten!” He was talking to me like I’d just won the fucking lottery.

  “Great. So that lasts me a day. How much is a box?”

  “Five or six bucks?”

  “Jesus, Ander
s, are you fucking with me?”

  “It’s a great model, Hunter. Better than the one I’ve got, even.” He said it as if he was surprised they didn’t just dump some piece of crap on me. Even he knew I was being fucked sideways by the government.

  “You like it? Keep it. I’ll get my own.”

  I threw my coat back on and turned to the door.

  “Whoa, wait. What are you doing?” he said, running past me to block the door. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going out to get a new coffee maker.”

  “This one’s fine, Hunter. I’m telling you, it’s a great model.”