Embrace The Suck (A Stepbrother Special Forces Novel)

by Kenzie, Sophia

  Amanda had picked me up every day since Charlie left, even though I told her time and again that she didn’t have to keep going out of her way. I reminded her that Charlie had left me his truck, so I’d be fine driving in myself.

  But she wouldn’t stand for it. She promised me she liked the company.

  “Speaking of which,” she conveniently added in one morning, “I wouldn’t mind bunking up with you while Charlie’s gone. I mean you have that whole beautiful apartment all by yourself. It seems shameful not to share it with someone.”

  I sighed at her, wishing that one of these days she’d stop pitying me. “I’m really okay, Amanda. One day, I promise you, I’ll have a smile on my face again. It’ll come soon. So you can go back to worrying about your own problems instead of wasting all your time on me.”

  We stopped at a stoplight, and Amanda quickly turned to face me. “Okay, I am worrying about my own problems.” She seemed as though she was about to tell me the biggest secret she had to offer up. “My Aunt and Uncle are driving me crazy. Crazy!” Her eyes got all big. “They’re both retired now, so they do nothing all day but talk to each other and then wait for me to get back so they can talk to me about all they talked about to each other. It’s not good for my sanity, Hannah. I need you to care about my sanity!”

  With a burst of laughter, I just about spit out my coffee. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

  She shrugged. “I really thought that eventually you were going to beg me to come live with you and then I could be the hero.” She admitted without regret, not the slightest bit ashamed that she was hoping to use my misery for her benefit.

  “You’re hilarious, you know that?” I teased her, casually explaining that I love her and would love to live with her; I just didn’t want to be a burden when she has her own life to worry about. Then I shook my head with quiet chuckles, saying that had she come to me right away, she could have avoided all the crazy.

  But, I know better than most, sometimes it’s hard to ask for help.

  Amanda moved in that night. It didn’t take her long; she was already packed. It seems she had no doubt that I would eventually want a roommate.

  While technically the apartment was a two-bedroom, Charlie had always kept the second room as an office. But, Charlie was going to be gone for eighteen months; so turning the office into a second bedroom was exactly what we’d do. Until we were able to get furniture for the room though, I told Amanda she could just bunk up with me. The couch was not comfy and definitely not necessary… as long as she let me sleep on the left side.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours, Hannah?” Amanda queried as she hopped onto the bed after her shower. “How you’re not going to have sex for another year and a half because you can’t bring another man back to Charlie’s apartment without feeling weird about it.”

  My glare shot her way. “Well, now that’s what I’m thinking about!” I half teased.

  “What are you going to do?” She shook her head, obviously puzzled by the actual possibility that I’d have to be celibate for such a stretch of time.

  “Eh,” I sighed, “I dunno. Maybe focus on what I came here to do?” I lifted my study notes out of my lap to show her what I was doing while she was showering.

  She narrowed her eyes and gave me a face. “You’re no fun!”

  Oh Amanda. I could always count on her to distract me from work whenever I needed even a breath of a break.

  “Actually.” I sighed, putting the papers on the nightstand. “My mind is a bit preoccupied with this next module.”

  “The jump?” She concluded, sitting up in preparation to talk me through whatever I was about to unload.

  The next phase of our training was a refresher course on airborne tactics… namely, jumping out of planes and helicopters. Sure, I had successfully parachuted my way off a plane immediately after the incident when my chute didn’t open, but since then, I had allowed time to put fear back into my mind. All I kept thinking was that Charlie wouldn’t be there this time to save me. Though theoretically I knew exactly what I had done wrong and exactly what to do right in the future, I feared that my trepidation leading into the next jump would cause me to mess up.

  Amanda knew any solace she would offer would fall on deaf ears, so instead, she agreed.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Hannah. I don’t know if I’d be able to do the jump again if that happened to me.” She curled her knees into her chest. “Damn, you scared me so much that I almost couldn’t jump.” She took a breath and then turned to look straight at me. “But fear is part of this whole thing, right? And I think ultimately, it’s the fear that will keep us alive. If we start to get too sure of ourselves… well, that’s when the mistakes happen. So maybe…” it seemed she was pepping up herself just as she was attempting to do the same to me. “Maybe it’s a good thing that happened to you. Sure it sucked royally, but you survived, and you’ll be damned sure never to do that again.”

  I don’t know how she did it, but that pep talk allowed me to sleep soundly that night, and helped me get through the entire week and a half refresher course with not so much as a hiccup. I knew every answer, I passed every quiz, and you better believe that I kicked the ass of those jumps.

  We did five jumps on those last two days, and I hit my mark every time.

  Every fucking time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Charlie

  I don’t know what the hell happened, but it wasn’t good.

  “Madison. Madison, are you awake?” Dinkley, my Medical Sergeant, came over the walkie. He had taken the night watch that evening. “Man, I don’t think we’re alone out here.”

  “Got it. Be right out.” I quickly rolled out of my sleeping bag and nudged the rest of the guys.

  Initially they gave me grief about waking them up, the way guys do, but after I told them what I was about to go check on, they got up, ready to get back to work. While it wasn’t every day that we found ourselves under attack, my group had done this enough to not be shocked by anything.

  I joined Dinkley at the front door and took a look through his scope. Instantly, I knew why he had chosen to wake me up. There was some sort of gathering happening due north, probably about a half a mile up the hill, right on the outskirts of town. There was nothing conclusive, but I agreed with him: it didn’t come across as normal.

  I grabbed my binoculars to take a better look. My guess was that there were about fifty guys were up on that hill. I saw some standing around, some pointing… and some with some pretty advanced weaponry on hand. But why were they standing there in plain sight? It was certainly uncharacteristic of this specific group to be so callously blatant about their position.

  “Get the guys.” I warned Dinkley. I wasn’t quite done with my assessment, but I had a feeling we were about to be on the move.

  From inside, I heard the scrambling of my men. They were packing up everything they could take with them quickly while I prepared to make my final call.

  “Madison,” I heard Pierce’s voice behind me. “I can’t find the print out with today’s coordinates. Do you still have them?”

  I dropped the binoculars from my eyes and turned around to assure him they were still in my bag, but instead found myself face to face with the glare of someone I didn’t recognize.

  And that someone was holding an assault rifle

  “Pierce, behind you!” I shouted as I reached for my sidearm.

  The rebel wrapped the body of the gun under Pierce’s neck, promising us in broken English that if we didn’t hand over the paperwork in Pierce’s hands, I could count myself short a Communications Sergeant.

  It took me exactly three seconds to realize that the man pressed up against Pierce was more informed that I had expected him to be. Not only was he able to sneak up on us without us knowing- which was a big enough feat in itself- but he knew Pierce was my Communications Sergeant, and he knew he’d be carrying paperwork that would ultimately give them the plan of
action for the mission we were hoping to carry out.

  And then it was another five seconds before I realized something else. It wasn’t a coincidence that those fifty men were flaunting their meeting place. They were distracting us. They were set in place to grab our attention in order to position a handful of their rebels in prime location to attack us from behind. If I were a betting man, I’d wager quite a dime that there were more rebels than just this one around the corner of our hideout. And if I opened fire right then, there was a very good possibility that Pierce and I would end up dead.

  We were only two weeks into our mission; how had this band, that shouldn’t have known about our arrival, managed to have a leg up on us this entire time? My team was nothing but the best at what they did; we were practically ghosts. And yet since the day after we arrived, we’ve been on the run. It almost made no sense.

  There was only one possible explanation: one of the locals must have leaked the whereabouts of our makeshift camp to one of the insurgents, and that insurgent must have brought that information to the entire force.

  There was a traitor in our midst, and I hadn’t realized it.

  “Give it to him, Pierce.” I begged, knowing that Pierce would want to do anything but.

  “Madison, no.” He warned, knowing he shouldn’t disobey my orders, but begging for any other option.

  From out of the corner of my eye, I saw the rest of my team in the doorway, hidden out of sight of the radical. Rollins nodded to me.

  This was going to have to be quick.

  After one more order to Pierce, adding in a quick glance of my eyes to the doorway to ensure Pierce that we were not alone, he surrendered, and lifted the paperwork up, allowing the rebel to grab at his will.

  As soon as he did, I shot, catching the guy in the arm, which permitted Pierce to escape his grip. And just as I suspected, gunfire followed.

  A lot of gunfire.

  About twenty guys emerged from the corner of the building, all with assorted automatic artillery blazing. The rest of my team quickly came to our aid, fighting off the poorly trained insurgents with precision shots.

  Somehow by the grace of God, none of my guys were injured any more than a graze of a ricocheted bullet. And we managed to ground eighteen of their twenty. Unfortunately, among the two that got away was the one with our mission notes. In a very short amount of time, our enemies would have everything they needed to know about the next eighteen months of our stay in Nigeria.

  “We have to go.” I called out to my team, motioning to the group on the hill. They had begun to stir, and if we didn’t get out of there fast, we would have a much bigger party of terrorists to deal with.

  Now, we had no choice but to go into hiding. The rebels knew why we had come, they knew what we had planned to do, and now they had every bit of the upper hand. We managed to escape, not noticed and not followed, to a neighboring town, hoping to find shelter from a family who didn’t choose to side themselves with the rebel cause. And luckily, we managed to find those people.

  Well, at least we hoped we did.

  Our last intel should have been good. We should have been safe. But obviously, there was a traitor among the townsfolk. Someone was working for the other side, and we had no way of knowing whom. And if that could happen once, it could surely happen a second time.

  We could only trust ourselves.

  “Pierce,” with a jerk of my head, I called him over to me.

  “What’s up boss?” He looked around, unsure why I singled him out.

  I lowered my voice, hoping that our hosts wouldn’t catch my secrecy. “We’re going dark.”

  I quietly explained to Pierce that I needed to take every precaution possible, and if that meant severing ties with home base, that’s what we’d do. These rebels weren’t dumb, and they weren’t playing a game. They were out to get us. And, what I concluded after encountering them at our last hide out was that they were not out to kill us.

  That could only mean one thing. Their goal was to take as many of us as possible prisoner, and then torture us until we gave them the information they wanted. I wasn’t sure what information they were looking for exactly, but I didn’t want to risk finding out.

  “I think they’ve somehow patched into our channel without us knowing. It’s the only way they could have known we were coming.” I was speculating, of course, but it was a smart speculation.

  And Pierce agreed. “I had a feeling that might be the case, though I hate to think that’s possible.”

  It didn’t matter. We needed to make the decision and execute it fast. I went to thank our hosts for their kindness, and Pierce went to relay my message to the guys before taking us off the radar.

  I just wish I had a way of warning Hannah of my plan.

  “Mr. Anekwe,” I shook the hand of the man who agreed to help us. “Thank you for offering to take us in. Your generosity will not be overlooked.”

  “No,” his voice was strong, “thank you for allowing my family to help.”

  He bowed his head to me as he accepted my hand.

  And I had absolutely no idea if we had just walked into a trap.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hannah

  Our next module was on learning how to read people. If only I had taken this course before getting involved with Danny…

  A week and a half after that, we moved to understanding other cultures, as well working with the PMESII-PT system of regional analysis to comprehend the capabilities, people, and environment of the area we were assigned.

  Once those modules were completed, we moved into language and culture. I had been awarded my first choice of Special Forces Group, and if I succeeded at passing the training, would be stationed at Fort Bragg with deployment to Central America, South America, and the Caribbean Islands. I just about screamed when I found out the information. I wanted so much to tell Charlie, but I hadn’t heard a peep from him since he left, just over a month ago.

  I tried to stay positive, knowing that there was nothing I could do otherwise, but it was just so difficult to keep up hope when there was nothing to hold onto day in and day out.

  It was day three of my language and culture course. I was learning French and Spanish, and since they were both Level 1 languages, I would only be in this module for eighteen weeks. Amanda, on the other hand, had been assigned to the 5th SF Group, and would be working out of the Middle East, so she was currently concentrating very hard on the Arabic language. Her language course would last twenty-five weeks.

  She was slightly annoyed with this, but I laughed, telling her she should have taken that into consideration when he listed her top choices.

  We were released for lunch midway through the day, but as I had escaped to the locker room to check my phone just in case Charlie had found a way to contact me, when I made it to the lunchroom, everyone was already there. But they weren’t eating. They were gathered around the television. Because I couldn’t quite see what was going on, I tried to push my way through to the front. Someone grabbed my arm, stopping me from getting any closer. I flipped around suddenly to fight, but froze when I saw Amanda’s face. She looked pale as a ghost and was slowly shaking her head.

  What had happened?

  I broke from her grip without her explanation, and eventually found myself in the front of the group, perfectly positioned to see the television. Since I was coming in half way through the news broadcast, I was admittedly quite lost. The information was coming so fast.

  There was a bomb that went off… in a city… in Nigeria… thousands of casualties… the hospitals destroyed…

  And then the reported spoke the words I couldn’t comprehend.

  An American Special Forces Group is missing, presumed dead.

  I almost fell to the floor. Almost.

  But instead of allowing my weakened knees to take control, I pulled myself together and rushed out of the room, into the hallway, pushing past anyone that was in my way. I had to get to the Captain’s office. I couldn�
�t care less that I didn’t have the clearance; I needed someone to tell me what the fuck was going on.

  “Hannah.” A voice stopped me the instant I barged into the office of my superior.

  “Max…” I paused my thought. He had insisted I call him ‘Max’ at home, but I quickly realized we were not at home any longer. “I mean Major Reynolds.” The rest of the room eyed me suspiciously. “Um,” I wasn’t sure how to continue. I hadn’t expected him to be there, as he was normally in Georgia.

  But now wasn’t the time for that question. There was something much more pertinent on the table. “Have you talked to Sergeant Madison?” I tried to hold it together, praying that they knew of some ruse Charlie’s group was playing in order to fish out the enemy.

  “Hannah please sit down.” The second Charlie’s father pulled out the chair for me, I thought I would throw up. “We lost contact with Charlie’s group about two weeks ago, and haven’t been able to get it back.”

  I felt my mouth dry instantly. “Why…” I was about to explode. “Why didn’t you tell me?”