by Aiden Bates
Trent dropped his jaw. "How can you think that?" He reached out, not for Mal but for his belly. "Mal, I'm doing everything I can!"
"And you'd never just come to Australia. So we were both giving something up." Mal shook his head.
"I can't just walk away from my country, from the SEALs."
"But you expect me to walk away from everyone and everything I've ever known." Mal pinched the bridge of his nose. "And you expect me to play the obedient little omega, the good little vessel, even though I'd be killed for it."
"Mal, be reasonable. You're talking like the baby isn't a factor. Like it's not slowing you down, or making you a target."
"I'll be the best judge of what this baby is doing to my body, thank you very much. If you and your team won't collaborate with me, because of my pregnancy, I'll just work on my own." He gestured to the door. "There lies your way."
~
Trent headed back to the barracks house in a daze after Mal kicked him out. He'd failed at pretty much everything he'd gone into that hotel to achieve. He hadn't even convinced Mal to eat a decent meal, and that had been the whole reason Morna encouraged him to go there in the first place.
Maybe it was time to give up the ghost. Maybe he wasn't going to be able to sell Mal on the idea of "them" after all.
Then again, maybe he hadn't tried. Maybe he'd gotten carried away and focused entirely on the baby, just like Mal said. Granted, the baby didn't have anyone else to speak for them. Mal was articulating just fine for himself, but someone needed to speak up for the kid, and to think about the kid's needs. That was usually the job of the carrier parent, but apparently Mal just wasn't up for the job.
He staggered in the door and flopped down on the couch, head in his hands. Morna came along and kicked him in the feet. She was entirely kitted up, indistinguishable from a SEAL except maybe in height. "Where's my brother, you lummox? We'll need him with us on this job."
Trent made a face. "We're not bringing a pregnant guy on a raid, Morna. Not now, not ever. It's just stupid. There's no reason for him to risk the baby that way."
Morna snorted. "Nice to know where your priorities are, then. We're leaving in five, with or without you."
Trent watched her go. At least now he knew it wasn't just Mal.
Five minutes was five minutes. He'd better get going if he wanted to get the job done.
He got his armor on and got suited up for a fight. Then he rushed out into the dark to catch his ride, an unmarked van that wouldn't attract attention on Toulon streets. Their target was a mid-century apartment building on the outskirts of town, on the opposite side of the city from the naval base.
According to their sources, the third apartment on the fifth floor had a cell of five men. All of them worked in the civilian port. It would probably be easy enough for them to do their business in the civilian port, and that would get them the kind of attention ISIS usually wanted.
Sneaking into the navy side of the complex, and attacking the military infrastructure, was a huge departure. Trent wasn't sure what he thought about it.
Trent was anxious about the state of things with Mal as he got into the van, but adrenaline pushed it to the back of his mind once the truck started moving. He couldn't afford to be distracted. None of them could. Whatever else might be going on in the outside world, once they were on a job, every SEAL was entirely focused on the job in front of him. Every other situation would still be there when they got back.
They got to the building and found a whole host of other unmarked vans. These were the local authorities, evacuating civilians. They had to do it in such a way to not tip off the bad guys and not panic the civilians. By the time the SEALs rolled up, the civilians had been evacuated to a nearby location, and the SEALs could simply go in.
Trent led the way in. They didn't take the elevator. Judging by the indifferent maintenance to the common areas he could see so far, Trent probably would have gone for the stairs anyway. Local police guarded the emergency exits while the SEALs made their way up to the fifth floor.
The upper floor smelled like cooked fish. He didn't smell much of the characteristic smells associated with North African cooking. He caught a few notes here and there, but if he had to guess based on scent, he'd say the apartment building had a mixed population. The maintenance hadn't been any more thorough up here than it was downstairs. Every third overhead light was out, and the carpet needed a shampoo.
The only sound was a television. Trent couldn't quite understand the dialog, coming through the walls as it did, but it definitely came from a French channel. Had they somehow received faulty information?
The door to their target apartment flew open, and a man with wild dark hair and dark skin stepped out. His gun was already on line. His muzzle flashed, and a loud "bang" filled the air.
Trent stepped aside and pulled his own trigger. He hit the gunman in the shoulder and in the leg. He went down with a shouted curse, gripping his leg, and rolling around on the ground.
Trent led the others farther down the hall. He stood guard at the door and covered Morna and Baudin as they went into the small apartment, catching another attacker between the eyes. Morna peeled off to the left, Baudin to the right, and they let Hopper and Lupo in. Adami stayed outside to secure Trent's first victim. Trent followed them in and trusted Adami to guard the hallway.
Morna had a perfectly good gun in her hand, but by the time Trent made it into the apartment she'd pulled her knife from her belt and stuck it into another man's throat. A fourth occupant popped up from behind the counter in the galley kitchen with an assault rifle he had no business possessing in a country like France, but Lupo got him with two in the chest before he could get a shot off.
Trent thought he was perfectly justified in hoping for a surrender from the last man. After all, his friends had just been mown down before his eyes. The final terrorist, though, had other plans. He pulled a hand grenade from between the couch cushions and reached for the pin.
Hopper shot him dead before he could pull the pin.
Morna curled her lip. "Who the fuck keeps hand grenades in the couch cushions?"
Baudin gave her a look of disbelief. "O'Donnell, if you don't keep hand grenades in the couch cushions, I'll eat my boot."
Morna stomped her foot. "I don't have a couch!"
Baudin crossed his arms over his chest. "And you've never, ever, tried to store grenades in the cushions, in any place you've stayed."
Morna blushed. "That was one time, Baudin."
Even Trent chuckled. "Okay, anyone hurt? Besides O'Donnell's pride, I mean." No one admitted to anything, and they'd overpowered the enemy so fast he didn't think anyone had the chance to get hurt. "Alright. You guys check for booby traps. I'll let folks know where we stand."
The local authorities were more than happy to let the SEALs do the dangerous work of looking for explosives, since they were on site and all. They did find one trap, guarding a metal safe, but Morna made short work of it.
They catalogued the evidence, documented what they needed, and handed the scene over to the local cops. At home, they washed up and hit the sack.
The next morning, Trent showed up for his chore shift and went through debriefing with Chief and DeWitt. When he was done, he expected to get time to do some training and maybe unwind after the previous night's excitement. Instead, he wound up with Morna in his face.
"We should chat. Private like." She jerked her head toward the door. "There's a bar a block or so away."
Trent frowned. "I'm on duty, Morna."
"You can consider yourself dismissed for the day." Chief waved his hand. "Shoo. Get on out. Deal with your business."
Trent hung his head for a minute. There were a lot of good points to working so closely with his team. Having his colleagues so involved with his personal life wasn't one of them.
"All right. Let's go."
They walked over to the bar, which turned out to be a properly seedy, dive bar kind of place. They grabbed seats at t
he counter, ordered sandwiches and drinks, and settled down for their chat. "I think we definitely need to have some liquid courage for this little discussion." She made a face at her glass. "Even if the brandy kind of tastes like goat piss."
Trent wrinkled his nose. He didn't want to know exactly how she knew about that kind of thing.
"Fine," he sighed. "I'm guessing you want to talk about Mal."
"Well, yeah. He is my brother. And he did take off to go chasing a lead on White Dawn this morning, so yeah. I'm thinking we should absolutely talk about him."
Trent squeezed his sandwich hard enough to make the meat fall out the other side. "What the hell is he thinking? Did nothing I said the other day get through that thick head of his?"
"Oh my God." Morna covered her eyes. "Did you talk to him like that?"
"Look, I have a right to be angry. He's putting the baby in danger, he's putting himself in danger —"
Morna held up her hand. "I'm surprised he didn't shoot you. I'd have shot you."
Trent closed his mouth. "It's my baby too." He glared at her. Maybe including booze wasn't such a good idea after all. If they could be this belligerent about the situation before they'd finished one drink, how would they be after three or four?
"You have no idea what it's like for him," she said in a quiet voice. "For either of us, really, but he's the one you should be thinking about right now. I mean for one thing, you do understand he's pregnant. All of his parts still work, yeah? He's been doing this job for fifteen years, which unless you're exceptionally well-preserved, is longer than you. And he grew up in this life. I've never known him to put the job at risk."
"I couldn't give less of a fuck about the job. It's the baby, and him, that concern me." Trent gulped from his glass.
Morna snorted. "Two things." She held up one finger. "First, you may not care about the job, but Mal does. So maybe telling Mal that you don't give a fuck about something that's been the center of his life for the past twenty-five years isn't such a hot plan, yeah?"
Trent took an aggressive bite out of his sandwich, as though he could chew through all of the complications of his relationship with Mal. "No. Sorry. You're forgetting there's an actual life coming into the world."
"And you're forgetting the life that kid will be born into," she snapped. "What, did you think he was going to give everything up and just…what, ride off into the sunset? Not that he'd ever be allowed to do that, ever, not in a million years. Some other Wolf would hunt him down and kill him. It would probably even be our Da. So don't even think about it."
Morna took a sip from her drink and shook her head. "Let's pretend for a minute that Mal did somehow escape and go away with you. What exactly is it that you think he'd do, once he gave up the life he's got now? Sit around popping out spawn for you? Maybe bake cookies for you on the side? What the hell makes you think he'd even want that?"
"Someone has to raise the kid." Trent spread his hands wide. "I've got commitments."
"And he doesn't?" She snorted. "Typical man, typical alpha. No one else's life or commitments mean anything, only yours."
Trent rolled his eyes. "I notice you're still single," he muttered.
"I wasn't." Morna's tone turned cold. "The man in question was, somehow, even worse than you. Which brings me to my second point. You're sitting here telling me you're concerned about Mal, and all that rubbish, but you've got a lot of work to do before you convince him of that. You maybe want me to enroll you in a salesmanship course while we're here? It's no problem. It can't be that expensive."
Trent scoffed. "No. I don't want you to sign me up for a salesmanship course. I tell Mal I love him and that I'm worried about him because it’s true. I shouldn't have to sell it to him." He took a deep breath. "What the hell is he doing going after White Dawn by himself?"
"Well, his usual partner was busy so what else was he going to do?" She signaled to the bartender for another drink. "You're not learning here, are you? You don't own Mal. You don't get to swoop in and demand that he sit by himself for however long. You don't get to issue orders. He takes orders from one person, and that's our Da. Get it?"
"He's a twenty-five year old man. He shouldn't be taking orders from his dad like that." Trent snorted.
"Well, that's the way it is. If you're smart, you'll find some way to arrange for the baby to be brought to you when it's born, and then you'll just back off." She accepted her refill from the bartender.
Trent stared at her. "I thought you liked us together."
"I did too, until you reunited with my brother and immediately got in his face. You weren't even happy to see him. He shows up, cut and bleeding, and there you are bellyaching about someone who doesn't exist yet instead of looking after him."
"He was doing just fine for himself." Trent muttered the words. Sure, Mal had been more or less fine. He hadn't been too badly off, anyway. "You're right. I was so angry when I found out he was still fighting and putting himself, and our baby, in danger, that I let that overshadow everything else."
"Yeah, well, now he's off fighting White Dawn alone, isn't he? You've got no one to blame but yourself. So you can sit there and congratulate yourself on having stood up for your fetus, but you've driven the one carrying it so far away you'll probably never see him again." She raised her glass to him. "Great job there."
Trent glowered at her. "He's not going to just leave you here with us just because he's mad at me."
"No. He'll have me come meet him somewhere. He won't stay where he's not welcome." She met his eyes. "Or where he's less than."
"The less than thing is crap. He needs to be sensible. He's not just acting for himself. He's acting for our baby, too. He needs to think about more than just himself." Trent pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You know what? He is thinking about more than just himself. He's thinking about all of Europe, you ass. And if he did take ten minutes to think about himself, I wouldn't blame him. It's not like anyone else is going to do it." She paid the bartender, drained her glass, and left.
Trent watched her go. Was she right? Had he made Mal feel unwelcome? Or like a junior partner?
And if he had, could he do anything about it?
Chapter Sixteen
Mal returned to Toulon three nights after he left. The hotel where he'd been staying wasn't available on such short notice, but another one closer to the base was. The decor was frankly terrible, with a kind of garish, nineteen eighties vibe Mal found appalling, but they had large, clean beds, and private bathrooms.
He'd taken the precaution of wearing a lot of black, so the desk clerk thought he was just wet. "Did someone throw a bucket of water at you, sir?"
Mal laughed, the way he knew he should. "They did. It was awful. I think they meant to hit someone else, but here we are."
"Well, I'll make sure you get extra towels in the morning." The clerk beamed at him.
The ghastly patterns on the floor made it virtually impossible for anyone to notice the bloody footprints Mal left behind as he dragged his things upstairs.
His room was on the top floor. He could see the port from here and the navy yard. Trent was out there somewhere. Was he okay? Was he hurt? Had he already moved on, or did he at least miss Mal a bit?
He shook his head at himself and slunk off to the bathroom. He was going to have to burn these clothes. There would be no getting the blood out of them, not in a hotel, and not in a laundromat either.
He needed to teach himself to stop thinking about Trent. Trent wasn't thinking about him. This wasn't some kind of fairy tale. Wolves lived their lives in shadows, and they didn't live them in such a way that outsiders would remember them. That was just the way things were. Sure, Trent made a lot of noise about the baby, but that was how folks who got other people pregnant were. The ones who didn't have to carry the baby were always the quickest to criticize those who did, especially when they didn't conform to some kind of doe-eyed ideal.
Mal shouldn't love him. He should have gotten a hotel
on the other side of town, as far away from the port as he could. Instead here he was, so close to the port he could smell the fuel, haunting the area like a lovesick ghost.
"Pathetic." He leaned against the sink and glowered at himself in the mirror.
Then he stepped into the bathtub, stripped off, and washed himself clean.
The damage wasn't too bad this time. He'd gotten wind of some White Dawn guys up in Roquevaire, which wasn't far away, and decided to have a look around. He wasn't disappointed.
There hadn't been any guns. Well, Mal had guns, and he was pretty sure the three guys he'd gone up against had guns too. The only problem was they were in a village house, a row style with shared walls. Gunshots would have brought the police, and neither Mal nor his playmates wanted that.
