Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
I stared at him for a second. Great. Not only was I going to have to get used to taking orders again, I was going to be taking them from a good guy all-American hero. Part of me wanted to walk straight out the door.
But this was the only way I could save Olivia. “Crystal,” I told JD.
The others returned, all carrying crates, and JD and I lent a hand. Kian had spared no expense: there were guns and ammo, camping gear, ropes…and uniforms. As Cal started getting everything squared away in the storeroom, Kian told the rest of us to get changed, so we could start training. Since we didn’t have a locker room yet, we all just stripped off where we were: we’d all spent enough time in barracks that we weren’t shy, and I’d basically forgotten what privacy was. Danny and I wound up next to each other and, as he carefully hung up his white shirt on a nail, I saw some brutal-looking scars across his back, from his shoulders all the way down to his jockey shorts and maybe on below that.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. I looked away, but not quickly enough.
“Iraq,” he said. “Got captured. A bloke went to work on me with a belt.”
I nodded, wincing. The scars were layered: they must have tortured him for months.
I finished pulling on my combat gear and did up my boots. Danny finished a second before me and headed back towards Kian and the others. I was about to follow him when I saw something that made me stop.
Under one of the many holes in the roof, there was a bucket, half full, and I’d seen my reflection in the water. I was in uniform for the first time in seven years. About to go and train with a team, about to go into action. I felt it all well up inside me: the pride, the feeling of belonging…everything I swore I’d eliminated from my soul the day they kicked me out.
No. I tapped the bucket with the tip of my boot and the reflection scattered. Those feelings were just ghosts. I wasn’t that guy anymore.
I rejoined the others. “We’re getting satellite imagery from Ecuador so we can pinpoint the cartel’s camp,” Kian said. “And I have a friend arranging fake passports to get us in and out of the country on the sly. It’ll be a couple of days ‘till we’re ready, but we need that time to train.”
I knew he was right. Special Ops teams train for months together before their first mission, until they operate as a smooth machine. Apart from JD and Danny, we didn’t even know each other. At the same time, I wanted to be out there now, tonight, because I couldn’t bear the thought of Olivia in cartel hands for even another hour. It shook me, how badly I needed her safe.
I owe her, I told myself. That’s what it is.
For two days, we trained. A couple of things became clear.
Firstly, all of the guys were genuine badasses who knew their stuff. They could move quietly, stay out of sight and handle a gun.
Secondly, I was out of shape. The prison yard had been big enough to do laps but there’s nothing more depressing than running towards a concrete wall, so I’d lifted weights, instead. Now I didn’t have the stamina of the other guys. I compensated with raw effort, running until I was on the verge of throwing up. If I couldn’t keep up, I was putting all of us in danger.
Thirdly, we weren’t even remotely close to meshing as a team. We were a mix of Army, Marines and SAS and we all had subtly different ways of doing things. Only JD and Danny had worked together before. They were close: they communicated almost without words, each knowing instinctively what the other one would do. The opposite was true of JD and me: after being on my own for so long, taking orders again rankled. And JD really didn’t like having me watch his back.
I couldn’t blame him, I wouldn’t have trusted me, either.
Meanwhile, Cal wasn’t the best at communicating. Apparently, he’d lived alone in the forest, barely speaking to another person for years until Bethany had come along, and sometimes it was like he was still re-learning how to talk.
The person I was really worried about, though, was Bradan. He could handle himself as well as the others, but Kian still wouldn’t tell us what his background was and there was something…off about him. You know when someone’s tense and it makes you tense? It was like that…times a thousand. Like he was a spring, wound tight, a snake ready to strike. And there were little things he said, or didn’t say. Like one night, we all got talking about parties, when we were teenagers. Colton told us about some annual thing they’d had back in Missouri, where the kids jumped hand-in-hand off a cliff into a lake. Danny told us about sweet-talking his way into some posh girl’s party in London. But Bradan dodged his turn and I saw a flash of panic in his eyes. As if he’d never been to a party as a teenager. What the hell had he been doing, during those years?