Prologue
Elijah
Three years ago, when one of the guys on the base lost his son in a car accident, he’d described how he felt as a ‘crushing grief.’ I thought I could understand it, but until you’ve experienced that grief yourself, you’ll never truly appreciate how accurate that description was.
It felt like something was exploding inside my chest while it was crushed from the outside at the same time. It was hard to breathe, it was hard to understand, it was hard to even think.
What was the worst, though, was the knowledge that I hadn’t gotten there quick enough to save Coop. My best friend since kindergarten, my partner in crime, had needed me, and I hadn’t been there.
During the rescue, fifty-knot winds had wrapped me around the mast of the ship while I’d been lowering down to help the crew, and the winch cable had cut into my back and thighs. I’d sustained a ‘mild fracture’ in my T10 vertebrae, so now I had this wicked corset thing to wear for twelve weeks while I rested and recovered.
I’d been stuck in this bed in Fairbanks Memorial Hospital for three days, waiting for something they gave me to numb the pain inside of me. Fucking nothing worked, and they wouldn’t let me leave until the spinal specialist looked at the MRI I’d had this morning and gave his consent.
“Well, there’s some hot nurses at least,” my brother, Jackson, noted as he dropped down into the chair beside my bed. “When are you allowed to blow this joint?”
Not taking my eyes off the mark I’d been staring at on the ceiling since I woke up, I told him, “When the guy comes to tell me what the MRI looks like.”
There was a moment's silence, and then I heard the scuffling noise of the feet on the chair as it moved across the floor, closer to the side of the bed.
“Look, I know you’ve said no, but I think you should call Mom. She’ll want to help out and—”
“No.”
“Eli, you can’t do this yourself. She knows about Cooper because his parents have been informed, and she’ll want to be there for you, especially with your injuries.”
“No.”
I couldn’t face seeing her right now. It was bad enough Jackson knew and was here. Just for another day—fuck, another hour—I wanted to stay as I was. She was already mourning a man who was like another son to her, maybe even blaming me for it. I didn’t want to add to that by showing her I could hardly walk.
But could my brother leave it alone? No, he was an annoying dick who just had to push.
Leaning over me so that his face was three inches away from my own, he muttered, “Eli, you’ve been beaten up to hell and back. If the Alex Haley hadn’t arrived when it had, you’d be paralyzed right now, or you’d have been dragged down with the mast when the ship sank. I know—”
“You know jack fucking shit,” I roared, the buildup of pressure inside of me too much to keep a lid on any longer. “While I was swinging around from a goddamn cable, Coop was dying. It’s my job to stop that happening, it’s what I’ve done for fucking years, and I’m the reason he’s dead.”
Grabbing my face with his hand to make sure I was looking right at him, he took his life into his own hands. To hell with my back, and fuck the warnings—I wanted someone to feel this pain and to understand what I was going through.
“You didn’t fail, man. Coop broke his neck. He was dead the second it happened, Eli. All your training, all of your experience, nothing would have saved him.”
I should have.
Digging my elbows into the mattress, I was about to lever myself up to punch him when a voice I couldn’t disobey came from the door.
“I’m not here as your C.O.,” Samson growled. “I’m here as a friend. But if you move, I’ll pull rank and kick your ass harder than the doctors would want me to, do you understand?”
It took me a moment to decide what to do—fight versus respect and duty—but eventually, I straightened my arms out and willed the tense muscles to settle down again. Even the smallest movement felt like someone had cut my spine open with a knife, and what I’d just done had amped it all up to the point it even hurt to breathe right now.
Moving closer so I could see him, the man I’d looked up to for so long, my commanding officer, came into view.
“You saved two men’s lives with a fractured vertebra and extensive soft tissue damage on your spine and thighs, E.T. It’s an honor to even look at you right now, knowing those other men got home to their families, alive and breathing, because of your bravery.”
The words made me flinch and groan when pain shot from my spine into my gut from the movement.
I hadn’t allowed myself to let go yet, and at that moment, the first tear fell out the corner of my eye, slowly tracking it’s way to my hairline.
Yeah, they got to go home alive and breathing. Coop didn’t.
“Crying doesn’t make you any less of a man, son,” Samson sighed, leaning on the side of my bed. “Cooper was one of the best men I’ve met in my fifty-three years on this earth, and there isn’t a man or woman who had the privilege of meeting him that isn’t grieving down to their souls right now. At some point, that knowledge will bring you pride, ‘cos not many people can leave a mark on the world like that, but he sure as fuck did.”
Every word made the pain in my chest feel worse, like I had something tearing me open inside it. And the tears—fuck me, the tears—just wouldn’t stop.
“You’ve got more memories than most of us, Eli,” he said quietly, squeezing my forearm. “Hold onto those because they were special before, but they’re precious now. Listen to other people’s memories and add them to what you’ve got of your own. Talking about the ones we lose is what keeps them with us, keeps them alive, and spreads the joy of their existence to places and people they never got to encounter.”
Christ, it felt like I was dying. Each time I tried to breathe in, it would come in little bursts like my chest was spasming.
“But I want you to remember something fundamental. The men on that ship were his friends, and he’d worked with them for six years, Elijah. That’s a long time to be together in the conditions they worked in, so they were like brothers. Sure, the Alex Haley got four of them, but you saved those two others from drowning and got them to safety before you’d even let us bring you out of the water.”
“If it hadn’t been for the Cutter, we’d have lost them, not me, Sir.”
Copying what Jackson had done before he’d arrived, Samson leaned over me so he was all I could see. “That’s where you’re wrong. Without you, Harlson would’ve gone down with the ship. His survival suit was hooked on that metal, and you know it. Without you, Adams would’ve been swept farther away and probably lost. You made us all proud, Elijah, and you made Coop proud, too, because you saved his brothers.”
Every word felt like a knife was stabbing me.
“I’m not extending my service,” I whispered. “Not even on base.”
I only had three months left, but I’d been thinking about transferring to Florida to be closer to my family. Coop was on his last trip, and he wanted to move home and fish there instead of Alaska, so we’d been looking forward to warmer waters.