My run of bad luck, in that things don’t go my way, has clearly not come to an end as my plane’s delayed. I roll my eyes at the announcement. Over the past few weeks I’ve checked in with Tailor and kept him updated with my lack of findings. We hadn’t bothered to meet. There was too much risk my presence would get back to Smythe and that was bound to cause issues. With time to kill, I decide on one last call, even though I’ve got nothing to tell him. I’d tried my best—it wasn’t good enough. One man wasn’t enough to find answers.
The phone rings out. I don’t leave a message and am not disturbed. He’s probably been called out on an op.
I sit in the lounge, waiting for my flight to be announced, idly watching the local news on the monitor. When four familiar faces and two I don’t know fill the screen, I rise to my feet, cursing my ability to read the Arabic script, wishing I could remain in blissful ignorance. Quickly, I take out my phone and google. The news has to be wrong.
Jesus. My worst fears when I first saw their picture is confirmed as the correct interpretation. Tailor, Buster, Slice, Gun and the two team members who’d taken my place and Pooh’s are all dead, their transit being taken out by a terrorist explosion.
My brain refuses to process the information. How could they be gone? Tailor? I only spoke to him yesterday. One of them, perhaps, taken out by a mine, but all six at once? It had been a goddamn rocket fired at the vehicle in which they were travelling.
But the vehicle was armoured. They knew the territory. They’re SEALs for fuck’s sake. They knew to remain alert to threats. What could have happened to them?
If I’d still been part of the unit maybe I’d be dead along with them.
If I’d been part of the unit, I’d have assessed the intelligence, maybe picked up on warning…
But I hadn’t been. All because I disobeyed an order from a superior whose brain wasn’t worth shit. I’m alive. They’re dead. I’m the last surviving member of my team.
I’m unable to process it.
I hadn’t stayed in close contact with them for my own reasons. Had never asked whether my replacement was solid. I hadn’t bothered to ask Tailor anything personal, like whether he was still with Tanya, or whether he was single, let alone the rest of the men who’d been as close to me as brothers.
But Gun, Slice, Buster and Tailor still held a place deep in my soul. Now they’re gone. Worse, I’d been in the very same country on a wild goose chase. If I’d been part of the team…
I’d lost them once when I was tossed out of the platoon. Now their loss is permanent.
Tailor, Slice, Gun and Buster are dead.
I’d failed in my mission to find the girl.
Could things get worse?
9
Four years ago
Stormy…
I came back to the States a changed man, and not for the better.
Still lying to Pip, I stayed away for another month, unable to get things straight in my head. Nothing made sense. Nothing. I’m ashamed to admit, I resorted once again to getting drunk, only to find that didn’t solve problems. No answers come from the bottom of a bottle, all alcohol brings is a raging hangover.
I had to return to the Devils, I could do nothing else. Not only was I a disgraced ex-SEAL, the intervening years I’ve spent with a one-percenter motorcycle club would be unlikely to provide me with a good reference on a résumé should I try to attempt to do anything else.
I sobered up and began avoiding the escape offered by alcohol. When Pip next phoned, I was able to think rationally, and recognised that his more probing questions revealed an impatience with me.
I knew it was past time to return. I also thought I was strong enough and would be able to compartmentalise shit and pick up where I’d left off. I thought I could slot right back in with my MC family, that just going back to the familiar would make everything right.
As it turns out, I was very fucking wrong. I no sooner walked into the club when instead of seeing my laughing, smiling brothers around me, I see their dead faces superimposed over those of my old teammates. They greet me warmly, welcoming me home, but all I hear are their anguished cries as they lie dying, and all because something I’d done went tits up.
I’m a coward. I don’t want to be there to witness their deaths, don’t want to be responsible.
It isn’t that I’m afraid of dying, far from it. I welcome it. I’ve already lived more than my time. I should have died with Pooh or instead of him. But if I was going to leave this earth, I didn’t want to drag anyone down to hell with me. I’d made a call, it had been wrong. If I’d still been a SEAL, maybe my team would be alive. I stand in the doorway to the clubroom, then swiftly turn on my heels bumping into Pip.
One look at my face is all it takes, and he beckons me to follow him. When we get to his office, he directs me to a seat.
“How’s your mom?” Pip enquires, his eyes softening.
“She died.”
He gives me a sharp look that I can read nothing into, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Brother.”
I shrug. “End of a chapter, that’s all.” That book had closed years back, though hopefully Prez doesn’t know that. My mom could be still breathing, but nothing would make me seek her out. In the same way that she hadn’t bothered about me, I couldn’t care less about her.
“Well, it will be good to have you back around the table.”
I’m caught in a dilemma. If I turn around and go, I’ll be back at square one—with no home and no purpose. That would have me staring at the bottom of a bottle very fast, and maybe into the barrel of my gun. On the other hand, how can I stay? Maybe I just need time.
Or, maybe again, I’m wrong.
It’s the first church after my return that shows me, and my MC brothers, how I’ve changed. I don’t mean to, but I can’t filter the words coming out of my mouth. Almost from the word go, I’m behaving like an ass, even when I don’t mean to. I can’t seem to stop the sentences which have just one intention and effect, that of pushing people away. Deep down, I know I’m avoiding them getting too close, trying to stop them from meaning more to me than they do already.
I snipe at suggestions, shoot holes in plans. It’s clear at first they put my asshole behaviour down to the fictional death of my mom, though I try to get them off that topic fast. Every time she’s mentioned, I watch and listen with care, but no one seems to have tried to track me down or disprove my story.
Pip gives me two weeks during which I manage to piss off just about everybody before calling me into his office.
“What’s your fuckin’ problem, Stormy? You’re acting like you don’t want to be part of the MC anymore.”
I clasp my hands together, having nothing much to offer. “I kind of got used to being on my own in California.” It’s a lame excuse, but the best I can come up with.
“Well.” Pip sits back, crossing his arms over his chest. “I guess it’s hard losing a parent. You handing in your patch?”
The suggestion put so starkly shocks me. Such harsh definitive words makes me realise that’s the last thing I want. What am I if I’m not a Devil? Hastily, I try to think of something which won’t be so dire, but will see me away from the club where I don’t feel responsibility for my brothers.