“Gotta run, sis, call out,” Echo told me when he got close.
Damn.
“Be safe.”
“Always.” My brother pulled me into a bear hug and kissed the top of my head. Before he let go he whispered, “I like him. Don’t fuck this up.”
“Don’t piss me off when you’re leaving to answer a call.”
“Only time I can say this when I know I won’t catch attitude. I’m being serious. Luke’s solid. He’s all-in. Drop the walls, sister.”
My body went solid in my brother’s embrace.
“Did he tell you that?”
“Yup. Now, be a good girl and listen to your big brother.”
Ugh.
So annoying.
I shoved away from Echo and gave him my best scowl. This was wholly ineffective.
“Love you, Sunny.” He smiled.
“Love you, too, big jerk.”
Echo said his goodbyes to the women, and he was off.
Brice was jogging toward the parking lot and Quinn was watching him go.
“Three-alarm fire,” Quinn announced. “They need more trucks.”
Brice was a firefighter. Echo was a narco. My best guess was a lab had exploded.
Addy stood with a sticky Emma in her arms and said, “I’m taking her back to her parents.”
I couldn’t blame Addy. Emma was covered in popsicle juice and so was Addy’s shirt.
“I’ll be back.” Hadley followed her sister.
“I’m getting another beer, want one?” Quinn asked.
“I’ll go with you,” Lauren chirped and stood.
“No thanks, I’ll have a water,” I answered.
“Are you on call?” Liberty inquired when the rest of the ladies walked away.
“No. But these days that doesn’t mean much.”
Liberty nodded as if she understood, which she probably did, considering most of her family had been in law enforcement or the military. And she herself, was still active duty.
“I heard Drake say you weren’t reenlisting.”
“No. I’m ready to start a family and I don’t want to deploy after I have kids.”
That made sense but there was something in her tone that didn’t sound happy.
“But you’re not ready to leave the military,” I surmised.
Liberty was silent a beat while she studied me closely.
Crap. Maybe I’d overstepped. That was a personal question. I didn’t know this woman and had no business asking her something private.
“Sorry, that was rude. Forget I asked.”
“It wasn’t rude. I’m just trying to figure out how to answer. My whole life I knew I wanted to be in the Army. I went to college, joined, trained hard, and worked my ass off to prove I had a place in Special Forces. It wasn’t easy. But the harder it got the more I wanted it. And I earned it. I earned my tab. I earned a place on my team. I proved to myself I was good enough. Then I had to prove to my family I was strong enough to go back out after I was captured. I did that, too. I’ve served honorably. And now I’m ready to get out. Drake’s never said and he never would, but I know he’s ready for me to be done. And honestly, the way he stood by me after everything that happened, I owe it to him to be done. No more deployments. No more getting called out with five hours’ notice, unable to tell him where I’m going and how long I’m gonna be gone. I know he gets it; he was a team guy. But still, it sucks, having that between us. And I want kids.”
I wanted to ask her about being captured. I wanted to ask if she was okay even though she was sitting across from me. I wanted to ask what she meant by “everything that happened”. But I didn’t because that would be crossing a line, with the potential of her asking personal questions of her own.
I also wanted to tell her I understood what it was like to have to prove you’re good enough to be on a team comprised of men. I understood the fire that ignites in your belly when someone tells you you’re not strong enough or tough enough—which translates to you’re not a man, so you don’t belong. But I didn’t tell Liberty any of that because I was too afraid to open myself up.
“Who are you if not a soldier,” I finished for her.
Liberty smiled and dipped her chin.
“I figured you’d get it. You’re pretty much in the same boat I am. Surrounded by men, having to work three times as hard to earn their respect. I feel like I’ve been doing that so long I don’t know how not to do it.”
Yep. I was in the same boat.
“There’s a rush that comes with it. Not adrenaline. Not the same rush you get kicking in a door, but a rush all the same. Accomplishment is addictive. It becomes necessary. It pushes you to be better, do better, prove to yourself you’re the best you can be.”
Liberty was staring at me with her crazy-cool cat-like eyes and I suddenly felt exposed.
Vulnerable.
“You have a purpose,” Liberty said. “A personal mission.”
God, we were the same.
That was exactly what I felt.
“I lost that purpose once,” she continued. “After I was taken and Drake, Logan, Matt, and Luke found me. After the explosion. Trey almost lost his leg. And Luke, he lost everything that day. I was drowning in guilt and couldn’t see myself through it. I’d failed. Everything I’d worked so hard for seemed like a mistake. Drake held me through my nightmares. My family propped me up when I fell. And once again I had to work my ass off to get back to me and I did. I made it through. So, what happens when I get out and that personal mission is gone? Who am I? What am I working toward?”
I swallowed, then I swallowed again but the lump in my throat was stuck. The warmth of the day was now stifling. The sun felt like it was blistering my flesh. Panic rose and I wanted to flee.
“Shiloh?”
I was weak. So fucking weak.
I’d been wrong.
“I’m not like you. I thought I was. But I’m not.”
“What?”
“As you were talking, I was thinking we were the same. Because of our jobs. How we feel about them. But I’m not like you. I’m weak. I don’t deserve my place on my team.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized they were the truth. That was what I was struggling with. Acknowledging I was not strong enough, I wasn’t tough enough, I wasn’t as good as my teammates, as my brothers.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I am weak. Because I can’t stop the nightmares. I messed up and a girl is dead. Her father is broken, and that’s on me. I did that.”
God, I was gonna throw up.
“She didn’t scream,” I blurted out. “She was so scared she didn’t make a peep.”
“Who’s she?”
“Penelope. All she did was go to work and died. Her dad watched. He begged me to save her. I didn’t. And he saw his daughter’s head explode. He has to live with that for the rest of his life.”
Compassion shone on Liberty’s face and my insides turned to ice. I didn’t deserve that emotion.
“I need to go.”
“No.” Liberty reached out quick as lightning and grabbed my hand. The instinct to fight rushed to the surface. “Don’t, Shiloh. You know I mean you no harm.”