Page 4 of Warrior Security
“Buy us breakfast, and I’ll believe you mean it,” Beckett said.
Hunter almost looked amused. Almost. “Get in the vehicle, Beckett.”
Beckett pushed off the hood and headed for the driver’s door. He passed me on the way and clapped a hand on my shoulder. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to. It was the kind of gesture that said you’re part of this, and a week ago it would have meant everything.
I stood there a few seconds longer than I should have. The quiet that had been in my head an hour ago was gone. The noise was back, all of it, pouring in to fill the space the mission had kept clear.
The episodes had been getting worse for months. More frequent. Harder to come back from. The one in the corridor was the worst yet. The longest, the most complete.
I’d lost the hallway. I’d lost Beckett’s voice. I’d lost ten seconds of real time in a live environment with a teammate beside me.
I’d gotten lucky. Beckett had gotten lucky. Everyone in this garage had gotten lucky because the third hostile had been on a different floor.
I wanted to call Reid. The reflex hit before the thought caught up. Just the automatic reach for the one person who would have understood without my having to explain any of it. He’d been right there for all of it. Every deployment, every firefight, every sleepless night after. The only person I’d never had to translate for.
My hand didn’t move toward my phone. Reid’s number was still in my contacts. It would ring until voice mail picked up andI’d hear his voice telling me to leave a message, and the fact that he sounded annoyed in the recording used to be funny.
I shut that down. Put it away.
“Stroud. You riding back with us or thinking about taking a stroll?” Beckett was looking at me from the driver’s seat, window down.
“Yeah.” I pulled open the rear door. “I’m coming.”
I got in. Buckled the seat belt. Pressed my skull back against the headrest and closed my eyes while Beckett pulled out of the garage. In the front seat, he was on the phone with Coop, arguing about whether the wallpaper had been deliberately ugly or just old. Beckett was committed to the bit.
Normal. Easy. The sound of guys who’d just done a hard thing and come out the other side of it together.
For one week, I’d thought I would be part of that. With a team that worked. A structure that made sense. People who were good at what they did and would let me be good at it beside them. Until tonight, I was pretty sure that’s what my new life in Montana would be.
Then ten seconds of blind time in a corridor.
I couldn’t do this.
Chapter 2
Logan
I’d been sitting on the tailgate of my truck for forty minutes when Hunter’s headlights cut across the gravel lot.
It was four forty-five in the morning. The sky was still more black than gray, and the air had the kind of cold that Montana did in early spring, the kind that got into your knuckles and stayed. My duffel was in the truck bed behind me, packed tight with the straps cinched, everything I owned in one bag.
I’d been awake all night, but that wasn’t new. I’d used the time to strip the room I had been staying in at the Resting Warrior Ranch lodge clean, wipe down every surface, fold the borrowed sheets into a square on the mattress. The room looked like no one had ever stayed in it.
Hunter parked and climbed out. He saw me on the tailgate before he saw the duffel, but not by much. His eyes went from me to the bag and back again, and his expression settled into something resigned, like he’d been waiting for this since we got back last night.
He walked over and stopped a few feet away. Stood there with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking at me the way he looked at most things, patient and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and planned to use it.
“Early start,” he said.
“Wanted to catch you before the others got in.”
He nodded. He knew what was coming. I could see it in the way he settled his weight, the way his jaw set just slightly. He was already bracing, but he was going to let me say what I had to say anyway.
No need to draw this out. “I’m done. I appreciate everything you’ve offered me here. The training, the mission, all of it. But I can’t do this work.”
Hunter didn’t move. Didn’t look away. The silence between us held for three full seconds, which was long enough to hear the wind push through the tree line at the edge of the property and a horse shift in the barn.
“One mission,” he said. “You did one mission, and you handled yourself well.”
