“Can’t what? What do you mean?”

“What I mean is…we can’t help you with a tattoo here.”

Chapter Nineteen

Talon

Roger curled up next to me, his warm little body a comforting presence. I missed Jade. Why hadn’t I asked her to stay? I wanted her here all the time, with me. I wanted to take care of her.

But who was I to take care of anyone when I couldn’t take care of myself?

She’d be after me with more questions—about the tattoo, about the news article that wasn’t released anywhere but here, about why I had wanted to…

God, I hated going there. Hated it so much.

 

Iraqi insurgents had ambushed us. Caught after dark in a copse of trees adjacent to a small northern village, I was one of the officers in charge of two Explosive Ordnance Disposal units, all enlisted men except one nurse. The other officer was my superior, Captain Derek Waters.

Shells began exploding all around us, the blasts deafening, and enemy fire erupted from the mountainside. The whoosh of the blood in my veins overpowered the explosions, turning into white noise. I yelled at my troops to run, my voice vague and far-off, and I ran like hell.

Once I escaped the woods and the gunfire, I looked back. No one was behind me. Why the fuck hadn’t they run?

More to the point, why had I bothered to run? Fuck, why had I done a lot of things in my life when I’d have been better off dying?

Why hadn’t I just stayed, stood stock still, closed my eyes, looked to the heavens…and gotten my ass shot off?

An end to all my problems…

But here I stood. Like a fucking imbecile.

Waters and two troops rushed at me.

“Steel! You okay?” Waters asked.

I nodded. Waters and the two troops crashed to the ground, panting. Still, I stood.

And the answer hit me.

I would go back in.

I would go back in under the guise of saving my men and hope that I got shot to hell. I bolted in, instinctively dodging fire. The first troop I came across was one of my enlisted men, Clancy Brown. He was screaming, his foot having been shot. He couldn’t get up, and blood was spurting from his lower limb. I grabbed him by the shoulders and got him onto my back, running like hell to get him out of there. When I finally cleared the copse of trees and the enemy fire, I put him down and went running back in, ignoring Waters, who was now sitting up, yelling at me to stay put.

I charged back in and found my sergeant, Jensen, my second-in-command. I grabbed him and pulled him out, and he too begged me not to go back in there.

“Lieutenant, we need you! You’re fucking crazy! Don’t do it!”

But I ignored him as well, darting back through, again instinctively dodging the fire when I should’ve been putting myself in harm’s way. All told, I got four more out, including a woman, Cline, one of the nurses who had been with us.

I turned and rushed back toward the woods.

“Damn it, Steel, no!” Waters grabbed me around the neck.

I broke his choke hold easily, but Forrester, one of the men who had escaped with Waters, tackled me to the ground.

“We need you, Lieutenant.”

I broke free of Forrester with little effort and surged forward.

Waters stopped me again, with help from Jensen, Forrester, and the nurse, Cline. That woman had a motherfucking strong grip.

“I outrank you, Steel,” Waters yelled. “You’re not going back in there.”

I struggled to regain my freedom. “Your men are in there too, you son of a bitch!”

Somehow, with all the adrenaline pumping through me, I broke free and thrust my body forward again.

Forrester tackled me again.

“Let me go, Forrester. That’s a fucking order!”

Waters ran at me, throwing himself on top of Forrester and me. “You’re staying put, Steel. And that’s a fucking order, you dumb shit. Don’t you think I care as much as you do about those troops? Half of them are mine. But damn it, you’re no good to anyone dead.”

Once more I struggled free, my strength unimaginable. But then—

Thud!

Forrester punched me in the nose, and Cline—yes, Cline, her forehead spewing blood—popped me upside the head. I didn’t feel any pain. Too much adrenaline still coursed through my veins. But I went down. I fucking went down. When my head hit the ground, things went black.

Other than a minor concussion, I got out of it unscathed. I was taken to our military base for patching up.

There I sat, healthy as a horse, still fucking alive.

I had done my best to get my ass blown to bits, and it hadn’t worked.

 

As I lay in bed, still petting Roger, my body went cold. I was truly no hero. I hadn’t risked my life for my men. I’d gone in seeking my own demise.

My eyes shot open.

I was glad I wasn’t dead. Fucking glad.

Jade had done that for me, and I needed to do something for her. I needed to work through this chaos that was my life so I could be worthy of her.

I scoffed. I would never be worthy of her, of her love. I did love her, but did she really love me? Jade wasn’t the type to lie. She truly thought she loved me. But the fact of the matter was, she didn’t know me. She didn’t know the real Talon Steel. She didn’t know the man who had killed overseas…and who still dreamed of killing three men from his past.

No, she didn’t love that Talon Steel.

That Talon Steel was unlovable.

 

The boy sat on his ragged blanket, shivering. They hadn’t come in over a day, and he had long since finished the meager meal and small glass of water they had left him.

The bucket was full of his waste, and the rancid stench made his eyes water. He should’ve been used to it by now, but he wasn’t. Wasting away in the midst of his own filth… He truly was nothing.

But he dreamed sometimes, when he was able to sleep. He dreamed of escaping and growing into a big strong man…and hunting those masked demons…plunging knives into their hearts… and laughing into their blurred faces as they drew their last breath.

But the walls… In the walls, the face of the phoenix emerged.

“That will never happen, you piece of filth,” the bird chided, laughing. “You are worth nothing. Nothing more than that little gray blanket they’ve given you. You will die here, and they will never pay for what they’ve done to you. You deserve every bit of it.”