Trigger Discipline (Team Oh Sh!t Book 1), page 6
If anyone could organize a makeshift government, plan and execute evacuations, and manage any intel Gabriel and his team brought back, it would be Irving. The number of desk jockeys Gabriel trusted could be counted on one hand, but Irving was one of them.
Blake wrinkled his nose. “He sounds interesting.”
“Oh, he’s absolutely insufferable,” Gabriel laughed. “But he’s the guy.”
That seemed to be the only answer Blake needed. He grew quiet, still, except for his hands. The medic was constantly cracking his joints. Absently, like he didn’t know he was doing it. Once he finished one hand, he started on the other. Every knuckle pulled and pressed until it audibly snapped, then he moved on to the next.
It left Gabriel with room of his own to think.
What was his next step?
The last bit of intelligence they’d received had been about a cell phone tower. It didn’t look to be in too bad shape, but the last images and information was a day old. It could be gone now. Still, he didn’t have any other leads. They would need to get to the cell phone tower.
Gabriel pulled out the small map from his pocket and laid it across the counter. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he retrieved a small, chipped crochet hook. Fiddling with it, he used the point to trace a possible route. And then an alternate route, if that one was blocked.
Gabriel would have to go alone. Judd was in no state to travel quickly, and he needed Phin to stay behind with the civilians.
“There’s construction,” Blake said, interrupting his thoughts.
Gabriel looked up to see Blake leaning over, also studying his map. He pointed to the intersection his crochet hook was resting on.
“They’re widening the road, or something. Whole thing is messed up. They detoured over to…” he spun the map so he could get a better look and traced another route. “But it’s completely trashed. We drove by earlier. Whole thing is blocked by downed buildings. You could take Park Ave; traffic won’t matter now, but you’ll have to walk. No way you’re getting a vehicle down that street.”
He resisted the urge to groan. Gabriel would give anything to have a working satellite with a team behind it giving him real-time directions.
“Where are you trying to go?”
Quickly, Gabriel explained his plan with the cell tower. “I know the area. I can get you there.”
“Sure, you could,” Gabriel agreed, folding up his map. “If you were coming with me.”
Blake rolled his eyes. “Are we going to do this? I’ve seen this movie. You’re the soldier with a job to do. I’m the local who knows how to get there. You don’t want to take me because it’s dangerous and blah blah blah. We can argue about it for twenty minutes, and I will still get my way. Or you could just agree that it’s a good idea and we can avoid the whole cliché.”
Gabriel didn’t know how to respond to that. His knee-jerk reaction was to ignore Blake altogether, but he took a minute to think. For the cliché of it all.
It wasn’t that he didn’t think Blake was right. Of any local, a paramedic who spent most of his shifts on these streets was the ideal person to take along. He would know all the shortcuts. And he’d proven himself capable and quick on his feet.
But Blake was a liability. One that weighed heavily. And he was already carrying so much.
“You said you guys volunteered for this. Why?” Blake’s face was serious. “We both know DC is lost. This is a suicide mission.”
Gabriel wished the answer was complicated. But it wasn’t. Not really. Each of them had their own reasons for being here. All of them valid. All of them selfish.
“What’s the point in living if I can’t live with myself?”
Blake didn’t answer. Gabriel didn’t expect him to. He was still trying to figure it out himself.
Gabriel was seeking redemption at the end of his rifle. Atonement with every bullet he fired. He wasn’t sure if he could buy salvation with blood, but it was all he had. He would spill the blood of his enemies until it wasn’t enough, and then he would give his own. Not for some fabled promise of eternity, or a divine reward he knew he didn’t deserve.
For this life. For the one he took. For the one he almost lost.
Because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do, and if he stopped to consider that, he’d lose his fucking mind.
And if he added Blake’s life to all of that, he wasn’t sure he could take another step.
“So let me volunteer,” Blake argued. “Let me do something. Let me save something. Please.”
There it was. Under the thin veneer of his pushiness was the truth. Blake was a savior, whether he wanted to admit it or not. And not being able to help, of constantly losing, was taking its toll.
Gabriel understood. He hated it. But he understood.
He exhaled out his nose. “Fine.”
Blake didn’t smile. He didn’t thank him, either. He just turned back to his jump bag, beginning to sort things into piles.
Phin barreled into the room bringing with him the harsh smell of sweaty male. Gabriel laughed when Blake wrinkled his nose.
The grenadier noticed his face and cocked an eyebrow. “Too manly for your delicate sensibilities?”
Blake didn’t rise to the bait. He stared Phin down. Or rather, up. Phin was a good head and shoulders taller than the medic.
“I’ve been in moldy crack houses that smelled better than you.”
“That right?” Phin sidled up to Blake, looking down his nose at him. “That your thing?”
It was friendly on the surface. Two guys coming off an adrenaline high, taking the piss out of each other. But there was something more. Phin was too sharp. Too confrontational. His easy grin, the one he used to make himself seem harmless despite his size, was gone.
“No,” Blake drawled, refusing to step up to Phin. “But if you get on your knees, I’d be more than happy to show you what I like.”
Gabriel choked, coughing to hide from his friend’s harsh glare. Phin yanked his helmet off. “Can’t wait to whip it out, huh?”
“Someone’s got to show you what a real dick looks like.”
There was no hesitation. Blake’s barbs were fast, not a trace of hesitation in the face of Phin’s rapidly declining mood.
The big guy’s fist clenched, and Gabriel hissed at him. Phin faked a smile, the corners of his mouth cracking like granite before he moved off. He tossed his helmet onto the couch with a little more force than necessary and began removing his body armor.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Blake mused lightly, still watching Phin’s back.
“He didn’t—”
“I’ve been in enough dick measuring contests to know exactly what he was doing.” Blake smiled, a small dimple flashing on his cheek. “He was testing me.”
Gabriel was once again speechless, completely surprised by Blake’s understanding. To the outsider, a military squad might look like a bunch of uncivilized, insensitive apes. And they were. But there was a culture to it—a language, religion, and hierarchy all of their own design. Phin didn’t know Blake, so he didn’t trust him. And like it or not, they were stuck together. Phin wanted to know if he could trust Blake at his back.
And Blake had risen to the challenge.
“I’m going to go check on Tommy,” Blake pushed off the counter, pushing his hair out of his face. “But thanks for stepping in.”
He walked away, pausing at the doorway. Looking over his shoulder, there was a smile on his face, eyes twinkling mischievously. “I’d hate to embarrass one of your soldiers, Commander.”
Gabriel stared after him with a dry mouth. Fuck. Blake was so much more than pretty. He was a fucking geode—hard as a rock on the outside, equally tough on the inside, but goddamn did he sparkle once you got a peek. Gabriel couldn’t help but let his eyes linger on his ass as he walked away. It was a damn fine ass in those tactical pants.
“Stop drooling,” Phin groused from across the room, nursing his wounded pride.
Gabriel flipped him off. “You try that shit with him again and I’ll adjust the sight on all your guns."
Phin gaped at him. “You wouldn’t dare touch Betty.”
“Talk about his dick again, and I’ll Betty Boop her right out of alignment.”
CHAPTER 8
DIDDY BOPPER
The sun was fading fast as Blake and Gabriel made their way toward the cellular tower. Everything was quiet—something Blake thought he would find reassuring, but it made him nervous. Every scuff of their boots or crunch of broken glass made him jump. He tried hiding it, tightening his hands on the straps of the backpack he’d pilfered from the station locker room, but he didn’t think Gabriel was fooled.
When he was a student on his first clinical, his preceptor told him, ‘In the truck, only one of you is allowed to freak out, and it’s never your turn.’ His classmates told him they faked it. That inside, they were a quivering mess of nerves.
Blake didn’t have that problem.
One of the biggest reasons he turned to emergency medicine was the adrenaline. The constant tick tick tick as he raced the reaper. His hands had to move faster than his brain. Where others found stress, Blake found calm.
As a kid, his father had called him a human lie detector. It had been said with a laugh. A funny quirk his kid had. But he had seen the tight lines around his father’s eyes. The twitching of his fingers. To someone else, they were subtle signs, but to Blake, they were as loud as sirens.
It wasn’t that Blake had some kind of supernatural gift or power. There was nothing special about him. He just noticed things. A lot of things. Quickly. And in noticing those things, he could put a picture together. A vivid understanding of the things unsaid. Body language never lied.
People did.
The things a person said weren’t always what they meant. His mother read him the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. His teachers had cutesy posters with ‘honesty is the best policy’ in gold foil. He didn’t understand the difference between good lies and bad lies. Treading the line between what he knew and what someone said was exhausting.
And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t turn it off. Even now, he wondered if Gabriel saw the scraps of bed sheet hanging out of a third-story window fluttering in the wind. Or the body slumped by the garden bed. Vertical lines down their arms rather than a molten hole through their skin.
There was probably a time when he was younger that he tried to fix himself. Tried not to acknowledge the things he was saying. Believed the shapes and sounds someone’s lips made. Hell, he’d even tried locking himself in a dark bathroom just to get a few moments of peace.
It was the summer his mother made him go to camp that he finally figured it out. He’d spent the bulk of the first couple of weeks sulking in the corner, desperately trying to ignore the loud that seemed to come with kids his age, when he stumbled upon a discarded book. It was some cheesy vampire romance. Completely ridiculous, implausible, and terribly written.
And Blake couldn’t put it down.
When he had his nose in those pages, it was like his brain was so busy absorbing the story it was being told, it didn’t have time to make one of its own. The words on the page were louder than the ones around him, and Blake finally found peace.
From books to TV, movies, and video games, anything he could sink into. Where he could disappear into someone else’s head to see what they see and only what they see.
Blake had once tried to explain to his parents why he spent so much time with consumable media. He tried to make them understand, but they didn’t, and it was the last time he’d attempted it. If his own parents hadn’t been able to get it, how could anyone else?
So he stopped trying.
It made things like dating near impossible. He’d stopped trying that after a while, too. His romantic interludes were limited to one-night stands with his senses dulled by alcohol and low lights. It wasn’t satisfying, but it worked.
His mother was devastated when he dropped out of college to pursue a career in EMS, but he had never regretted it.
If he’d been a doctor like she wanted, he might have been in that hospital. And he would be dead.
Blake shook his head and tried not to think about it or his parents.
Instead, he stared at Gabriel’s back and tried to step where he did. Tried to move as quietly as he did. It was impressive for a man as loaded down with gear as he was. But he moved fluidly, body comfortable with the weight it was carrying.
Maybe that’s why he’d volunteered to come with him. Because Gabriel seemed so honest. His body language was clear and concise. Oh, he was hiding something. It was obvious in the way he glanced off to the side. The sighs he let out when he didn’t think anyone was within earshot.
But that wasn’t a lie. It was private. Something he didn’t want the world to know. It was different in a way Blake couldn’t articulate.
Gabriel ducked into a doorway to check his map. Blake took a minute to uncap a bottle of water and took a swig. He offered the bottle to the soldier, and he drank deeply. Blake watched his prominent Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.
“About a mile,” he said unprompted, when he handed the bottle back. “If we don’t have any detours.”
They set off again just as twilight was beginning to fall. Blake was left wondering if they shouldn’t have waited until sunrise or if the night would help conceal them. What were the chances the aliens were night-blind?
He was easing past a crushed dumpster when he heard it. A whining whistle punctuated by scrambled clicks. It sounded kind of like dolphins. Like the little popping snaps of echolocation. Turning, he cocked his head to follow the noise.
The street dumped them out into a small lane behind some residences. It looked like a communal driveway, so people didn’t have to park on the street. The houses here were in relatively good condition. Gabriel picked up the pace, knees bent, his gun held out in front of him. They rounded a corner when they saw something fly past.
Blake followed the shiny sphere with his eyes. It zipped past, hovering ten feet above the ground.
There was no obvious means of propulsion, yet the ball had no trouble. Without any wings or sails, it clearly wasn’t following air currents. No, it was moving under its own steam. Yet its dark surface was flawless. Not a seam or rivet in sight.
He was studying the sphere when he was suddenly grabbed and slammed against a doorway. Before he could open his mouth, a thick gloved hand clamped over his lips.
“Shhh,” Gabriel’s low voice hissed in his ear, breath warm.
Blake froze. Gabriel was pressed against him, a firm hand over his mouth, the other braced, forearm pressed to the door to hold them both flat.
He could hear the clicks getting louder – he panicked. Wriggling in his hold. Trying to see. But Gabriel's knees pushed into his thighs. Blake's balance was removed. His fingernails clawed at his thick arm. He gnawed at the hand covering his mouth. The leather too thick to be effective. Sweat and gunpowder filled his mouth. Then the hand in the glove flexed, bare fingertips brushed against his cheek, strangely comforting.
Between his harsh breaths, he heard a new clicking whine. Something boomed, the vibrations rattling under the soles of his feet. He stopped trying to move, staring at the chipped paint of the door in front of him. Sweat pricked on his face where Gabriel’s glove pressed against his face. He could feel tiny bits of gravel and grit digging into his skin whenever they moved.
Slowly, Blake shifted his head just enough to see the street out of the corner of his eye.
Four legs stepped into view. Dark metal forged into seamless curves. Two razor-sharp pinchers snapping, punctuated by a trilling clicking. As the thing walked, its clawed feet dug into the asphalt, scraping with faint sparks. Occasionally the swiveling head chittered as it rammed into a car or fence, knocking it down like a game. The pinchers chattering excitedly as a car flipped three times, crashing into a garage door.
The alien jumped onto the garage door, leaping on the fiberglass and trilling louder as it clattered and bent. The door was shredded in seconds.
Blake began to shake. He couldn’t help it. That thing was…playing. It was playing with a garage door as it patrolled around looking for people to murder. And they’d just about walked right into it.
His mouth was soaked from his attempts to bite through the glove on his hand. Swallowing, he tried to follow the alien’s journey down the road, but Gabriel was blocking him. All he could see of him was his black sleeve and a bit of shoulder.
Blind, he tried to listen for more clicking. He couldn’t hear anything but the blood rushing in his ears and the steady thump-thump of his heart.
Wait.
His pulse was going a mile a minute. He could feel it. The steady heartbeat was from Gabriel. His breathing was even, his body still. Now that Blake was focusing, he could smell sweat. He was unbearably warm and as hard as steel as he pressed every inch of his body against Blake, completely covering him—to keep him still or hidden, he didn’t know. He felt small but not vulnerable. His hands were still trembling, and he wasn’t sure why. Blake’s stomach swooped.
The fingers over his mouth wiggled, gently peeling away from his lips as if he wasn’t sure if Blake would scream or not. He took a deep breath, falling forward against the door as the arm around him retreated. He felt cold and unsteady without the solid weight at his back.
“Are you ok?”
Blake nearly wheezed with how ridiculous the question was. Was he all right? He just saw a fucking extraterrestrial bat around a garage door like a cat with a mouse.
He gave a weak thumbs up, and they continued on.
CHAPTER 9
PSYWAR
There was a winter break when both Blake’s parents worked. Normally, he was schlepped off to a friends house. Or his mom hired some high schooler to make sure he actually left his bedroom and got some fresh air.
But that time his parents hadn’t organized anything. He didn’t remember why. But they trusted Blake home alone.
