Risner would have to find someone else to lead the SEAL team back to the Dominican this time, though. That mission stole two of my best friends and left nightmares, cold sweats and enough fucking guilt to fill an ocean in its wake. I certainly wasn’t immune to the suffering of this new batch of girls, but I didn’t want to go back to the place where I lost part of myself. I didn’t want any reminder of the men I let down and left behind.

It didn’t take much from Risner to change my mind, to walk away from the best thing I’ve ever known, telling her not to wait for me because I might not be coming back. Chief knew what he was doing when he told me their newest intel proved that Luis Fernandez was the one who pulled the trigger that took down King and Dragon.

Jared King and Chris Dragon, my best friends since high school and men I thought of as brothers, were my backup during every mission and, for all intents and purposes, my family. My own flesh and blood didn’t give a rat’s ass about me after I refused to follow along in my father’s footsteps and become the Chief of Staff at UC San Diego Health System.

The night the chief delivered that news was the same night my nightmares returned with a vengeance. The same night I relived holding Dragon in my arms as his life bled out into my hands. The same night I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing the look on King’s wife’s face when I informed her that her husband wasn’t coming home, that he would never get to meet the baby boy she carried in her stomach. For hours that night, I tried to block out the sound of Dragon’s mother sobbing as she crumbled to the floor, King’s wife screaming while she punched me in the chest and the raspy, painful breaths Dragon took as the bullet in his collapsed lung ended his life.

She held me through the nightmares, promising me that they would get better and she would always be there to help me forget, but I could tell from the look on her face that she knew. She knew as soon as I took that call that it was the beginning of the end, knew I would never rest while their killer was still out there somewhere. I shut down, I pushed her away and I forced myself to forget all about the future we were trying to build. Out of everyone in my life, I knew she would understand my need to finish this, to see it through to the end, but, from the very beginning, I shielded her from the truth. I should’ve been honest with her. Now, along with the rest of the memories that plague my sleep at night, I have to relive the look on her face when I told her good-bye, when I told her that she should move on and forget about me in case I didn’t come home. She’s too good a woman to be sitting around, waiting for a man chasing ghosts halfway across the world.

“Hey, fuckers, we’ve got men exiting the building on this side,” Lucky announces through the mic.

Hoss and I get low to the ground as we rush towards Lucky and Zeus’ location, careful not to make a sound as we step over fallen branches and trudge through the dense ground covering.

We were led to this old, abandoned house in the middle of Bum Fuck, Nowhere, where Luis has scheduled a meeting tonight, by a tip from a confidential informant. For nine long months, the slippery little fucker has managed to elude us, using decoys and feeding false information to the right people, but we’ve got him cornered this time. Our plan is to wait until they exit the building and take them out when they are in plain sight. Even though the four of us are the best at what we do, it’s still four against entirely too many shady assholes who fight dirty for us to risk barging into the house, guns blazing. I’m not taking any unnecessary chances with my men this time. We stay hidden, we get the job done and we get the fuck out of Dodge. I refuse to bring any more of my men home in flag-draped caskets.

As we continue working our way through the undergrowth, smacking low-hanging branches and shrubs out of our way, the sharp crack of a bullet hitting a tree trunk inches from my face has Hoss and I diving to the ground.

“MOTHERFUCK! How do they know we’re here?” Hoss growls as we army-crawl through the leaves and dirt while the zipping sound of more bullets soar through the air above our heads, hitting trees in a staccato ping ping ping or disappearing into the brush when they don’t smack into their target.

“Lucky, what the fuck is going on?” I shout into the mic, crawling across the forest floor as fast as I can.

“Zeus is down! Son of a fucking bitch, he’s been hit!” Lucky screams in my ear. “Jesus Christ! I don’t know what the fuck happened. We were just sitting here when bullets started flying. Goddammit, Zeus, open your fucking eyes!”

I don’t even realize I’ve stopped crawling until Hoss looks back over his shoulder at me. I can see his mouth moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. My ears are filled with the whooshing sound of my blood pumping and the echoes of my own screams as I recall in stark clarity the events of two years ago, memories of Dragon and King, flat on their backs, struggling to survive, completely paralyzing me.

This can’t be happening again. God, please don’t let this happen again.

A hard punch to my arm shakes me out of my nightmare. Blinking my eyes into focus, I see Hoss’ ugly mug two inches from my face. His shouts, blocked out by my own mind a few seconds ago, quickly explode around me like someone hit the power button on a radio they forgot they left turned up full blast when they last shut it off.

“…MOTHERFUCKING HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS, VARGAS, AND MOVE!”

It would be one thing if he was just pissed off, but I see a look of concern on his face that I don’t fucking need right now. Shoving his hand off of my arm angrily, I get back up on my knees and move, keeping my body as low to the ground as I can as I quickly shuffle past him.