Page 23 of Fighting for Valor
“Rip?” Dax pats the mattress for a second before he eases himself down on my other side. “We didn’t know. When Ry escaped Hell, one of the guards told him you’d died. Broken your neck when they threw you in the hole.”
“I…didn’t…” No. I can’t give up any intel. This has to be a trick. But…Dax is wearing tinted glasses. And behind them…scars. His eyes were darker before. A part of me wants to believe so badly, I have to risk one question. “After…Bohemian Rhapsody, what song was next?”
“Hammer to Fall,” Dax and Ry say in unison.
Fuck. “I saw…the news reports. You were dead.” Every word feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, and I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake, but I have to know.
Ry glances at the SEAL, then back at me, but it’s Trevor who pipes up. “Faruk show you those news reports?” I don’t confirm or deny, but he nods. “I figured. He made all that shit up. Pretty typical enhanced interrogation and brainwashing technique. Ryker tells me you’re a wizard with tech.”
The world feels like it’s slowing down, but I fight to stay awake. “Moved money. Investments. So…much…more. Don’t…remember…” The heavy weight of shame presses down on me, and I let my eyes close, let the tears I could never cry before stream down my cheeks.
“Ripper, cut that shit out. You did what you had to do in order to survive,” Dax says. “Look at me, brother.”
I do, because the emotion in his voice…the only time I ever heard it is when he used to talk about his wife…when we were in Hell. But I can’t let him just…ignore all the shit I’ve done. “You never should have come for me.”
The sound Ryker makes…it’s almost a growl, but Dax shoots him a look, and he quiets down. Dax takes off his glasses, and the damage…shit.
“Six months after you disappeared, we got the chance to escape. But Kahlid had broken my leg a few weeks earlier. I couldn’t walk. After Ry broke out…” Dax swallows hard and gestures to his eyes. “Drain cleaner.”
“Dax—”
“It’s okay.” His dry laugh says it’s not, but then the stress lines around his mouth fade, and he looks almost…happy. “I’m here, aren’t I? Managed to get myself over that fucking fence around Faruk’s compound when Ry found you.”
“Heard…you both. Didn’t…believe…”
“You’re free now,” Ryker says. “I killed Faruk.” He pulls a large serrated knife from a sheath at his hip and lays it on my thighs. Trevor and West tense, but Ry waves them off. “This is yours, Rip. The one thing I kept from your footlocker when I packed up your shit at Fort Benning. I used it to end that bastard’s life.”
As I stare down at the handle, I can just make out the jagged lightning bolts I carved around my nickname. There’s still a little dried blood towards the hilt, and I rest my hand on the black metal.
They came for me. I don’t know how they figured out I wasn’t Isaad, but right now, that doesn’t matter. I’m back with my team.
Chapter Eleven
Two Months Later
Ripper
My phone vibrates as I step off the bus in front of the nondescript gray building in south Seattle. One glance at the screen—and Ryker’s name—and I jab the button to send the call to voicemail.
Doc Neery buzzes me in as soon as I close myself in his outer waiting room, and by the time I sit down across from him, I’ve ignored two text messages from Ry as well.
“Jackson. How are you today?” Neery asks.
He’s the only person who calls me by my first name—my original first name.
“Jackson doesn’t exist anymore. You know that, doc.” The bitterness in my tone? I don’t even try to hide it. Not from him. He’d see right through me anyway. The shrink is relentless, and since I go in for appointments twice a week, any resistance I might put up doesn’t last long.
“Not on paper, no. Jackson ‘Ripper’ Richards died six years ago in Afghanistan. But I don’t care what your driver’s license says. Or how you got it. Jackson’s the man I’m treating.” Neery leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “So? Going to answer my question?”
“Same shit, different day.” I run a hand through my hair. It’s short now, and I haven’t let my beard grow longer than a dark stubble since the day after Ryker and his team rescued me. Ry gave me a razor and told me to “fix my face.”
“Not an answer. Where’d you sleep last night?”
Lie. Just get the fuck out of here.
But I can’t. My training won’t let me. “In the doorway of the Presbyterian Church on 15th. It’s quiet there after midnight.”
The shrink scribbles something in his notebook, then leans back with a sigh. “When was the last time you went to your apartment?”
