Page 17 of What We Brave
"You're going to rub the finish right off that thing, Moore."
I don't jump. I felt him coming.
Hatch stands in the doorway, filling the frame. He’s thirty-nine, but he’s built like he’s twenty-five and angry. Six-foot-four of corded muscle that stretches the seams of his black t-shirt. He doesn't look like a CEO of a private military contractor; he looks like a breaching tool with a pulse.
And he's a giant pain in the ass. Why does he keep doing this? He doesn't show up to other jobs this often.
He walks to the table, steps quiet now. He pulls a chair out—not dragging it, but lifting and placing it with deliberate silence. He sits, and the table shudders slightly under his forearms.
He places a pack of cigarettes on the table but doesn't light one. He just taps it.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Who the fuck carries around cigarettes a decade after they've quit? It's either a crutch or he thinks it makes him look cool. Either way, he can take his tap, tapping ass out of here.
"Go to bed, Hatch."
"Can't. Too quiet." He leans back, crossing arms thick as tree limbs. He studies me. I can feel his eyes cataloging me. He won't find anything. Physically, I'm in better shape than I've been in years. Three squares a day and too much time to think means extra gym time. I'm a fucking monster. "Anderson tells me you volunteered for the convoy to Kandahar on Tuesday."
"They need a lead gunner."
"They have twelve guys who can run a fifty-cal. Most of them are twenty-five and think they’re immortal. They don't need you."
"I'm better at it."
It's true, and he knows it. "You're overqualified. And you're exhausted. I see it in your eyes tough guy." Hatch stops tapping the pack. His voice is a low rumble. "You're trying to die."
I stop cleaning. The rag freezes in my hand. I look up at him finally. Hatch hasn't aged a day since he was my CO. He’s still the sameimmovable object. The man who started this whole company because he got out of the Corps, looked around, and realized half his unit was bagging groceries or drinking themselves to death. He built it to give them a paycheck and a purpose.
When I was in the service, I thought he was crazy. He could have stayed in, ended up a two star general by the time he's fifty. Instead, he leaves, without a full pension. Stupid.
But I guess I'm benefiting now. Because without this job, someplace to go, I would be dead.
"I'm doing my job," I say, keeping my voice flat.
"No. You're not." Hatch leans forward. "I built this outfit for a reason, Blake. I built it so guys like us had a place to go where we didn't have to explain ourselves to civilians. But the point was to keep you alive. To give you a living. Not a grave."
"I'm not suicidal, Hatch."Not now anyway.There's something to do every day. Enough shit, enough stress, enough life or death to keep my mind off my fucked up life. Well, almost enough.
"Maybe not consciously. But you don't care if you come back. And that makes you dangerous." He points a thick finger at the disassembled weapon. "I've watched guys do this. They take every shift. They take the point. They stop sleeping. They convince themselves it's about duty. But it's not. It's about finding a way out that looks like an accident."
I reassemble the bolt carrier.Click. Slide. Snap.The mechanical sounds are grounding. "I'm here to work. If you have a problem with my performance, fire me. Send me home."
"I'm not talking to you as your boss. I'm talking to you as the man who dragged your ass out of a burning Humvee in Fallujah. I'm talking to you as the man who promised you I’d bring you back in one piece." His voice drops, losing the command edge, becoming something quieter. Something worse. "You're hiding, Blake."
I scoff, shoving the rag into my pocket. "I'm in a combat zone, taking fire on the regular. Pretty shit place to hide."
"It's the perfect place. No questions. No complications. Just orders and targets. It’s simple. It’s numb." He locks eyes with me. "You think you're doing something noble by being here. Falling on your sword.Protecting the people back home from your... what do you call it? Your darkness?"
He fucking went there. All the other visits, he did the fucking tango around this subject. Now, there's no more dancing.
"I am poison to them," I say. The words taste like bile, but they’re true. I’ve run the calculations a thousand times in the dark. "You know what I did. You know how I left things. I broke the only rule that mattered."
"You fell in love. It happens."
"I coveted," I correct him sharply. "I wanted what wasn't mine. And then I lashed out like a wounded dog and tore everything apart because I couldn't handle the fucking guilt and I didn't have the strength to walk away. I didn't just break a rule, Hatch. I brokethem."
I stare at the rifle on the table. "Me being gone is the best thing that ever happened to Reid. He doesn't have to worry about me anymore. He doesn't have to look at me and remember that I betrayed him."
