Page 15 of Steel

“Same thing as usual.”

“Don’t forget. He hasn’t been in a helicopter since the accident.”

“Fuck. I forgot about that. We have no choice. There’s only room for the bird on this knoll. God, the man hates me.”

“No, he doesn’t, Steel. He looks up to you. He always has. We all do. He could talk to you when he and Will used to butt heads. He’s just a hardheaded Beckett boy. Just like you.” He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s just make certain he gets on that bird.”

“He will if I need to hogtie him and dump him on the damn thing myself.”

I remained where I was, constantly checking the sky. Will’s death had changed the entire family, yet both Axe and I would never want to do another job. We were born to be jumpers.

Five minutes on the nose the bird could be seen in the distance. Twilight had settled in, the trip taking a lot out of us. But we were safe and alive.

Alive.

A word that no one should take for granted.

I pulled back, allowing the pilot to touch down. Even before it did, the men began to line up, eager to get back to civilization. One of the soldiers stepped off, heading toward me.

“Are you in charge?” he asked.

“Yeah, Steel Beckett.”

“Army Ranger Nash. We need to get out of here. There’s seismic activity all along the fault. There is no doubt there’s going to be another quake at any time.”

“Understood. Move out,” I told the others. It didn’t take long to load up the team.

Except Axe wasn’t in the mix.

Goddamn it. What the hell was he doing, longing for another confrontation?

Somehow, he’d slipped away.

“We need to head out, Steel,” Ranger Nash instructed.

“Give me two minutes.”

“That might be two minutes too long.”

I jogged toward the trees, forced to head deeper into the forest than I wanted, the shadows playing tricks on me. When I found him, he was standing by a stream.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked and at that point, I had no desire to be kind to the man. He was endangering the lives of our team by throwing a damn tantrum after all this time.

“I can’t get on that bird. I just can’t.”

Axe has always been a reckless kid, but in truth, every Beckett boy had been. Living large as if immune to danger. That’s another thing Will’s death had done. We now knew we weren’t invincible.

“What is really going on?” I tried to soften my voice while time was ticking away.

He had his head down, his entire body tense. “Kenzie is pregnant.”

“What? That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

“Nah, you don’t understand. I’ll be a terrible father. Look what I did to my own brother.”

This was getting out of hand. I snapped my hand on his shoulder, spinning him around. “Now, you need to listen to me, you fucking hardhead. This self-pity thing has gotten out of hand. We both feel horrible about what happened to Will. I wasn’t there. Don’t you think I felt like shit knowing that maybe I could have helped?”

“You were sick. You had a damn good excuse. What was mine? That my feathers were ruffled? Come on. Now, a child is going to be brought into this world. I just…”