Page 32 of Trigger Discipline
No, actual aliens, had broken through the atmosphere and destroyed the city. His city. The little bodega with his favorite homemade cookies. The high school he would have given anything to be destroyed back when he’d had to sit through Ms. Walsh’s math class. The park where he broke his wrist. All of it was gone, and it wasn’t coming back.
And the death. They were just people. Average, normal people who had never done anything to anyone. Going to work, running errands, whatever people did on a Tuesday. People who didn’t deserve to be blown apart.
But they weren’tjustpeople at all. No matter how much Blake wanted to think of faceless anthropomorphic blobs. Those people were Tommy’s parents,hisparents. Every one of those dead people mattered; they had lives and loved ones, hopes and dreams.
Gone. And for what?
The least of which—but what felt like the biggest to him—washislife. His apartment was probably destroyed, all the shit he’d saved up for now ashes in the wind. He didn’t have a job. If he survived, what would he do? Where would he go? His parents again?
Did they think he was dead? Were they pacing around their tiny retirement home with a beach theme, despite being two hours from the coast, trying to get through to someone,anyone,to find out if their son had miraculously survived the end of the fucking world?
Blake’s chest hurt, and it was hard to breathe. He’d never seen his mom concerned about anything. Ever. She told everyone to calm their tits and fixed it. One step at a time, or if that was too much, one breath. In, out, repeat. Was this the crack that shattered his mother’s calm?
He chuckled, the noise startling him. How was it that hewas in the middle of a warzone and he was worriedabout his mother’s mental health?
She would kill him for that. Beat his ass if she knew he was being so stupid. Or worse, look at him in that way she did. Disappointed.
Taking a deep breath, he forced his thoughts toward something productive.
The truck was low on gas. They wouldn’t get much more out of it. That was if the collision with the FUD hadn’t destroyed something. Blake had a pretty good stock of medical supplies, but there was only so much he could do in the face of aliens withmeltingordinance.
Three soldiers. An EMT. And a paramedic. How could they possibly survive, let alone be helpful? Gabriel seemed to think getting information to his people would make a difference, but he wasn’t even in the Army anymore. He was part of a private organization. Was his boss just going to stride into some kind of governmental meeting and tell everyone to shut the fuck up and listen?
That’s assuming therewassome kind of government meeting. And assuming the information they had was at all helpful.
Unless Gabriel’s boss was capable of rousing a government and coordinating an attack against aliens, then it’d be pointless. DC was gone. And who knows what else with it.
The door opened quietly, and Gabriel stepped onto the cement slab. Blake opened his eyes in time to see him scan the yard, holding his handgun in what he could only assume was a ready position.
“You shouldn’t be out here.”
“I know,” he admitted. “I just…needed space.” He was desperately trying to hold together what little self-respect he had left, and melting down in front of everyone wasn’t going to help.
Gabriel’s face softened as he closed the door behind him quietly. “I see.”
And somehow, Blake knew he did. The tall soldier sat down beside him, boots scraping against the crack in the cement as he shuffled. Knees to his chest, he rested the gun against his knee, pointing away from Blake.
They sat in silence for a long moment, both just watching the back fence like it had the answer to all their problems. Gabriel’s face was carefully blank. Too blank. Like he was purposefully holding back whatever he was thinking. For some reason, that pissed Blake off. Or upset him. Honestly, at the moment, he had no idea how he felt. He just didn’t like the idea that Gabriel wasn’t being authentic with him.Truthful.
“Sorry,” Blake muttered, hating how small the word sounded. “I’m not a super badass soldier who can handle this situation. I’m still trying to get over the fact that my life just became every dumb sci-fi movie I ever stayed up too late to watch.”
Gabriel cleared his throat. “I was nineteen the first time I shot a man.”
Blake’s eyes widened. Grimacing, he dragged his attention to the soldier beside him. “‘I was nineteen the first time I killed a man’, that’s how you open a conversation? Ok, John Wayne.”
Instead of getting mad, Gabriel chuckled. “I suppose that did sound a little…cliché.”
“You think?”
“I only meant that I’ve been dealing with this for a lot longer than you have.” His smile was pointed at his lap, but it was fake. More of a grimace braced for pain. “I used to think if I could just remember how many…if I could somehow carry the lives I took with me, it would be okay. Like they were living with me. Or through me.”
Blake didn’t know how he knew, but he knew this was hard for Gabriel to admit. Everything was quiet around them,but it had been quiet for ages. With the occasional shriek of gunfire or the rumble of an explosion, the world had grown silent. But this was different. A deferential hush. Like stepping into an untamed forest with nothing but the push of nature. Of not belonging, silencing all extraneous noise.
“That’s fucked up,” he said because it was the truth, and he’d always found comfort in the truth.
Gabriel inhaled shakily. “Pretty much.” He wasn’t looking at Blake, but he suspected that would be for the best. He thought about Gabriel from last night. The one who talked about tacos while they huddled under a bulldozer. Not because he wanted to, but because Blake needed it. He needed the distraction. The small bit of normalcy that broke the tension.
But this was not the same Gabriel from then. Alert, but settled, and thinking god knows what. No, this Gabriel was delving into something that was not meant to be aired out between them. Not meant for Blake at all.