Page 37 of Trigger Discipline
“He’s providing cover for ground troops,” Gabriel mumbled, almost to himself, as his eyes followed the plane. “Hell of a pilot.”
Blake turned to him at the awe in his voice. Gabriel’s face was tight, eyebrows drawn as his eyes tracked the imperceptible movements Blake couldn’t see. Or understand.
Performing a complicated twist, the plane came around and began strafing the ground with its machine guns. Therat-a-tatof bullets being fired was just as loud several miles away as if it were just over them.
Several of the alien’s weapons hit the plane. Black smoke poured from one of the engines under the wing, but the pilot made a second pass, lower this time, although Blake wasn’t sure if that was a choice or not.
Another boom rattled the rocks on the roof and Blake felt the breath die in his lungs.
Was he about to watch another pilot die?
Just as the rattling finished, the canopy above the cockpit blasted off, acrylic glinting in the early morning sun as thepilot ejected. Seconds after the chair cleared, the plane exploded into a massive fireball.
“He ejected!” Tommy pointed, as if they weren’t already glued to the scene in front of them. “He’ll be ok, right?”
“Ejecting is dangerous,” Judd said clinically. “And that’s when you’re not dropping into anactualwarzo—ow!” Phin had pinched him, eyes dark and threatening. “I mean, yeah. He’s gonna float down nice and gentle.” Judd rubbed his forearm where a deep bruise was already forming.
Blake watched as a bright white chute opened, fluttering in the breeze as it dropped back down to earth much faster than he thought was safe. He couldn’t really see the pilot; they were just a smudge against the skyline.
“Why didn’t he shoot the ship?”
Gabriel shook his head. “He knew his armament wouldn’t touch it. Decided to fire where he could do the most good.”
Blake could see smoke and the tips of flames from where the two missiles had landed. That pilot had probably saved some lives. He couldn’t imagine making a decision like that. Did the pilot know he wouldn’t get out of there alive? Did he volunteer like Gabriel did?
And why weren’t there more? He watched the parachute disappear behind some buildings and he wondered if that pilot, the one who had just watched two of his comrades die, was asking the exact same thing.
CHAPTER 12
RAIN LOCKER
Gabriel waved off Phin’s offer of a granola bar and scratched at the rough beard on his chin. Even as a special forces soldier where beards were encouraged, he never got used to the hair on his face. It always felt dirty. He blamed his father for insisting on strict hygiene practices. But it stuck, and now he found himself scraping his nails through the sweaty oils caught in the short, dark bristles and hating it.
They had no water or electricity. A shower would be out of the question, as would clean clothes. But he decided on a quick wet wipe bath. It was far from satisfying, but it would quell the urge to claw his own skin off. At least for a little while.
If sponge baths were a last resort, he wasn’t sure what a wet wipe bath was. But he’d used them often, hunkered down in some sandy hole in the middle of a country he couldn’t pronounce. The kind of place where time was etched in the moments between magazine changes and ticked off by the brass around your feet. It was easy to forget you were human. Easy to slip into the mindset of a cog in a machine. That’s where the little things, the moments of hygiene thatbarely cut through the top layer of grime, reminded him of who he was.
With one hand on the wood paneling, he walked towards the small bathroom. They had showers in the station for the firefighters on twenty-four-hour shifts, but now they just taunted them. Blake mentioned that he thought the station should have a generator, but it wasn’t working. And it was probably better that it didn’t. Tactically speaking, they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves.
The telegraph was working. Last he checked, Judd was sitting hunched over a cardboard box tapping away. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more—that Judd not only had the patience to meticulously help assemble a telegraph, but also knew Morse, or that aliens had invaded Earth.
Come to think of it, he didn’t think anything could surprise him ever again. Including himself.
Not after what he’d said to Blake. Things he had never told a therapist, never told his family, had come out as easy as pie. And he couldn’t explain it. Not then, and not now. Blake had asked him why he told him, and the answer he gave him was the only one he could give himself.
I wanted to.
The feelings he had kept so close to his chest had almost destroyed him; his addiction still made him burn with shame. All of it. He presented it to Blake, and he found acceptance. Blake had accepted his truth. Took it for what it was and held it close, gentle but without reservations. He could have taken it like a hit, but instead, he took it like a gift.
Not for the first time, Gabriel didn’t know what to do with that. With Blake.
Forgiveness isn’t something Gabriel expected. Hell, he wasn’t even asking himself for it. He knew he was supposed to. But he didn’t treat his addiction the way he should. There probably should have been some kind of therapy, not justPhin kicking in his door and locking him in the bathroom until he stopped begging to be let out.
The only twelve-step program Gabriel had ever done was the twelve steps Phin took to the bathroom to lock him in.
There were times in that tiny bathroom where he wanted to die. Not because of the pain and sickness, those were tough, but that was nothing compared to his seething guilt. A living thing that shifted in his grasp. Every time he thought he had reconciled it, it evolved into something else. Something more sinister. He stared at his reflection until it wasn’t his anymore. It was the whiskey-soaked facsimile of who he was.
Because he wasn’t just withdrawing from alcohol. Gabriel was experiencing all the things the alcohol had dulled. The hate. The pain. The anger. The blood. The feel of a bullet leaving his barrel to end the life of a person he would never know.