CHAPTER1
Colby
Istood on the tarmac with my hands on my hips, scowling at the Blackhawk helicopter. Not that it was the chopper or the pilots’ fault that I was stuck getting a ride from them out to my test site.
No, that was management’s fault. Some big-wig had hopped a flight out here last minute to check in on my team and our current status. Now, three-quarters of my team was on its way out to the site with my convoy, while three had remained behind with me so I could give a last-minute briefing.
Even here in Iraq, the meetings were never ending. It was the part of being in the U.S. Army that I hated. The constant talking and lack of action. Despite that, I never planned to leave the military. I’d never had a purpose before joining. After losing my parents at eighteen, I’d decided to do something with my life and had found myself walking into a recruiter’s office. I had no other family to speak of, nothing tying me down. It made my decision easy.
“Ready to do this, Colby?”
I glanced over at Chas and saw that his grim look mirrored the one I was sure was on my face. I silently took back the thought that I had no family. Chas and I were as close to being a brother and sister to each other as we could be, despite not being blood related. We’d grown up together and when I’d enlisted, he’d followed me. It’d amused me because I used to be the one—pigtails bouncing—who would follow him around as a kid.
Despite the constant teasing, there’d never been anything romantic between us and there never would be. I just hoped whoever he ended up with wouldn’t resent the relationship we had together. Women got weird about guys having another woman as a best friend.
“I guess,” I muttered.
He chuckled and shook his head, the mid-morning sun glinting off his blond hair. To say the man was handsome would be an understatement. He’d never had trouble pulling the ladies. Even less once we’d joined the military and he’d packed on fifteen pounds of muscle. Women loved a man in uniform, especially a ripped man in uniform.
“Let’s get this over with,” I sighed.
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Staff Sergeant?” Rogers asked, stepping up to my other side. She had a wide grin on her face and was eyeing the helicopter like it was a challenge to overcome. For her, it was. For me? It was a reminder of my fear of heights.
I should have been with the convoy and all of my equipment. Instead, I was ducking as I ran beneath blades that could chop my damn head off with the rate they were spinning. I breathed a sigh of relief when I climbed into my seat. Chas sat next to me while Wilkes and Rogers sat across from us, their backs to the pilots.
“Ready to go?” The pilot turned in his seat and shouted at me.
No. Fuck, no.
“Yes!” I hollered at him with a nod.
The bird lurched into the air and I couldn’t contain my gasp as I quickly snatched the safety harness and buckled myself in. Once that was done, I clutched my rifle to my chest. I dealt with bombs. I didn’t belong on this hovercraft of death. I knew all about the laws of physics, but fuck that nonsense. I didn’t want a first-hand look at it in action.
I was a Staff Sergeant, specializing in Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or EOD. I rubbed the EOD patch on my left arm absentmindedly. It was my responsibility to dismantle and dispose of bombs. I was one of the best in my field and they’d brought me out here after they’d started having trouble with local villages and cities being attacked.
I'd been tasked with figuring out what kind of IEDs some locals have been planting in the area—not to mention defusing them. They’d let me handpick my team. Since I was in charge right now, I was doing something I didn’t care to do, ride in a helicopter. I liked having my boots firmly planted on the ground.
Clenching my teeth, I closed my eyes as we lifted off. Once we got up to altitude the ride smoothed out a little. My stomach stayed uncomfortably knotted. I regretted the large breakfast I’d had at the chow hall that morning as bile rose in my throat.
The flight briefing the pilots had given said this would be an hour long flight. Easy. I could endure anything for sixty minutes.
* * *
I jinxed us.I was sure of it once the chopper started shuddering and shimmying. We’d only been in the air for thirty-five minutes when I realized we were descending.
“What’s going on?” Chas yelled up to the pilots.
They were too busy yelling back and forth to each other to answer. I caught something about autorotation and then I couldn’t hear anything over the blaring alarms.
Oh God.
We were crashing. Sweat broke out on my brow and I dug the heels of my boots into the floor, trying to steady myself as inertia tried to lift me out of my seat. We were hurtling toward the ground.
I refused to scream like a girl. I was a soldier and I’d die with dignity and grace even though this was possibly the worst way for me to go out. I would absolutely choose any other death rather than being swatted out of the sky and splattering on the ground below.
Chas’s hand covered mine as I clutched at my rifle. Fat lot of good it would do me right now. I forced an eye open and looked over at him. He looked green. I was sure I did too. Casting my eye over to the others I had to bite back a snarl of frustration. Rogers looked like she was on a rollercoaster at a fair and Wilkes was his usual stoic self.
The fall was surprisingly smooth, I felt a slight pressure on my shoulders as the safety harness kept me from floating out of my seat. The impact, however, was sudden and hard, although not as much as I would have thought. Everything went black as my head slammed backward into the wall behind me.