With trembling hands, I refold the note and try to calm myself down. I’ve known something was wrong. I’ve felt it since the day I left. That feeling has turned my gut into a constant pain. Feeling like I’ve been needed at home is nothing compared to knowing I’m needed and not being able to do a damn thing about it.
“Fuck!” I roar and slam the door open hard enough that the very foundation the room is build on is sure to feel its force.
I set off for my CO and pray that he can tell me how the hell to speed this bullshit up so I can get home to my girl.
I’m not sure what I look like when I approach my CO, but he is more than accepting that I need to get a call home. Typically, we don’t get the opportunity to contact anyone back home. Our missions are like that. We need our focus to be spot-on. Anything else would result in one thing. Our death. We’re out “hunting” for weeks and months at a time. Searching for our target, sleeping with our backs against each other, hiding whenever we can. Crawling through the desert in conditions that are as bad as it gets. We eat, sleep, and breathe with the single-minded focus of a warrior. A killing machine. When situations at home cause our focus to waver, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to point our focus back into the tunnel-vision mindset of a robot. Which is essentially what we’re trained to be.
And with my mind spinning with a vague-as-fuck message from home, things would end up dire if I were hunting. Chance fucking knows better than to send some fucked-up shit like that. He knows that the only thing it would do is take my mind from the mission and make me become consumed with worry. Something I can’t afford to have happen.
CO Krajack has me stuffed into a room with a secure line home in minutes of my handing him Chance’s letter. My first call—Dani.
With each ring that goes unanswered, my heart starts to pick up speed, and my palms are so wet from the dread I feel pouring out of me that I almost drop the phone.
“Mother FUCK!” I thunder through the silence surrounding me.
“Breathe, soldier. Pick someone else and fucking call them,” Krajack grinds out from the doorway behind me. “Won’t do a bit of good to sit there acting like a little girl. Try your father.”
CO Krajack and my dad served together. They spearheaded our unit, and Krajack made it his life’s goal to see it turned into the baddest of the bad. Having him know Dad didn’t make life easier for me when it came time for training. If anything, he pushed me harder than anyone else. But he’s also the only one who would know me well enough right now—and correctly guess that I am way too fucking close to tearing the shit out of anything that gets in the way of me finding out what’s wrong with my girl.
I nod, grabbing the satellite phone and pressing the buttons I need to in order to connect me with Dad’s cell, praying that he answers.
“Cage,” he barks.
“Dad,” I say in a way I know he will instantly know I need him.
“Son?” His tone instantly alert.
“Tell me why I got a letter from Chance telling me to get the fuck home because Dani needs me? You know I can’t deal with this shit. If she needs me home, I’m going to be wrapped up in that and—god dammit! You know, Dad. You fucking know how my head is going to be if I don’t know what’s going on.” I feel Krajack place his hand on my shoulder and give me a firm squeeze.
“C-man, I don’t know. Mom and I just got back in town the other day. I know something happened when she left work the other day, but Axel hasn’t briefed me yet.”
“Fucking shit,” I mutter.
“You got the call. Call Axel, son. As much as I miss my boy and would love the time to talk, you need to get your head on straight so you can get the hell home. I love you, son.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
He rattles off Axel’s cell and, after the promise that I’ll keep my focus, says goodbye.
I hang up, give Krajack a stressed look, and make another call—hoping and praying for answers this time.
It takes one ring for Axel’s cell to connect.
As if he’s been waiting for my call.
The dread in my stomach intensifies instantly.
“Cohen.”
Not a question. He’s been waiting.
“Had Chance call an hour ago. I figured you would have called sooner than this.”
“Don’t play games with me, Axel. I know you have your issues with me right now, but do not play games with me. I don’t owe you an explanation, but my first call went to Dani—where it should have gone. Then Dad, who couldn’t give me shit, so here I am, calling you and hoping you shut the fuck up with the warnings about your daughter and give me what I need to know. Is my girl okay?”
He doesn’t waste a second. “Respect the hell out of you right now, Cohen. It’s not a secret that Dani means the world to me and, if I could keep her under my wing for the rest of my life, I fucking would. But,” he sighs, “I was reminded that it’s time to let go and let her fly. Pleased as fuck that she’s flying to a man I admire and that I believe is man enough for my girl. Just fucking remember, she was my girl before she was yours. There are things going on here that are much bigger than you and me. Things that I have no right in passing on to you, but I can’t stress it enough that you need to either get home or get ahold of Dani.”
“Ax—”
“I know what it’s like to be over there, Cohen. To make sure your focus doesn’t waver and that you don’t end up dead. I’ve lived that shit, so I fucking know. But I wouldn’t have gotten word to you if I didn’t feel it was needed. Dani’s threats have picked up in a sense. Flowers stopped, but she got a letter the other day that makes me believe things are more than just an admirer. As much as it kills me, she doesn’t need or want her father right now. I know how Krajack works. You’ll be over there for years if he doesn’t wrap shit up. He picks your missions wisely. Some to keep your training sharp and some that are more than needed to help stop this motherfucking war. What I can’t stress enough is that what doesn’t serve a purpose need to be dropped so you can get back stateside. Move your missions up in order of importance and get home to my girl. She’s safe and I won’t let that fact change. Not now and not ever.”
“What the fuck! How is that not supposed to mess with my head, Axel?”
“That wasn’t the purpose, but you need to know that shit’s going down that doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon. You need to know that your clock isn’t going to just keep ticking and that it’s time to get the fuck home.”