Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Marking Mariah (Kindle Worlds Novella) (3 page)

Mariah grabbed her backpack and her bag full of clothes she needed after yoga, as she calculated the time it would take for her to get Cole out the door, in the car, and to the day care.

“Ma!” His voice pierced her brain. “Ma. Ma. Ma. Ma.” He was sing-songy. Which meant he was distracted.

“Come on, sweets. We’re gonna be late for playtime.”

Exhaustion wrapped around her like a warm, wet blanket. She’d been up until nearly two a.m. finishing a paper, after a full morning of finals and two ninety-minute hot yoga sessions. Leaning against the sink, staring at the cluttered counter top, contemplating her utterly upside down life, she figured she’d give a thousand bucks she didn’t have to crawl back into bed and pretend she had no obligations.

But then her son appeared, peeping around the corner into the kitchen. And she forgot that he was an obligation.

“Ma,” he said, fluttering his impossibly long eyelashes. “Don’t wanna go to playtime today.”

She sighed and crossed her arms, studying him and trying hard not to rush over, scoop him up and hold him close.

“Sing to me,” he demanded, coming into full view and matching her arms-crossed stance.

“Nope,” she said. “We have to go. Mama has to work.”

Her son sidled up to her, wrapped his arms around her leg and kept up his insistence that she sing. Dropping down to her heels, she stared into his dark eyes—eyes she’d memorized the split second she’d seen them after they’d laid his tiny body in her arms.

“Tell you what, buddy,” she said. “You get in the car seat and I’ll sing all the way to playtime.”

His smile was worth every moment of sleepless nights, anxiety and inherent stress over his existence.

“I love you, Cole,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his cheek.

“Mama, stop it,” he said. But he wrapped his arms around her neck as he always did and her life slid into a semblance of organizational reality once more. Because all it took to calm her was this—this child in her arms.

She buried her face in his neck, sucking in deep breaths of laundry soap from his shirt, and the distinct, yet odd whiff of sandalwood on his skin. Cole allowed this for about a half second longer than she figured he would then wriggled away, giggling as he slung his tiny backpack onto his shoulder.

Mariah remained crouched down, unable to wrench her gaze away from the small, mocha-skinned miracle that was her son. Perhaps sensing her slipping into sappy emotionalism he marched over to her, his brow furrowed, and placed his hands on her cheeks.

“Mama, I’m gonna be late for playtime,” he said, with the sort of seriousness she imagined a heart surgeon might use.

“I know, I know.” Mariah rose slowly, and lifted him into her arms, eager to feel him close again since she knew the days she’d be allowed to do it were numbered. As they sometimes did when she’d gone so long on so little sleep, tears burned her eyes. “It’s my last test, little man,” she said as she leaned her forehead against his, loving the feel of his hands clasped behind her neck.

“Yay, Mama,” he said, letting her regard him a few seconds before he got antsy. “Down. Please,” he added, his grandma’s politeness lessons never far from the surface. She let him slide down her front like a fireman, swaying a little and wishing she could crawl up on the secondhand couch and sleep for a few hours.

When her phone buzzed she ignored it in favor of collecting the rest of her stuff and shepherding Cole out the door, into the hall and down the metal steps to the parking lot. After the usual semi-battle of the booster seat that Cole insisted was “for babies,” and the never-ending debate over an open versus closed window, she took a breath and glanced at herself in the rear view mirror.

“God, I look like an old woman,” she muttered, dragging her unruly hair back and securing it with a headband, giving up on much else. The last week of studying and projects required to finally—finally—secure her Master’s degree in education at the University of Louisville had required her to run on energy drinks and adrenaline. She felt buzzy, wired, and achy. But this had been her dream—well, other than getting a recording contract the year before. That dream she’d had to turn down.

Do
not
go there Mariah, not even in your head.

She glanced back at her son, hearing her mother’s voice in her ear the night she’d won the singing contest in California, running in a loop as it had done for the past six months.

“That’s all well and good, but before you get too full of yourself, I suggest you consider your obligations here, back home with your boy.”

And so she had gone home to Louisville, retrieved her son from her parents’ house, accepted their mild congratulations, and retreated to her small apartment—as if the previous months’ worth of excitement, pride and fantasy had never happened. Her father had stopped by the next day, clutching a huge bouquet of roses and two cardboard cups of richly sweet coffee.

“I was…
we
were so proud of you baby girl,” he’d said, giving her a quick hug and handing over the flowers. “I know it was hard to leave all of that behind.”

“No, no, it’s fine Daddy,” she’d lied, plunking the unwieldy floral offering into a coffee can filled with water, biting back tears.

He put a large hand on her shoulder. Sergeant First Class Damon Bailey had never been great with kids—even his own little girl, despite his near twenty-five-year obsession with keeping her safe and happy. She’d been raised on seven different bases—a true military brat, graduating high school once he’d been stationed at his final, pre-retirement assignment in Ft. Benning, Georgia.

He’d left the child-raising to his wife—a formidable woman who, once she’d been informed she would have no more children after Mariah’s complicated, dangerous birth, had turned the full force of her energy and personality into raising the girl, encouraging her early promise in singing and piano, and discouraging contact with members of the opposite sex.

June Bailey, herself a semi-famous gospel singer with an accounting degree that had supplemented her husband’s early military salary, had flat out sheltered the girl. Not allowing sleepovers, or encouraging friendships, using the excuse that they’d be moving soon enough anyway, so no use getting attached to anyone. So much so that the split second some punk had shown interest in her in her first year of college, Mariah had sprung free of her long-respected maternal boundaries with gusto, turning to alcohol, parties and sex as if she were getting paid to excel at them all.

She’d sighed and fluffed out the shorter stems so they wouldn’t be crushed by the taller, showier ones in the middle, moving aside so her father’s hand dropped away.

“Thanks, Daddy. I love them.”

“Pop-pop!” Cole had burst into the small kitchen then, distracting them both.

Mariah’s father adored the boy. Her mother tolerated him. It was a sort of sad repeat of her own childhood. But she’d heeded her mother that amazing night in California. She’d left potential glamour and glitz behind and returned to her responsibilities. To her son.

“Wish me luck,” she said as she kissed Cole’s cheek before he escaped her clutches at the church’s daycare. The place was a depressing, under-funded and half-staffed stop-gap. She hoped and prayed every day she dropped the boy off and got on with the task of building a better future for them both that he’d survive his hours in the so-called care of this place.

“Luck, Mama,” he chirped before turning away from her, already forgetting her in his haste to get at his favorite toys, books, and friends. She wanted to snag him, hold on tight, tell him not to dismiss her, because what would happen if she didn’t come back? Just like his father had done the morning they’d fought, while she held the six-week old infant in her arms like a shield.

But she sighed and got up, watching as the little kids greeted each other while the two sullen eighteen-year-old minders ignored them in favor of diddling around on their smart phones. She couldn’t wait to get out of here, out of this town, out of this rut. And hopefully, after today, she’d be able to plan that very escape.

Her phone was buzzing again when she got back behind the wheel. She drained the last dregs from the energy drink and noted her mother’s four texts without reading them, then froze when she saw a missed call from a familiar number—one she’d memorized the month before when she’d answered the ad for a high school music teacher a few towns to the east.

She shook as she put the phone to her ear to listen to the message, already reminding herself that it would surely be another rejection—another “thanks but no thanks we have plenty of qualified teachers in our own county” thing.

“Hi Mariah,” a deep, male voice spoke into her ear. “It’s Kieran. Kieran Love, the principal at Lucasville High.”

She closed her eyes and said yet another silent prayer.

Terry sat on his bike for a few minutes and tried to get his bearings, both mentally and physically. It’d been hours since he’d roared out of the trailer park in Bumfuck, Arkansas, leaving behind the woman whose name he never actually learned, and her kid, and three hundred twenty of his own hard-earned bucks.

That left him with the awe-inspiring sum of exactly three thousand four hundred and two dollars.

And seventy-five cents.

Fuck it
, he thought as he turned the bike North and East, pointed toward Tennessee. Soon enough he’d cross over the border of his home state.

The Bluegrass State.

God’s Country, as his parents used to say to him and his brother as they wandered home from one or another of their endless soccer tournament trips.

He’d managed to ignore his fellow Operators the past few days. They were all back in Texas, where he should be right now. It pissed him off too much even to ponder that, so he’d turned off his phone that day he’d left the money behind for the woman and her
hung-y
child.

He’d also left behind the booze he’d found—the amber liquor he’d been more or less floating on since departing Fort Hood. Figuring he had the discipline to do so on his own, he’d simply emptied the bottles of their formerly precious contents into the woman’s toilet and flushed it twice for good measure.

He’d give every penny of his three grand and some to have just one of those bottles back right now. He was nauseous, sweaty and shaking, and his vision kept blurring on him but he kept moving forward.

Fuck booze.

Fuck the Army and Delta Force.

Fuck his life and the Goddamned concussion those towel-headed shit cakes had bestowed on him that night in the dark desert.

Fuck all of it.

He wanted to go home. He needed to see his father, to visit his mother’s grave, wanted to cruise his old stomping grounds, look up some buddies—he knew all the Loves were still around, even that wild-ass Dominic.

Home.

That would fix everything.

He roared into a truck stop once he acknowledged that he was legitimately hungry for the first time in weeks. The booze had been a great diet pill, but for all those other pesky side effects. As he sat with the unappealing plate of meatloaf, potatoes and greens in front of him, he hauled out his phone and powered it up.

That was a mistake.

The device populated with furious messages, scrolling down as they continued to fill his screen. As he stared at them, trying to muscle the food down his throat and not puke it all back up on the table, the phone buzzed in his hand, making him curse and drop it in the mess of nearly congealed gravy.

Ghost was actually calling him.

That was a first.

He picked the device up, wiped off the worst of the damage and touched the screen to answer.

“Goddamn it, you sorry excuse for a human being. Where in the holy hell have you been?”

“Hey, Ghost,” he said, his voice creaky from disuse.

“Oh, hey there….and fuck you, Trigger. What the Goddamn hell is going on with you? You said you’d answer text messages on the way to Kentucky. It’s been…shit, it’s been three weeks since anyone’s heard anything from your sorry ass.”

“Yeah, I know.” He stuck his fork into a bite of meatloaf. “Sorry.”

“Fuck your sorry, you dick cheese. Jesus Christ in a Jeep. you have turned me into a worried mama hen and I do not, I repeat do
not
, like it.”

“Right, well, I’m okay. So you can go shit out your eggs and get on with your day.”

The silence was louder than any shouting or cursing. He winced, but waited it out.

“I’m gonna pretend like you didn’t just say that to me, soldier.”

“I’m out, Ghost. I’m not your soldier anymore.” He dropped the fork onto the plate. Gravy splattered on the table. He glared at it, his eyes hot, his ears ringing so loud he almost didn’t hear Ghost’s next words.

“I told you before you left—you will never stop being Delta. Once an Operator, always an Operator. Cut the pity party, Trigger. I don’t like it.”

I don’t give a shit what you don’t like,
Terry thought but would never, ever say to his former commanding officer.

“Right,” he said instead. “Aye aye.”

“Don’t use pussy sailor talk with me,” Ghost growled.

Terry sighed and slumped into the cracked leather seat, his conversational inclinations all used up. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay in touch, okay? I’m a big boy, remember? I can manage to get home without checking in with my babysitters every hour.”

“How’s your head,?” Ghost asked, giving him a pass on the lame, teenager-ish sarcasm.

“Fine,” he said, wincing as a spike of now-familiar pain pierced his left eyeball and lodged in his brain, settling in for a nice long session.

“You’re not on the horse, are ya?”

“Fuck no, Ghost. I’m not going brown. I ran out of the happy pills and am on to the second, step-down level. I’ll wean myself off, don’t worry.” He suppressed a shudder when longing for a comfy bottle of booze slammed into him with the force of a thrown fist.

Heroin addiction was a known “problem” for vets—especially those who’d been discharged while still in as much pain as he’d been. He’d avoided it, because he knew himself well enough to avoid it.

“You going to your Dad’s place when you get there,” Ghost asked.

“Yeah, I guess.” He twirled the fork around in the congealing mess of fat and carbs on the plate.

“All right, well…”

Trigger gripped the phone tighter. He couldn’t wait to end the call but at the same time he dreaded the end of it. Hearing his old commander’s voice made him feel connected again, part of a team, a team he’d loved as much, if not more, than the many soccer ones he’d been on in his life.

“Fletch is trying to keep the team together. We almost beat the assholes over in two,” Ghost said.

Trigger grinned even as his heart tightened like a fist in his chest. “Yeah? Well, you tell Fletch I said to make sure he doesn’t forget that it’s not knucklehead football. It’s the beautiful game. He has to mark up, not tackle.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Ghost said, his voice gruff.

“Hey, Trigger,” a different voice called. “Did you hear that Ghost has a woman?”

“Shut up,” Ghost growled, slightly off the phone’s speaker. “Before I pound you into the wall.”

“Ha, I’d like to see you try,” Fletch said. “Take care of yourself Trigger. I scored a goal. But we lost to the assholes on two.”

Trigger grinned again, picturing his fellow Operators, his friends, as he’d tried to teach them how to form themselves into a real soccer team over the past few years. It’d been bumpy and challenging but they were Delta Force. Their everyday existence personified “challenging.” A few of them were even pretty damn good by the time he’d had to leave.

“A woman, huh,” he said when Ghost stayed silent.

“Yeah. And I don’t wanna share my feelings on the topic, so don’t ask. You keep your god damned phone on, soldier, and when I text you, you answer. Or else.”

Terry started to respond, but Ghost had obviously run out of things to say and had abruptly ended the call. He stared at the phone a while, then finished the coffee and water, left enough money to cover his uneaten food and a decent tip before heading back into the muggy Tennessee heat.

He figured that tempting fate by eating dinner at a bar would not be part of his booze and random sex-free plan, so he got a cheap room in Lake City, just north of Knoxville once it got too dark and he was too tired to drive. The sleazebag joint was right next to a Denny’s which, last he checked, did not have a liquor license.

Perfect. Breakfast for dinner, a hot shower, five or six hours of shuteye, then back at it. He’d make it home to Lucasville by noon. That realization made him pull out his phone and stare down at it, trying to conjure the wherewithal to call his father and let him know. With a sigh, he decided to make it a surprise and put the phone away—but not until he sent a quick text to Ghost, letting him know he was within shouting distance of his home town and they could all stop acting like a pack of overactive mother hens over him.

The food filled him up, even if he didn’t taste much of it. The shower didn’t get quite as hot as he would have liked but he got clean. The bed—well, the bed was flat out disgusting but he was on a budget, so he suffered its lumpiness and slightly damp sheets. Sleep escaped him for a solid hour, but he powered through it—and the bone deep, throat drying, head pounding requirement for a drink.

He woke with a start, drenched in sweat, gasping from a dream of sand and heat and pain. The curtain-less window revealed the early horizon, pink and orange, tinged with purple and blue like a giant bruise. He lay shivering under the thin sheet, teeth chattering, mind clanging with one prime directive—find a liquor store, buy a fifth, hold it close and treasure it.

“No,” he roared into the empty room as he lunged up and stumbled into the bathroom for another shower. After standing under the barely-more-than-lukewarm trickle that his forty bucks a night bought him, he got out, toweled off and glared at his reflection in the mirror.

The image that glared back at him was a shell of the Terry O’Leary who’d been a Delta Force sharpshooter, IT ace and top-rated hostage negotiator. The man looking at him was thin, even under the layer of muscle he’d once spent hours bulking. He was lost-looking, gaunt—a loser.

Terry raised a fist, needing to strike out at something to ease the pressure building behind his eyes. He needed the contact, required it like he required oxygen. Just one, he thought. This shit hole roach motel wouldn’t miss one little mirror.

His phone buzzed, distracting him. He let his fist open. His arm dropped to his side as he listened to the incessant humming, indicating someone—Ghost most likely—was trying to reach him. He propped his hands on the sides of the sink and leaned forward, letting his sweaty forehead touch the glass, once, then again. Then once more, harder this time. And when he shattered the mirror, he smiled, wiped the small smear of blood from his forehead and marched into the bedroom.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling the towel from around his waist and holding it to his face. “I told you already. I’m almost home. Chill the fuck out.”

“I had a bad feeling just now about you,” Ghost said, his low, rumbly voice making Terry feel both comforted and furious. “You sure you’re all right, Trigger?”

“Jesus, man, if I didn’t know better I’d think you wanted in my panties.”

“Very funny. Seriously, you’re good, right?”

Terry took a few seconds to blink and process this before he formulated his lie in reply, even as a trickle of blood from the self-inflicted cut on his forehead dripped onto the bedsheet. “I’m fine. Gonna grub over at Denny’s and hit the road.”

“You tell your dad yet? Does he even know you’re coming home?”

“No. Thought I’d surprise him.” He shuddered, knowing how that would likely go down.

“Ah, well, okay then. Good luck.” Ghost’s voice betrayed his opinion of Terry’s banker father—a man who’d lost a son, a wife and who’d more or less disowned his one remaining child. Who’d shown up at the base hospital in Texas once they’d gotten Terry stateside only after Ghost had called him and told him if he didn’t get his ass there, he might never see his one remaining son again.

Terry barely remembered that bad stretch of days. When he’d opened his eyes at one point, he honestly believed that a giant had put his skull between his mammoth hands and gave it a friendly squeeze every fifteen minutes or so. As long as his eyes remained open, he’d figured that his father’s presence was a dream. Wished for, hoped for, but never expected.

As if to remind him, pain spiked into his left eye, making him grunt and bend over.

“Trigger,” Ghost said, his tinny, miles-away voice getting weaker as the ear ringing began, right on schedule.

“Fuck, I gotta go,” Terry said, hanging up even as Ghost was talking. He stumbled around the room, yanking the crappy blinds shut before diving back into the rumpled bed, pillow over his face, eyes streaming, his entire body clenched in the grip of a massive ball of agony originating in his poor, fucked-up skull.