Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Kane had been one of the original street kids, one of those idiotic enough—as all of them were—to follow Mack McKinley into the service and then into specialized training and straight to the classified psychic GhostWalker program.
“Fortunately, she won’t find out,” Javier said. “You’re perfectly safe with your spinach chips. Eat them in peace. I had a little help. Her son happened to start fussing, distracting her when she was putting all her fresh chips in the Ziploc bags. There were so many all over the counter she couldn’t possibly know three bags went missing. Even if she counted them, the piles had fallen over.” He flashed another grin at Gideon. “No one makes that many fresh chips all at the same time. Kane is addicted just the way you are. She spoils him.”
That little grin Javier gave him made him wonder about Rose’s son suddenly getting fussy. Kids liked Javier. All of them. Rose and Kane’s son, Sebastian, was all kinds of talented. He might be a baby, but he was already exhibiting signs of psychic gifts. It wouldn’t surprise Gideon if Javier had a way of communicating with the little ones recently born to various GhostWalkers. He didn’t ask.
Silence fell. Gideon liked silence. What he didn’t like was the reason Javier was there and what was coming next, but he couldn’t think of a way to stop it, so he just remained still.
Javier shoved both hands through his hair. “Hate that you took a slew of bullets that were mine, brother.”
“They were anyone’s. I was just in the way.”
Both knew that wasn’t the truth. Javier had been out of his mind. They had all been. Gideon had been. They hadn’t been prepared for what they’d seen. Innocent women and children, civilians who should have been safe in their homes. Going to school. To work. Just living their everyday lives. Mowed down. Raped. Murdered. Hacked to pieces. Dead bodies lying in the streets, like so much garbage. Left as bait for any soldiers to find, mines under their bodies.
It wasn’t as if they weren’t experienced and hadn’t seen the worst. They were urban fighters. Good at what they did. Ghosts sent in to retrieve prisoners, slipping in unseen and getting out without anyone ever spotting them. Right in the middle of a city. Right in the middle of the enemy’s home. They’d seen it all, been through it. Been taken prisoner. Tortured. They’d been shot. More than once, the plane they were in had been shot down. They were experienced, but this—seeing infants and children and women, innocents in schools and homes—this was too much for all of them.
Javier had lost it. They all had, but Javier had lost his mind. He was entitled. The sight was a trigger from his childhood buried deep, but his reaction had endangered the entire team. Gideon had taken out six of the enemy to keep them from killing Javier. But Javier hadn’t stood down. He had charged with no cover, no backup, right into the heart of the enemy. Gideon, looking through his scope into Javier’s eyes, had been able to see he was gone—no longer thinking. He’d shut down completely. Gideon calmly took out two more who would have killed his brother, and then he made the decision to go after Javier, protecting him the way he always had.
Gideon didn’t want those memories brought here, not to his rooftop. Not when they were still burned behind his eyes. The smell in his nostrils. Even the coppery taste of blood lingered in his mouth. The pain of bullets tearing into his flesh and through his insides was far too fresh. Those memories were already too close. He hadn’t had the chance to put them away.
“Wasn’t the bullets, Gideon. I was out of my mind. Just like when I was a kid. You came for me.” Javier dropped his head into his hands and rubbed at his temples. “You fuckin’ came for me again.”
Gideon regarded him in silence for a long while, letting the breeze from the ocean cool the stench of vile gore from his mind. This rooftop was his sanctuary, his one place of peace—his only peace—and it was so fleeting. He wanted that same peace for Javier, but he knew Javier had yet to find his path.
Gideon sighed. “Javier.”
Javier shook his head and then looked directly at Gideon with his black, fathomless eyes, two dark pits of relentless agony. “Am I a psychopath? Tell me the fucking truth, brother. Should I put a bullet in my head? You’ve pulled me back more than once. What if you couldn’t get me back? What if I just stayed in that state? I would have killed everyone. All of them. Every single fucking one of them.”
“Don’t you think every single one of us would have killed them, Javier? You weren’t feeling anything different than the rest of us. Those intense emotions were triggered by the needless slaughter of infants, of children, of young and old women. What we saw was so wrong, and we weren’t prepared. We walked blindly into that nightmare without considering it would be there. Our minds weren’t in the right frame to accept it. You weren’t the only one struggling to keep it together and not take out the entire unit of . . .” He broke off for a moment, searching for a word to describe who would do such a thing.