Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
This Monday morning, after drinking too much last night, the new call for the week is definitely on the offensive side because it’s a hundred decibels of barking dogs. Nothing but three minutes of barking dogs.
Upon hearing it, every guy in the bunkhouse complains loudly and some of them go as far as to threaten to quit. Apparently, this is not the first time the barking dogs have been used but it’s used sparingly.
“It’s your fault,” a guy called Razor says, punching me in the arm as he walks past.
“How is it my fault?”
“Because you’re new here and it’s a joke.” He frowns at me, then growls at me. “It’s not funny.”
I just roll my eyes.
For a bunch of mentally challenged criminals and killers, they’re not bad guys. I feel a sense of camaraderie with them.
They did tours in real wars. I can’t relate to that because as a Deep Recon Specialist, I was serving in an entirely different kind of combat. If Collin and I were on the same side back then, he might’ve been my commanding officer because he was running spies and that’s what I was.
Deep cover.
The guys I share the bunkhouse with were all regular military. Some of them SEALs, some of them Rangers, some of them Green Berets. All of them dangerous and all of them crazy.
It’s not a term of endearment, but a clinical diagnosis. Though, as everyone figures out eventually, crazy is all relative to the world around you.
Which is all fine and good while you’re ‘in country’ but doesn’t fly whatsoever when you go home. And, even though I’d bet all the money I have at the moment that not a single one of these men wanted to go home, you can’t hide forever.
That’s when ‘crazy’ starts to actually mean something negative. Something life-changing. Some of the guys here had families before they got all messed up. Some of them were never going to have close relationships like that because their personalities don’t allow for it. None of them have anything but each other now.
I like it.
I feel like this place could be a good second chance.
That’s why I walked away from Olive yesterday. I don’t know if what she was telling me was true—that Collin Creed is her brother—but either way, she’s a flashing red danger sign that’s gonna ruin everything. I can feel it.
If she is Collin’s sister, no way do I want a piece of that.
And if she isn’t… well, she’s definitely CORE and I don’t want a piece of that either.
I shove a protein bar in my mouth as I walk out the front door of the bunkhouse and fall in to the march with the other men.
You’d think we’d all complain about the PT every morning, but no one does. We all went to basic—even I went to basic—and we all hated it, I’m sure. But there’s something comforting about physical training. Something calming about being part of the group. Something settling about letting all the chaos inside your head go and just working through the physicality of it all.
We have a cadence caller, and everyone calls it back as we run, but it’s mind-numbingly easy to let everything go and forget the world exists when you’re doing morning PT.
About two dozen of the guys have off-base jobs so they all cut out about halfway through PT to shower and get to their assignments. Everyone else keeps going until it’s time for chow, and then we shower, change, and train dogs for the rest of the morning.
In the early afternoon, everyone goes to the range out back in the hills. And then, when that’s over, we work with the dogs again. After that we eat and hang out. Then sleep and wake up to do it all again.
I’m one of the guys now. And even though I’ve barely been here a week, it doesn’t take that long to understand that this is a pretty nice setup. I like it.
But my interaction with the girl last weekend lingers in my head and I can’t help but wonder, as I look around the compound, if this is all there is. If this is all there will be.
I’m not complaining. I don’t think any of the guys here are complaining. The Edge contracts come with room and board, meals, and seventy K a year to start. There probably isn’t a single guy, aside from Collin and his crew, who has ever made that kind of money. Or ever will any place else.
But it’s a little bit like a safety net. Here to catch you. A nice thought, but there’s always that nagging little question of… what if?
Especially when you look down the driveway at Collin and Amon’s houses and you watch them both go home to women every night. Amon even has a boy. And he’s a really likable kid. I’ve only spent a week with him and his puppy, but he’s got a sense of humor and he works hard. Acts like he’s thirty years old and just another one of the guys.