Their Obsession (Four Mercenaries 2)

Boar and him had been hurt many times. Boar had once gotten his leg broken with a baseball bat. Pyro had been in a fight that had left him with monthly visits to the dentist for a year. But they’d never parted. They always stuck together. Yet for some reason, this time, Boar had decided to not trust Pyro, and had gone with Drake and Clover without Pyro as backup.

Pyro had been very clear about not wanting to join the wild goose chase that trying to accost Apollo had been. He should have made it clearer that if Boar wanted to go, he’d even walk through fire for him. Maybe then, Boar wouldn’t have made the choice he had.

But Boar also knew Pyro better than Pyro knew himself, because if Pyro was to be honest with himself, he knew that if Boar had come to him with this crazy idea in the middle of the night, after an already exhausting day, Pyro wouldn’t have said yes. He’d have gone to argue with Drake and alerted Tank.

So Boar, being Boar, had chosen the path of least conflict and had hoped for the best.

Pyro hugged the brass knuckles, clenching his teeth hard to not cry. They’d been a gift from him when Boar was still nineteen and good enough at brawling, but unwilling to hurt people with his strength. Pyro had been the one to convince him that he needed to think of himself first. That he shouldn’t risk his own health when someone else was willing to hurt him.

The first time Boar had used the knuckle dusters was in Pyro’s defence anyway. Pyro had been drunk and spewing bullshit in a biker bar where they’d celebrated Boar’s birthday. The announcement that he and Boar were a couple had been the last straw to unleash mayhem. Bottles, fists, and boots started to fly, and just as Pyro was about to get his head kicked in, Boar went berserk. Even at twenty, without much training, thanks to his size, he was a force to be reckoned with. A grizzly bear with brass knuckles for claws.

They’d gotten arrested but at least managed to leave town and never had to face the toothless bikers again.

Pyro had been the one to decide Boar had great fighter potential. That he could intimidate people with his size alone, and he’d been the one to draw Boar deeper into crime. Not that Boar opposed him, but maybe left to his own devices, Boar would have met a kindly pastor, got a regular job, a boyfriend in marketing, and a life where he didn’t sell violence while taking care of his ex-junkie partner with anger management issues.

Pyro sobbed, clenching his eyes. He didn’t deserve Boar. He never had.

He got up on shaky legs and pocketed the weapon. When he rubbed the snot off his nose, he spotted the word B-O-A-R tattooed on his knuckles and, on impulse, smashed his fist into the wall time and time again. He didn’t even deserve to wear Boar’s nickname, so he hit the bricks until they rubbed his skin raw, but even with blood spilling and skin ripping, the punches couldn’t destroy the ink.

His hand ached by the time tension drained out of Pyro’s body, and he hugged his hand to his chest, staring at the faint spray of red droplets on the wall. “I will find you,” he vowed and headed for the exit.

Chapter 17 – Tank

It was a relief to see Drake asleep.

The beating had left him with broken ribs, nose, and a mild concussion, but he’d been too erratic with worry for Boar and Clover to rest. Tank was glad the doctor had agreed to give him a sedative. Uninterrupted sleep would be the cure Drake needed, and it wasn’t like they could do anything before Tank’s contacts unearthed information about Boar’s potential whereabouts or who the mysterious buyer was.

Helping Clover and Drake heal was the best Tank could do at that point, so he took them home, all the way back to Oregon, and no matter how bad he felt about saying goodbye to his grandmother with a call, he couldn’t deal with her seeing them after what had happened.

Clover had numerous wounds on his back from caning, and they’d needed stitching, but getting any information out of him about the details of what happened was like pulling teeth. He kept dismissing it and saying there were more important things to focus on. That Drake needed attention. That he wasn’t much hurt in comparison.

Yet he recoiled at every sound he didn’t expect, had barely slept in the last twenty-four hours, and sat at Drake’s side without a word, even though Drake was in no shape to speak. Maybe after the horrors they’d been through together, he needed a material sign that Drake was still alive.