“Give in,” I say when I get Zeus in a choke hold.
“No.”
Hmm, okay, I wasn’t expecting that. Zeus takes my momentary lapse in concentration as an opportunity to elbow me in the gut.
I release him, and he zooms past me while I stand completely winded, trying to breathe.
He punches in his code and then turns to me. “Can’t win them all, Iris.”
Ugh. Where have I heard that before?
I swear ever since we pulled Saint out of that hole, everything has been reminding me of our basic training days, and I’ve spent the last ten years trying to forget about the straight boy who was so pretty I had to fuck everyone else on base so he wouldn’t beat me up for trying to sleep with him.
Trav offering him a spot on this LGBTQ-focused team threw me until I found out Saint was gay. Apparently, he’d come out at some point during his career. We lost touch as most people do in the military, so I had no idea, but a quick search of his name—in Google, not even in private military files—showed that I had it so wrong.
I understand people needing to come out in their own time, but damn, I can’t help thinking how different basic training would have been had he been out too.
I keep seeing that smarmy know-it-all grin he’d always pull when he’d beat the entire squad in a training exercise. His blue eyes were so intense I didn’t know whether to get lost in them or treat them like a solar eclipse and never stare at them directly.
His ashy hair had a curl to it around his neck that very first day before we all got buzz cuts, but I remember the curl. It was a very sexy curl.
I shake it off and enter my code, following Zeus inside. Everyone’s already in the war room when we get there, so we take the two seats at the end of the large oval table. There are eleven of us here, nearly the whole team, but Alphabet and Decaf are still out on assignment.
They left last week for a “quick intel job,” and I guess they’ve hit some snags. Their names? Alphabet’s last name is Blaszkiewicz. None of us could pronounce it, so he will forever be known as Alphabet. Decaf got his name because he’s always drinking coffee. We joke he could be taking out a room full of bad guys with his assault rifle in one hand and his coffee in the other. The weird thing is he’s never jittery or twitchy. He’s calm as fuck unless he doesn’t have any coffee. We think the caffeine actually brings him down.
All of us have code names, some given to us by the Mike Bravo crew when we joined, others, like mine, carried over from the military. No one gets to choose their own name.
Kevlar likes to make the joke that he was given that name for being bulletproof, but we all know it came from the time he turned up to training “in full gear” but forgot his vest.
It’s easier and safer to use our code names to protect our real identities. Some of us have actual lives outside of Mike Bravo. Families. I know Angel has brothers she’s close to. Ghost still has his parents. I think he actually still lives with them, but that’s a whole other story. The point is our names protect us. They’re not just there for pure mockery—though, that’s a bonus.
Zeus and I no sooner take our seats than Trav walks in with someone behind him, and I freeze.
There’s that slight curl I remember so well sitting below Saint’s ears. His skin is no longer the pasty shade of death that it was six months ago. He’s thinner than the bulky guy we pulled out of Udoola, but he looks … healthy.
“Everyone, this is Brock Harlow,” Trav says. “He’s our newest recruit.”
“Weren’t you shot like a thousand times?” Zeus asks next to me.
Saint’s eyes finally land on mine. His jaw is unshaven, but that half-cocked smile …
Then he breaks and turns his attention to Zeus. “I’m invincible. What can I say?”
“He’s also very humble as you can tell,” I say dryly.
“You guys know each other?” Angel asks.
“We did basic together.”
“I did basic,” Saint says. “Iris was just … there … behind me while I kicked his ass at everything.”
The rest of the team snickers, and I try not to laugh with them.
I won’t give Saint the satisfaction. “You’re still alive because of who again?”
“How long are you going to hold that over on me?”
I tap my chin and pretend to think about it. “Oh, forever.”
“Fun times.” He turns to Trav. “Is it too soon to quit?”
Trav taps Saint’s shoulder. “You’re stuck with us.” To the rest of us, he says, “We’ll meet you out front in ten, so go pack a bag. We’ll be gone for a few days.”