I'd Rather Not (KPD Motorcycle Patrol 3)

Prologue

Don’t be sad. Because sad backwards is das, and das not good.

-Coffee Cup

Pace

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I said to Ford, leaning into the Humvee’s window. “That girl sends you more care packages than my mother.”

“You don’t have a mother,” Cherry Bomb, the resident explosives expert for our unit, said from his shotgun seat. “And I think it’s kind of cute.”

We all looked at the package that Ford’s sister sent him.

Ford, better known as Elder to our unit, blushed like a school girl every time he got a package from her. It was actually pretty sweet.

And even though we’d never seen each other in our civilian lives, we’d grown up in small towns not so far apart. Hell, his father had even arrested my father. Though, we hadn’t realized that until we’d compared stories when we got to this particular hell hole.

“You’re just jealous that my sister actually likes me, Pascha.”

I gave Ford a quelling look, then trained it on all the other men that were in the Humvee.

I really hated my name. I hated it mostly because my mother had given me my name, and my mother was just as much not a part of my life as my sister.

Sadly, Ford was also right. I was sort of jealous. Whereas his sister actually cared that he was over here, mine had no clue that I’d even left the states. And if she had known, I highly doubted that the woman would even care.

“What have I told you about using my real name?” I growled.

“You told me to never call you Pascha,” Ford repeated.

Cherry Bomb, also known as Taylor Downs, snorted and continued to stroke his hand over his gun. He did that sometimes, and for the most part, we let him do what he had to do. This place was definitely not comforting, so if he had to always be touching his weapon, we were going to let him be.

“What all is in it?” I asked, touching the box that was in Ford’s hand with my gloved finger.

“Random shit, like always,” Ford explained as he started pulling shit out of the box.

Ford’s sister, Oakley, was actually adorably cute. I’d only ever seen a couple of photos of her—photos mainly consisting of Ford and Oakley when they were children—seeing as Oakley liked to cut them out and make weird, random ass ornaments out of them and send them to Ford because she liked to embarrass him. But the pictures that I did see? Well, those took my breath away.

Oakley was a gorgeous girl.

She also had two different colored eyes, just like Ford did.

Ford’s were a light green and a dark blue.

Oakley’s were a dark, almost emerald green, and a dark blue, almost blue jean in color. At first glance, you couldn’t even tell that they were different colors, not like you could with Ford’s.

Ford had told me that when they were younger, their eyes had been the same color. But when they were around ten, they’d begun to change. Though Ford’s much more dramatically than Oakley’s.

Ford and Oakley had inherited their unique eyes from their parents.

All that I’d inherited from my parents was poor time management skills, and an almost police record.

“Look at this.” Ford held up a small stuffed bunny the size of my index finger. “Here, you can have it.”

I grabbed it out of mid-air as he threw it out the Humvee window and glared at it.

My name, Pascha, was derived from the Greek meaning of ‘Easter.’

I’d explained it over a drunken night right after boot camp to Ford, and he’d been giving me hell ever since.

I stared at the white bunny, which also had two different colored eyes, and wondered if I’d ever find a girl that sent me care packages. Even if she sent me bunnies.

“Look, she sent your favorite again.” Ford tossed me a rope of licorice, again out the window.

That was when the world exploded around us.

***

Twelve hours later

“I just wanted to call and explain to you that your brother has lost a lot of blood, he could quite possibly lose his legs, and…hello?” I heard a strange male’s voice say into the phone. “Hello?”

“Did she hang up?” Ford’s tired voice sounded from somewhere in the room.

“Yes,” the stranger said. “What a bitch.”

“I’m not sure you’re supposed to use that kind of language, Doc.” Ford’s amusement was clear in his tone.

“I just called them to tell them that their son had suffered a major accident, and she asked why I’d bothered calling her. When I explained, she hung up. If anybody deserved to be called a bitch, it was her,” the doc grumbled.

“Is he really going to lose both of his legs?” Ford asked, sounding sick to his stomach.

“Both of his feet, yes,” the doc said. “Most likely. A below-the-knee amputation is going to be the suggested course of action. We did what we could, but there’s just not enough of his feet left to do anything with them. Even if we did save them, he wouldn’t be able to walk on them. They’re…everything is just gone. When he wakes up, we’ll likely ask him. He’s got to be of sound mind, though.”