I watched from the window as his whole family hugged him goodbye, including Pippin who had tears streaming down her little face. His mom Stacey, and stepmom, Alex, stood behind her trying like hell to keep it together but failing miserably. No one showed up to see me off, not giving a fuck I was leaving.
Mia’s eyes found mine as if she could sense my stare. Immediately wiping away her tears, not wanting me to see her cry. Proving to me that she really was just a baby girl. Her eyes held so much worry, so much sincerity in that moment, not only for Mason.
For me too.
A kid I had only seen a handful of times in the last three years, cared more about me than my own blood. In ways I’d never seen or felt before. The emotion showing in her bright blue, glossy eyes heightened a connection between us that I hadn’t ever realized before.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the first patch she ever gave me. Placing the word ‘courage’ on the window for her to see. She instantly smiled, and it lit up her entire face. I couldn’t help but smile back.
She was just too fucking adorable not to.
Basic training-AKA Boot Camp was an adjustment to say the fucking least. I went from doing whatever the hell I wanted in Devil’s Rejects, to beyond strict, no bullshit, daily regimens in the military. As soon as we stepped foot on that fucking base, we were no longer civilians, but soldiers. Getting stripped of our normal clothes and thrown into a chair for a military buzz cut.
The further we got into training, the more brutal it became. We went from the classroom learning the ropes of being an Army soldier, to the field where our drill sergeants pushed us to the breaking point. Testing our strength, endurance, and most importantly, our fucking sanity. Pulling us out of bunks at all hours of the night, in the shittiest conditions possible, running drills and crawling obstacles. Digging holes just for the hell of it, being belittled to the extreme of wanting to fucking hang yourself.
I learned quickly not to speak unless spoken to.
“What the fuck,” we all groaned out. Being woken up at two in the morning to bright lights and yelling.
“Come on, you pansy-ass sons of bitches! Get the fuck out of bed and suit up!” Drill Sergeant Emery’s voice boomed through our sleeping quarters. “I ain’t got all day. Move! Move! Move!”
Everyone was half-asleep but still managed to hop off their beds, throw on clothes and boots, and line up in front of their bunks.
“Your fucking grandma moves faster than that Paulsen, you lazy ass motherfucker!” he spewed in the private’s face.
“My mema is dead, Drill Sergeant.”
“Did she die waiting on your sorry ass to get her to the goddamn hospital?”
“No, Drill Sergeant!”
“Drop and give your mema twenty, Private! And count um’.”
Paulsen fell to the linoleum and started counting out loud.
“Nice of you to fucking join us, Private Jameson,” he called me out, not even looking in my direction. “Why you dragging ass? Don’t tell me it’s because you needed your beauty sleep!” He walked over to me, getting right in my face. “You are one bulldog looking cocksucker!” he yelled inches away from my mouth, the veins in his neck working overtime.
I didn’t back down. “I needed to piss, Drill Sergeant!” I shouted, standing up taller. Looking over his head.
“You piss when I tell you to piss! Did I tell you to fuckin’ piss?”
I hesitated, working my fists at my sides. I never liked being told what I could and couldn’t do. This motherfucker was pushing my goddamn buttons.
“No… Drill Sergeant.”
“Drop and give me fifty for pissing.”
“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”
I got down in a plank position, the dog tag Autumn gave me with Luke’s face on it, slipped out of my t-shirt, catching the Sergeant’s eye.
“What do we have here?” he questioned, crouching down in front of me, ripping the chain from my neck in one swift motion.
Before giving it any thought, I jumped to my feet, shoving my superior hard in the chest. “Don’t fuckin’ touch those!” I roared.
“Creed, stand down,” Mason gritted out in a low tone only I heard. Knowing shit was about to hit the fan.
“You have some brass balls, Private. This your son?” He held up the necklace.
I shook my head no.
“I asked you a fucking question, Private Jameson! When I ask you a question, I expect a fucking answer. Now! Is this your son?”
“My little brother, Drill Sergeant,” I replied through a clenched jaw.
“Awe, ain’t that sweet. You can get this back after you earn it. No personal effects wore on your body. Already breaking fucking rules, Private. Trust me, you’ll pay for this today. Now drop and give me hundred. You got five minutes. You go over one second, you’ll start again. Let’s see how long it takes you to be a real fucking man.”
I completed them in three. And I swear the son of a bitch grinned as he walked away from me.
Mason and I completed basic and job infantry training with flying colors. Moving onto airborne training in which we’d be learning to jump out of planes and shit. Becoming paratroopers, and gaining our wings.
I couldn’t fucking wait to make that jump.
That’s where we met Owen, a ruthless motherfucker from Arkansas. He happened to be the same fucker I had a run in with at the Oak Island fair tent, because of Autumn a few years back. He was there, vacationing with his family. It didn’t take long for me to realize how fucking small the world truly was. We were unpacking our shit at our new headquarters when a picture of Autumn fell to the floor.
“This your girlfriend?” Owen asked, holding up the Polaroid.
“Somethin’ like that.” I tore it from his grasp, throwing it on the dresser. Not wanting to explain or get into that with a complete goddamn stranger.
“Wait, let me see that again.” He helped himself, reaching over to take a closer look. “Where did you say you’re from?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh man, I’d recognize these tits and ass anywhere. She’s the feisty redhead I met in Oak Island awhile back. I would have fucked her if it weren’t for—”
I had him pinned up against the wall by his throat before he got the last word out.
“Me?! Beatin’ your fuckin’ face in. I suggest you choose your words wisely, or I won’t hesitate to fuck you up again.” I released him with a shove, going back to unpacking.
“That was you. I knew you looked vaguely familiar. You put me in the damn hospital for days. You broke my fucking jaw. My mouth was wired shut for weeks.”
“Not even sorry.” I walked out of the room.
Owen and I eventually put our differences behind us, both wanting to make our country proud and take down the fuckers who took so much away from us.
Especially me.
I wasn’t fighting just for the United States. I was fighting for Autumn.
My men had my fucking back, and I had theirs.
When our nineteen weeks at Fort Benning was completed, we got stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina together for Special Forces job training. I was top in my fucking class when it came to speed. I could draw my gun in the matter of seconds, taking out anyone who stood in my fucking way. All those years of handling guns for the wrong reasons with the MC came in handy. I had the eye of a sniper with a quick hand. Knowing military-issued guns like the back of my hand brought me to where I was now, my job.
No one fucking crossed me.
Upon completion, we were all assigned to the same barracks, the building that housed us.
We got orders for our first deployment to Afghanistan right after we finished training. At the time I thought I was a badass motherfucker who was invincible. I was on top of the fucking world, ready to go in with guns fucking blazing, killing the fuckers who took so much away from me, from us.
I was trained to kill.
I was trained to not ask questions.
I was tr
ained to turn off the last bit of my humanity.
But no amount of training prepared me for the things I was forced to witness. The things they don’t tell you about before you enlist and devote your life for the greater fucking good. The things they don’t show you on the news or read about in newspapers.
They don’t show you the fucking bad.
Only the good.
I thought I had seen it all, but I couldn’t have been more fucking wrong. Watching the aftermath of women and children being raped, beaten, and shot by their own insurgents because the men wouldn’t join their cause. The devastation brought on by their own fucking kind. There was no telling the difference between the innocent and corrupt overseas. It all blended together. You quickly realized that every time you suited up. Every time you threw on those army fatigues, it was life or death.
It was their lives or yours.
Special Ops were trained fucking killers. Every mission we were assigned to was top secret. We didn’t even know what we were being dragged in for until we got there. Being deployed on any given day without warning. Couldn’t say shit about anything either, especially when we came back. Our main mission that never changed was to fucking find them before they killed us.
Kill… or be killed.
Exactly like the fucking MC.
Being in Special Forces, meant being deployed more often, but for shorter increments. Typically, they only lasted anywhere from four-to-six months, depending on the unit, location, and need.
I had been back at Fort Bragg in North Carolina for a month. I was stationed about an hour and a half from home. I didn’t know when I would be shipped out again, so I was planning on taking advantage of the little freedom I had as best as I could. As I sat in my barracks though, my mind replayed scenes I wish I could erase for good.
I lit a cigarette, inhaling the nicotine. Immediately feeling the rush of the toxins course through my lungs. Leaning my head back, blowing a puff of smoke into the stale air. Thinking of all these memories that plagued my soul.
My unit was called out to a small, run-down village to search out insurgents, and collect intel on Osama Bin Laden’s whereabouts. It was pouring rain, God unleashing his wrath upon the battlegrounds. When a group of kids, came sneaking out of an abandon, concrete building.
“Two boys, dressed in uniform, and three elders about two yards out. Heading north,” Owen’s voice rasped over the radio.
“I got a visual,” I replied, talking into my shoulder. Never taking my eyes off them.
“Creed, it’s your call. They look like they’re holding something, bro. It’s not a good time to be a fucking pussy. Pull out your damn tampon, grow a pair of fucking balls, and take them the fuck out!”
“Motherfucker!” I seethed, making my way closer, my eye trained on them through the scope of my gun.
They stopped dead in their tracks, exchanging some words, looking all around them, searching for I don’t know what. Then the elders suddenly pulled out grenades from their jackets, handing them to the boys.
I jerked back. “Fuck,” I breathed out, knowing what I had to do. I didn’t hesitate, pulling the trigger till they were no longer little boys in school uniforms, but the enemy I was trained to take out.
Here one minute.
Gone the next.
The casualties of war.
That was the first kill under my belt on my first deployment to Afghanistan.
The military desensitized me, more so than I was before, or maybe I had already been numb to it all. I had new nightmares, new ghosts of men, women, and sometimes children I had killed for my country, haunting me. Kids as young as Noah, some even younger.
All of them engrained to hate the red, white, and blue.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the floor-length mirror hanging from my closet door. Taking in all the ink I had collected over the years. Between the MC and the military tattoos, each and every piece I had etched in my skin had a story to tell, a memory to hold onto, till the day I fucking died. Most soldiers collected something important to them. I collected tattoos, branding my skin every chance I fucking got.
It was the same thing day in and day out.
Nights in the military were some of the loneliest times of my life. I had nothing to distract myself with, it didn’t matter how exhausted I was. How much I pushed my body physically and mentally, sleep never came easily.
My memories were always there.
The bad and brutal ones outweighed the good.
The good memories never lasted. My mind only programmed to bring back the bad. It was instinctual for me, seeing the images of my goddamn life rotating around me like the moon rotated around the earth. Reminding me of the life I’d only known as fucking hell. There were times when I couldn’t shake it off, as much as I tried they wouldn’t let me go, tightening around my neck. The weaving of a tight rope of memories, strangling me until I couldn’t fucking breathe. Like a noose, sucking the life right out of me.
I welcomed that feeling.
At least then I knew I was still fucking alive.
Being a special operations weapon specialist, I was allowed thirty days leave a calendar year. I spent most of my free time on the weekends when I wasn’t working or when I was on leave, at the club. Diesel had stepped in as acting Vice Prez until I could return. I still paid my dues and was involved as much as I could be, and they kept me informed and up to date on everything that was going down.
I tried to see Noah every chance I got, except he never wanted to fucking see me. In the event I did see him, he refused to talk, letting me do all the talking. I could feel the resentment oozing off his pores. He was sixteen, acting as if he was a grown-ass man. Spending more and more time at the clubhouse, against my wishes. I went from one fucked up situation to another.
My mother seemed like she was trying to get her shit together. She had kept me in the loop when I was away, writing me letters often, telling me about her journey to sobriety. Telling me she was attending meetings and had found a sponsor. Busying herself with Stacey and Laura, too. Barely ever mentioning my old man, as if he didn’t exist in her life anymore.
I saw Mia more often than I saw Noah. Driving in with Mason so he could kiss Giselle’s ass, who hadn’t forgiven him for enlisting in the first place. Pippin was still the smart-ass baby girl, wise beyond her fucking years. I found myself looking forward to the next time I saw the now fourteen-year-old spitfire. One morning a few weeks after I left, they said my name during mail call. It shocked the shit out of me, I never expected to receive mail from her, not in a million years. But when Mia set her mind on something, come hell or high water, she was going to make it happen.
There was an envelope with pink handwriting from Mia Ryder, AKA Pippin. She wrote me letters every so often, each time sending a new patch. Telling me all about what was happening back in the states, what was going on with her life, how her daddy still didn’t let her do anything. How surfing was her only source of freedom. Telling me she had placed first in a local surfing contest, taking down some of the best. Kicking their asses. And how much she prayed for Mason and me, missing us both.
I actually started looking forward to her letters. Taking in the little bit of happiness and fucking sunshine she brought into my life. She was a breath of fresh air in this death-infested land. But on most days, I was just left alone with only my thoughts and memories.
Fighting my demons, as I protected my country.
SEVENTEEN
MIA
There was a small manmade lake just off Pepperbush Drive in Woodland Parks. I’d ride my bike there often, just to have some peace and quiet. A secluded place I could be alone with my thoughts. Away from the busy beaches of Oak Island. I had discovered it after Uncle Austin bought his house on the property, exploring the area one day when we were there for a barbecue.
I took the dirt road down to my special spot at the lake, parking my bike near the willow tree. I grabbed my sunglasses, radio, and headphones from my backpack,
and headed down to the water’s edge. Slipping off my sandals near the shoreline, I waded through the tall grass into the murky warm water. Letting the hot sun beam down on me as I listened to the crickets chirp.
Finding peace amongst the world’s chaos.
I climbed up onto the rope swing that hung just above the water off a willow branch. Put my headphones on, scrolled through my songs, and found what I was looking for. I started to swing to the soft melody of “Broken” by Seether. Watching the ground beneath me blur into one. Singing at the top of my lungs when the song hit my favorite part.
When all of a sudden the swing jerked back, almost sending me into the water. I let out a scream, turning back to see who was behind me. Never expecting to see him.
Creed.
“Got some set of lungs on ya,” he chuckled, letting go of the swing.
“What the hell? You scared the shit out of me!” I exclaimed, immediately hopping off the swing. Kicking water up, splashing him.
He grinned in that Creed, smartass sort of way. Cocking his head to the side, he challenged, “Don’t start a war you can’t win, Pippin.”
“Oh yeah, soldier?” I never took my eyes off his as I tossed all my stuff next to my sandals on the shoreline, so it wouldn’t get wet.
With a shit-eating grin on my face, I leaned forward, building up the anticipation of what I was about to do. Pushing my hands through the water, I shoved a huge wave into his face.
He stepped back, his eyes widening in shock of what I’d done. “Don’t try me,” he dared, hiding back a smile.
“I thought I already did.” I splashed him again, this time with much more water in my hands. Not caring he was wearing his cut, which still didn’t have any of my patches on it. “Do it one more time and watch what happens, baby girl.”
“Hmmm…” I contemplated, placing my finger on the corner of my lips. “I’m not a baby, I’m almost fifteen! And the name’s Pippin! Get it straight!”
I didn’t give him a chance to reply before I went full force, splashing him as much as I could. Laughing my ass off the entire time, never letting up. Throwing heaps of water at him.