Page 69 of The Art of Dying

“I’m good!”

“You’re bleedin’ good, too!” Martinez said. “We have to get that slowed down.”

“You need to move,” Sloan whispered. “You’ll be surrounded in sixty seconds.”

“Fuck! I’m sorry,” Matt said.

Gunfire began again, and Trex took a fistful of Martinez’s jacket and rammed his back against the wall. “I said I’m—”

In what felt like slow motion, a small egg-shaped shadow bounced into the hut. I met Trex’s eyes, then Martinez’s, then Matt’s. I could see the decision in his wide eyes. We all knew we wouldn’t have time to get clear, but Trex yelled the order, anyway. Just as he did, Matt leapt forward, falling on top of the grenade half a second before it detonated.

A puff of dust filled the room and then it was silent.

After the disorientation began to wane, my ears stopped ringing, and the debris settled just enough for us to see, we looked down to see Martinez already pulling Matt onto his back.

Trex looked like he’d been punched in the gut, his hands on his knees, glaring at Matt’s lifeless body. “Martinez?”

The corpsman sat back on his haunches. “He’s gone.”

“Keep tryin’,” Trex said.

“Captain, he’s gone,” Martinez said.

“Just…!” He bent over, his chest heaving. “God dammit, try!”

“Get the fuck out of there!” Sloan growled over comms. “Now!”

The rage that boiled and overflowed was something I hoped Mack would never see, but there it was, the monster within me, the darkness that had always lived just below the surface. Once Trex gave the order, the man my wife loved left my body, and something else took over. I was just a passenger, watching myself run out of the hut, lighting up everything that moved.

“You motherfuckers! I’ll fuckin’ kill you all!” The screams came from my mouth, the gun vibrated in my hands that emptied one clip, reloaded and then the other, but it wasn’t me.

It wasn’t me.

I’d never be able to determine the length of time from Matt’s sacrifice to when the village was cleared. The few survivors from the village stood next to us as we overlooked Nooh’s mangled body along with most of his adult soldiers. The children had dropped their weapons and dropped to their knees, and somehow, someway, only a few had been hit—and only from behind.

Martinez and Jackson tended to their wounds.

“You good?” Hawk asked.

“We lost Abrams,” Trex said, using his good shoulder to wipe his tear-stained face.

“Gibby’s gone, too,” Hawk said.

Trex let his head fall for a moment and then looked back over his shoulder. “Martinez?”

“Grazes mostly. Superficial. It’s a fuckin’ miracle.”

I laughed once, but then my face crumbled. “I’ll be damned. Matt’s prayer worked.”

They’re scared, but they’ll be okay,” Martinez said.

“We’ll need to figure out how to get them home,” I said.

Trex nodded.

The people of the village tugged on our clothes, some of them thanking us in Arabic, more of them wailing over their dead, repeating the same words over and over. Once they were all cried out, some began the burial process, while others returned to the ruins to begin the cleanup and putting their homes back together. Something told me it wasn’t the first time.

“Charlie Whiskey Actual, this is field unit Bravo. We’re gonna need medevac on our location, over.” Trex looked at all of us and sighed. “I’m going to sit with Matt.”

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