Page 28 of Beckon

Tate had entered after Chandler had fired the kill shot. When the echo of the child’s scream had died and there was an eerie silence. It was as if they’d lived two entirely different experiences. Tate hadn’t watched anyone die that day, not Wilson nor the man who’d gutted him. He hadn’t been in the too empty home when the screams reverberated with a tinny sound.

“Even with all the blood spreading across the floor and the sulfur smell in the air, what struck me once I’d taken all that in… what still haunts me to this day, is that my best friend blames himself for what happened. He can’t look me in the eye because he thinks he should’ve done more to protect us. But we should’ve done more to protect him. He shouldn’t have had to do what he did, not alone. The rest of us should’ve been right on his heels. Instead, we got distracted by a vehicle with squeaky brakes. We thought it was an attack coming from behind. That second delay cost us all. Wilson would’ve still been killed, but our team leader wouldn’t have killed his killer alone. No one there as witness to his necessary action. No one there to assure him he was justified and help him carry that burden.”

Chandler felt a hot tear leak from the corner of his eye before he could stop it. He had heard bits and pieces of what Tate had said before. He was always trying to tell him this, but Chandler wouldn’t listen. So attached to his grief that he didn’t know how to let it go.

Chandler wondered if Tate would feel the same way if he knew the truth. Knew what he himself had only found out recently. One thing was clear, he couldn’t let Tate go on thinking he’d failed Chandler. He hadn’t.

When Tate was finished and the counselor, Mark, added his two cents and asked if anyone else had anything they’d like to share. Chandler did something he never thought he’d do. He lifted his hand up ever so slightly, but enough to indicate his intention.

The look on Tate’s face would’ve been comical if it hadn’t been tainted with lingering pain from speaking.

Chandler didn’t start with an introduction. What was the point? Did knowing his name help anything? He doubted it. Besides, he wasn’t speaking for them or even himself, he was speaking for Tate.

“Wilson entered first. Not sure now why we decided that, but we did. Before I entered, I told the rest of the team, save one, to come in staggered only if there wasn’t an outside danger we hadn’t accounted for. We had conflicting reports of how many people were inside. Staggering gives reaction time, and it keeps the people inside guessing how many more are coming.”

Chandler kept his description vague. There was a lot more to their entrance strategy than what little he shared. And that was only for the benefit of the counselor, so when he was done, he could back Chandler up and absolve Tate of his guilt. He turned his gaze to Tate. “I guess you forgot that part.” He didn’t need to explain to Tate what he was saying, although others may not have put two and two together.

When Mark didn’t immediately jump in. And Tate didn’t look like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, Chandler added. “Even without the perceived threat, which I told you to check for, you still wouldn’t have made it…”

Emotions choked him. All this time Tate thought he’d failed Chandler by not being right there beside him. While Chandler wouldn’t wish those sights and sounds on anyone, least of all Tate. Tate had been the heart of their team. That voice of reason and compassion when the rest of them went into a mental zone of indifference and detachment. Not Tate.

Chandler kicked himself now for not seeing what was right in his face the whole time. Tate’s guilt. That meant he also blamed himself for the recent month when Chandler’s drinking had increased.

“Do you hear what he’s saying, Tate?” Mark’s soft question pulled Chandler’s attention outward. Tate shook his head in denial before finally bobbing it in understanding.

Chandler’s sigh of relief was short lived. “If I have to accept that, then you have to accept that you didn’t fail us either. It was a bad mission from the start. We were expendable, but you pulled us through when we weren’t expected to make it.”

Tate’s words were low and only for him, not the group.

“Sergeant?” Chandler cut his eyes to Mark who raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry, you didn’t give us a name and I assumed… I apologize, but do you think you would share, with Tate later if you’re not comfortable yet doing it here, what happened inside? It might help you both.”

Chandler let his gaze drift around the small gathering. Studying the people there, all seemed wrapped up in their own heads except for Nat. She looked at them as Chandler had eyed her earlier. With a sense of understanding. But it wasn’t Nat or Tate or Mark he drew his strength from.

No. He drew his strength from the woman who’d occupied his thoughts since the second he saw her clearly. The woman who showed him in such a short time to look for a reason and to be the kindness.

Tami was the first of his seven, he hoped. Maybe sharing his story could be one for Tate and maybe Nat or any of the other people in the room.

It damn sure wasn’t doing anything good for him, so why not try to see if it could be good for someone else, maybe give Tate some closure.

He owed Tate that much at the very least. Chandler would tell him what happened in that hovel.

“Wilson had visual confirmation that our target...” He was coming very close to giving away mission details. While they deserved none of his loyalty, old habits didn’t break easily. “For extraction was inside. We didn’t, however, have visuals on who else or what else might be inside. Wilson said with the position of the target he thought he could get in and have a look around before being spotted. We decided if we staggered in, we’d have a more accurate picture.”

The puzzled looks on some of the faces told him they’d never watched a halfway accurate military movie in their lives. The questions were written across their faces…how could he communicate that to you, how does a fully armed adult enter a house unseen, shit like that. Chandler didn’t care, this share was for Tate, and he knew.

“I entered seven seconds later as planned and Wilson was on the table.” Chandler cleared his throat, shaking his head to dislodge the picture, but if Tate needed it… “He was cut open from his neck down and parts of him were spilling out. The target was drawing his knife across his throat like he was a fucking animal being field dressed. Seven goddamned seconds was all it took to end his life with us right outside the door.”

Chandler looked Tate in the eye and swallowed the bile back down. “I dropped him before the knife made it halfway across. The report of the shot was still ringing in the air when I heard a sound I’ll never forget.” A sob tore from his very soul.

“A little girl, an innocent fucking kid screaming her heart out. She not only witnessed the violence of Wilson’s death that day, she watched me kill her father with no remorse. Nothing but hatred. Before I caught myself, I had the gun trained on the sound. But she didn’t look at me, her eyes were on the gaping hole in her father’s head. It was weird, he was still standing. Like he was going to shake it off. It took him forever to fall.”

Chandler had to keep going even with images assaulting him. “Her mother saw me, saw the hole in the end of the barrel with smoke still curling out, and she covered both their mouths. She was terrified I would put them down too. Well, you know the rest.”

The rest from that day, yes, but not the rest of the story. The part he would take to his grave.

The room was deathly silent except for the collective soft sobs of the entire group. But for once, in Chandler couldn’t remember how long, that part of the story had lost a minuscule amount of its power because the look on Tate’s face took it.

Chandler wasn’t sure if it had an apt description. It wasn’t sorrow or pain, although they were certainly present. It was something else. Something that strengthened their bond somehow. Chandler realized, Tate needed to know in detail what happened, and Chandler had denied him for his own selfish reasons.

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