Page 2 of Kai
As I cut my way through a moderate chop, a rush of fog crept over the ocean, courtesy of the trade winds carrying the atmosphere’s moisture to the island. The gray mist crawled over the ocean in uneven tendrils that brought nuances to the war between the light and the shadows. The fog cut down my visibility but helped with concealment. It was the way of the sea. If you wanted to play, there was always a price to pay. What it gave, it took. What it took, it never returned.
I set aside the grim reminder and kept going. With my target in sight, I was eager to wrap this one up. I paddled faster, increasing my speed. The light spilling from the lighthouse guided my progress.
A week ago, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna make it here. Some of my teammates had been skeptical about my mission, but Dash Dagger, my CO, code name Omega, had embraced the risks and supported the op.
Dagger was a legendary Marine Raider and the leader of Tracker Team, Battle Brothers’ newest combat unit. Founded by the Battleson brothers, BB was known as a highly successful outdoor gear co-op. But hidden behind the brand was one of the world’s premier global security organizations, a private outfit staffed with some of the best special operators in the world, recruited to run missions no one else was willing or capable of undertaking.
As a Marine Raider, I’d served under Dagger’s Special Operations unit when we were both on active duty. I’d been there on the day it all went to shit. Later, when he approached me with an offer to join his new team, I hadn’t hesitated. I’d taken terminal leave from the Corps and joined my fellow Raider, a brave leader I loved and respected.
Tracker Team was still a work in progress, and yet we’d come a long way in a short time. The team felt a lot like home these days. In the last few months, we’d been fighting a ruthless enemy, a powerful global mafia composed of rogue nations, terrorists, and a vast network of sly, uber-wealthy supporters. They called themselves the New World Order. For reasons we were still investigating, the NWO had targeted one of the world’s richest men—Richard Astor, now deceased by way of murder.
The billionaire had never been a paragon of virtue, but the NWO hadn’t stopped with his murder. They’d also moved against the billionaire’s daughters, who’d gone missing three years ago when they went dark to escape their father’s iron fist. Tracker Team had already secured two of the Astor sisters—the first-born female, Athena Astor, code name Goddess; and the youngest, Artemis Astor, code name Angel.
The women, who’d become my close friends, insisted we call them by their nicknames, Thena and Missy. They hated the names their douche of a father had saddled them with. The asshole had never had any interest in Greek mythology. Richard Astor only cared about money.
Thena and Missy were currently safe at Astor House in Wyoming. Everyone at Tracker Team, including me, looked forward to the day all the sisters would be safely reunited. For now, we had two more siblings to find.
My mission today, Operation Sorceress, aimed to establish the whereabouts of a third sister. It entailed the usual components of your average special op. It also involved some peculiar elements. And by that, I meant weird as hell.
Skimming over the waves on my surfboard, I was the first to admit the odd source of the info that brought me here. Thena and Missy had used what most of us at Tracker Team succinctly called “unorthodox methods” to identify the location of their missing sister. Along the same lines, the women had decided that only one person on the team could retrieve this woman. That person was me.
Onlyme.
After making such a shocking decision, Thena and Missy had pulled me aside and sat me down in a corner of the lavish library at Astor House—the same space that served as Tracker Team’s headquarters. They’d briefed me on their missing sister at length. They told me about her personality, quirks, and obsessions.
She sounded like a tall order and tough as nails. And then, because unorthodox was the way of the Astor sisters, without fanfare or hesitation, they added the oddest thing: they believed their sister and I had some sort of mysterious connection.
Yup. A mysterious connection. That’s what they said.
The revelation would’ve spooked most rational people.Call me a fool, but I’d been around these women for a while now. I was aware of what I called their “gifts.” Instead of spooked, I found myself curious.
And then, because the conversation wasn’t bizarre enough for your average American mutt, they told me they didn’t know what this “connection” entailed. They said it could be anything, but they believed that their sister’s fate and my destiny were somehow interwoven.
I’d kept my Zen face on, but I couldn’t lie. I wavered between a wary “what the fuck?” and a rational “how the hell?” I even wondered if they were pulling my leg.
And yet precedents existed that supported these women’s hunches. I was on the fence about their theory, but I couldn’t say no to those two. There had been so much hope in Missy’s chocolate eyes, so much emotion in Thena’s pearl-gray gaze. Separate, they were both forces of nature, but together?
In-fucking-vincible.
I didn’t have to embrace everything they said to take on the mission. It was vital to Thena and Missy, to Tracker Team, and to our national security. So, I said yes. The moment I accepted the mission, I’d heard the roar of a monumental rogue wave echoing in my ears and rumbling deep in my chest, a warning as loud and clear as if I’d been sailing at sea.
The sound in my head gave me pause. It only happened when shit was about to go down. Butthisrogue wave? It felt inescapable.
Caution and thrill battled it out in my head, a clash of opposing emotions that put my heart and brain instantly at odds. I was a Marine, logical and mission focused, and yet hunches and gut feelings had saved my life many times on the battlefield. The sound of that rogue wave announced that change was on its way. What kind of change? Good? Bad? Catastrophic?
I had no idea, but I’d been on high alert since then.
Tonight was no exception.
I had to admit that it wasn’t the first time words like “fate” and “destiny” had been thrown in my face out of nowhere. Maybe the beliefs that came with my fifty percent Pacific Islander DNA helped to keep me cool in the face of weirdness. My life experience reinforced my views. Loss was a bitch, and I’d learned early on there was shit in the universe we humans couldn’t grasp, let alone comprehend.
I blamed my grandmother for that tidbit.
MyTutu Wahinehadbeen a wisewoman among her people. Her gift had been her intuition. She’d helped me survive the darkest episode of my life. Now, propelling my board through the waves, her gravelly voice echoed in my mind as I remembered the last words she ever spoke to me.
Seek the light, my sweet, wise boy; follow it, fight for it, hold it close to your heart; for there’s a moon to your sun, a win to your losses, a light in the darkness.
Perhaps my grandma’s influence made Thena and Missy’s peculiar wisdom resonate with me. Just in case reason planned to cast shadows on my life’s mysteries, here I was, at oh dark thirty, paddling my way toward… what else?
