Page 50 of Pretend
Which is why I’m here.
“Mr. Hannibal,” I whisper while pushing against his bicep with my fingers. Two fast movements have me waiting for a reaction. But nothing follows. I suck in another breath and attempt to wake him up again. He’s probably a deep sleeper.
“Daegan,” I mumble his first name softly as I get closer to his masked ear, my wet curls falling forward, and they slightly graze his chest.
Faster than I can blink or register what I’ve done, I’m on the floor in seconds with a knife held to my throat.
16
DAEGAN
“Have you been praying, Hannibal?”Dario Marchetti, my step-brother, asks me. We’re walking through a village in Iraq, patrolling, sweat on our foreheads, sand all over our uniforms, dragging our feet.
Dario became my best friend when our parents married. We’ve been inseparable. Always up to no good. Daring and pushing each other to do stupid shit to get us in trouble.
When my mother passed away, my father remarried a woman he met in church years later when I was in high school. He felt guilty for moving on until finally, I pushed him to. I hated seeing my father alone all those years.
He went into a deep depression when my mother killed herself. He carried her death on his shoulders…and probably still does. He blames himself for her suicide because instead of pushing her to get help from doctors, he encouraged faith over medicine.
A part of me holds that againsthim now as an adult. As a child, it was harder for me to grasp the magnitude of my parent’s choices.
“Of course.” I spit out the tobacco I’ve been chewing onto the floor next to me. I tower over Dario as always, our shadows reflecting the drastic height difference. He’s lean, while I am not so much.
It’s hot and dry, and the heat is scorching upon us with no mercy. My beard is fully grown out, and my long hair is tucked behind my ears, covered in sweat. My uniform and gear make it harder to breathe, but we keep pushing forward like we’ve been trained to do.
“Is Mrs. Marchetti finally taking your calls?” I ask. His mom didn’t take my father’s last name even after her first husband passed away and she remarried my father.
His mother hasn’t spoken to either of us since we joined the Navy together. He was on a different path. He was going to be a doctor. But instead, he dropped out of medical school, followed in my footsteps, and joined the SEALS. It's a miracle we graduated together.
It’s rare.
He went on to become a SEAL with a focus on medicine, and I went on to sniper school.
“Nope, Mom is still not taking my calls. But your Dad says she’ll come around. I’m going to see her when we come back from deployment.”
“She doesn’t talk to me either. She blames me for your decision to follow me into the Navy. So thanks a lot for that, asshole.” I nudge his shoulder with my hand; he stumbles a foot or two and spits out his tobacco in front of us. Barely missing my boot by an inch.
He laughs dryly. He and his mother have a very close relationship. He’s a mama’s boy, I guess you could say. His brown curly hair is cut short, hidden underneath his cap. He is his mother's twin. They share the same features, but his face is the opposite.
She tells him all the time that she sees his father every time she looks at him.
When my father looks at me, he sees my mother’s eyes. He can’t look me in the eyes since my mother passed away…ever.
“She’ll come around for both of us soon, I hope.” He grunts while readjusting his rifle and takes in a sharpened breath.
Dario’s mother and I have a cordial, respectful relationship. She’s always treated my older brother, little sister, and me well and respected the boundaries my father set in place.
He’s told me time and time again that his new wife will not substitute my mother’s shoes.
We’ve reached another building we need to clear, and our teammate is about to knock down the door. He positions himself, ready to breach, but our mics go off. Chaos from the teams shout into our ears manically, their voices colored with urgency.
Fuck.
I know we’ve made one wrong move, and my heart anchors down into the pit of my stomach. In the blink of an eye, our lives have changed forever. It all happened too fast, almost to the point it wasn’t registerable. We don’t get a fucking chance to change paths, to change into a defensive position. Our fate has been stamped permanently without our say-so.
A loud explosion follows. The beginning of the worst time of my life hits me. Everything goes black, and the only thing that makes sense…is the pain.
Everything was black until I found myself in color again. I’m pinning the Admiral’s stepdaughter to the floor, my knife to her throat, and my other hand cuts off her airway, choking her. The color of her skin turns reddish purple.
