1MAL
Northern Syria - 0300
22 SAS - D Squadron - Air Troop
I only smoke after sex. After the thrill of a one-night stand. Roaming hands, bruised lips, legs tangled in the dark.
No past.
No future.
No names.
Just a connection burning like a fireball until it’s nothing but the embers of a shared cigarette.
Love that shit.
But this…
This is better.
The wind hits me first, screaming up the open ramp of the aircraft, swamping my senses with jet fuel and altitude, toxic purity at its finest. Then the craving comes, barbed and electric, for the fall, for the freedom, my mind somehow blocking out the fight of our lives we’re jumping into.
It’s fucked-up—Iknowit is. But up here, nothing can reach me, even as the dusty desert air rises, the sky below flashingwith chaos and death. Everything blurs. Regrets. Bad choices. Words unsaid, rifts unfixed. The only presence I’m truly aware of beyond the renegade thud of my pulse is that of my men.
Myfriends.
“Green light in five.”
The warning crackles in my ears. I tear my gaze from the swirling clouds and find the stare of my best friend.
My boss.
Sergeant Vincent.
Vinnie.
By my side every moment like this since we passed selection together five years ago. Calm as a mill pond, he grins, checking his altimeter, then mine, before moving past me to dad the rest of our team.
Moth.
Jon.
Raven.
Orion.
They don’t need his supervision any more than I do. They’re not afraid. We’ve jumped into the night a hundred times. More. But these moments before the drop, the endless black below us shattered only by the regular flash of artillery and gunfire, he needs this, and we love him enough to let him have it.
Vinnie comes back to me. Checks me again. Grasps my shoulders as my body jolts around. I’ve never been good at the still parts of our job.
Not like Jack.
I roll my eyes. At myself. At Vinnie.
He shifts his grip to my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Stay close.”
The rare command is drowned out by aircraft noise, but I see the words form on lips I used to dream about before I got over my attraction to the hulking beast of a man he’s become. Myfavourite clown. The best friend I’ve ever had, mainly because he’s one of few souls on this earth who tolerate me.