The Long Night by Jessica Scott

Author:Jessica Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942102205
Publisher: Jessica Scott

12

"You're not hiding your emotions very well," Merrick said as Sam stalked onto the roof.

Merrick was pretty much the last person Sam wanted to see, but it was either sit with Merrick on the guard post or go back downstairs and punch Whitman in the face.

"The motherfucker better remember to start the truck," Sam muttered. He lowered himself with a muffled curse against the low concrete wall and cradled his weapon across his lap.

The adhan echoed across the skyline, the morning call to prayer a sound that Sam had long ago learned to hate. It was so frequently followed by violence that tensing up was practically a conditioned response.

He tapped his thumb against his thigh, waiting for the call to end. The last note echoed over the city, punctuated by a massive fireball that lit up the pre-dawn sky.

"Holy shit!" Sam flinched and ducked below the wall. The concussion of the blast followed the flash a moment later and reverberated against his ribcage. For a moment, his lungs didn't work. Just a moment, and then the feeling passed.

"Dump truck," Merrick said. "Probably six, seven thousand pounds of explosives."

"Or we could hope it was the cache they were using for the IEDs."

Merrick shrugged. "Could be."

"It would be nice if it was," Sam said, a strange need to fill the silence eating at him. "Make this whole clusterfuck worth it."

"It won't change anything," Merrick said, shifting to look out over the skyline.

Sam said nothing for a long moment. Merrick was right. "I know."

Nothing they did mattered. Even deeds cloaked in goodness and mercy backfired. Good men died when you acted and good men died when you did nothing. Sam knew that firsthand.

"There was nothing you could do, you know."

Sam glanced at him, fear clutching his throat. "About what?"

Merrick didn't know. He couldn't. Only Lewis and Hale knew the call that Sam had made, and they wouldn't betray him to a stranger.

"The major bringing the coffee pot."

Relief was cold on his skin.

"I know," Sam said. "It's shocking that he's an infantryman."

Merrick's grin was cold. Predatory. "Some men are more fit for life behind the lines of safety, directing others to do their evil for them."

Sam's stomach rumbled and he took a pull off his CamelBak, hoping the water would assuage the ache in his belly. "And some of us are meant to live in the muck and grime."

"Follow me." Merrick said the line from the infantry creed quietly.

A communion forged in fire and blood. A bond made of more than shared time in combat. A bond forged of having spilt enemy blood and lost more of their own.

"Yeah." Sam closed his eyes as the rapid fire of a machine gun echoed over the rooftops. A flight of doves cooed and took off in a flutter of sound.

He let his mind drift for a moment, needing to close his eyes and rest. His thoughts drifted a thousand miles away, to his fiancée and their unborn baby. How had she gotten the dead sparrow out of the kitchen? He suddenly wanted to know very badly what she'd done.

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