Kai

KAI

With my mouth full of fire and flavor, I dropped the fork into the takeout container and looked at Hunter. After treating his hand and going to get the food, he spent most of the time in a quiet mood. I could see him wrestling with everything that had happened, and I was frustrated that I could do nothing to help him.

It had all started because a group of people attacked him and Lucas, stealing what peace and security Hunter had built in his life. His entire childhood had been marked by trying to avoid his parents, and when the inevitable happened and they managed to corner him, it was learning how to smile through the pain. He had gotten past all that, and for what? A group of fuckers to come along and steal it all away.

Now he was so fucked in the head that a simple kitchen accident had him spiraling into feelings of guilt and shame. Admittedly, he had surprised the hell out of me, turning on me when I tried to pull him away from the hot pan. Not one of my instincts had realized what might happen before Hunter twisted in my grip and launched a counterattack against what he thought was a threat.

"Not any good?" I asked to stir him from his thoughts for a moment.

He blinked owlishly before understanding and recognition entered his eyes. "Oh, sorry. No, it's always good. I don't think I've ever had anything questionable from that place, and I have to say, that's a hard feat for any restaurant."

"And here you are, barely touching what you ordered," I said, raising a brow and watching him.

"I know," he said with a sigh. "I'm in my head too much. I'm sorry."

"I keep telling you, you don't have to apologize for what happened."

"Yes, I do."

"Fine, apology accepted."

"I…that's not how it works."

"Really? Then what's the point of accepting an apology if the other person isn't going to accept the acceptance? I also screwed up, and I apologized for that."

"Which wasn't a big deal. You were doing what you thought was right."

"So did you. It just meant that the two of us got hurt in the process, and now I know better than to accidentally trigger you by grabbing you like that. And now you know that you can still have that reaction and be ready. Now we've both acknowledged what went wrong and can make sure not to do it in the future."

"We didn't try to do it this time."

"Accidents happen. You apologize for them, like we did, and then try not to do them again, which we will. That done? Then you move on."

I could see his temper working its way back to the surface as he struggled with what I was saying and what he was feeling. Hunter, as sweet and kind as he was, was stubborn, fiercer than he let on, and not all that patient when he got worked up. He was also the kind of person who was hellbent on raking themselves over the coals for something that wasn't his fault or was a perfectly normal thing to do.

He surprised me when his face broke its growing anger, and for a moment, I caught a glimpse of pure sorrow. Yet it disappeared when he let out a soft, shaky laugh, looking down at the table and shaking his head.

"Yeah," he said in a soft voice. "That's about right."

"I think you lost me," I admitted to him.

He sighed. "I found myself thinking of Lucas earlier. That's kind of why I burnt the steaks. I was lost in a memory."

"A good one?" I asked, hoping that at least he could have good memories and not just painful reminders of what he'd lost.

A complicated expression crossed his face, something between worry, guilt, and something else I couldn't figure out. It was gone a moment later, and he nodded. "I'd like to think of it as one. He showed he knew me better than I'd ever given him credit for. And showing how much he loved me. But I remembered how…you two remind me of each other."

I thought back to Lucas, who had been different from the other guys Hunter had dated. There had always been a sense of calm around Lucas, a stable core that was neither fazed nor bothered by the constant chaos inherent in the world. He could see into people quite easily, but if he ever did that to you, you only felt like he was curious and not placing judgment. I suppose the only similarities I could see were that we were both tall, dark-haired and eyed, and unlike Hunter, we didn't immediately burst into flames in the sunlight.

"You're gonna have to explain that one to me," I said with a chuckle. "Because he and I couldn't have been less alike if we tried."

Hunter scoffed. "You two were more alike in ways you're not seeing."

"I guess I'll have to take your word for it," I said with a shrug, not wanting to push him. Despite what he'd said earlier, I knew the topic of Lucas was still sensitive. It was one thing for him to talk about Lucas; he knew better than anyone what the safe zones were, and I could end up accidentally stumbling into the bad ones.

"You were both good at calling me out when I was being ridiculous or too hard on myself, but always in a way that didn't make me feel like complete shit. You were both good at knowing things about me but not always feeling the need to call me out, sometimes letting me do things how I needed to because that's who I am. And you both made me feel safe, and loved, and understood. And in this case, just like he did, you take things that are complicated to me and boil them down to the simplest form, and then I feel dramatic for letting it go that far in the first place."

"Well, you do have a lot going on in your head right now," I told him.

His eyes were downcast as he nodded. "He'd tell me right now that I was overcomplicating things. I was trying to make myself the bad guy because, in my head, there has to be a bad guy, so I might as well make it me instead of someone I love. And then he'd tell me it's okay to miss him, but I shouldn't beat myself up because I'd started getting better."

"You shouldn't."

"But I do."

"Remember when your parents died?"

He shot me a confused look, his lip curling. "Yeah, I do. I remember how much joy I felt…and then kind of like shit for that. Then I got over it. Then I didn't. Back and forth. Why are you bringing them up?"

"After they died, did you magically stop hating them? Even when you stopped going back and forth about whether you should be happy they were dead?"

"I…no, I still…oh."

"Yeah."

"Right," he said with a snort. "I see what you mean…a little."

"For the record, you're absolutely right to hate them still. And to have been happy that they died. Maybe I'm fucked in the head, but I don't care if two terrible human beings died horribly. That's less shit in the world if you ask me," I said, wondering if he was thinking the same thing I was about the men who had attacked him and Lucas. Even without the details, I would love to have a few minutes alone with them to show them just what being tough meant right before I?—

"I know," he interrupted before I could get too bloody in my thoughts. "All this has taught me that it's perfectly alright to hate people for being awful. I still hate my parents. It doesn't ruin my day, it doesn't affect my life, the hate just sits there, in its own space, and I plan on leaving it there."

"And…those guys?" I asked, unable to help myself.

Something hard and foreign to Hunter flit through his eyes before he shrugged. "I think it would be impossible not to hate them for the rest of my life. People love to say that hate is a poison you swallow by yourself, but I'd challenge them to see what I saw, to go through what I went through, and try to see how easily they can get rid of the hate."

Hate was a tricky thing. Sometimes, it kept you warm when all the world around you was cold. But sometimes, it could freeze you to your core when the world was warm. The trick was trying to find the balance, either in ridding yourself of the hate or finding a place to put it in your heart so it didn't destroy the rest of you. I was confident Hunter could find either path successfully, but whether he would was entirely different.

Hunter gave a soft laugh. "I'm sorry. You were right all along. I need not to let this whole thing get to me. I wasn't ready for a sudden…attack like that, not from you, but from inside me. I freaked right the hell out. It hasn't happened in quite a while."

"You've had this happen before?"

"Not quite so violently, but I've had a freak-out. Thankfully, I was able to get back here before I made a spectacle of myself."

I wanted to tell him that's not something he should worry about, but I would have felt the same in his shoes. There was something deeply embarrassing about showing an extreme level of vulnerability in front of other people, let alone strangers. No one wanted to ‘make a spectacle' of themselves from their worst nightmares and feelings being dragged to the surface. It would have felt hollow and cheap to try to dissuade him from that.

"Well, you did it here, so there's no harm done," I told him, leaning over to poke his takeout container. "I've seen far worse."

"I don't know whether to be horrified or comforted by that."

"What do you mean?"

"Comforted because, hell, at least someone out there did worse than me. Or horrified because you've seen enough terrible things that this didn't even cause you to bat an eye. Kind of a damned either way sort of thing."

I shrugged. "It's the life I chose. I knew what I was getting into."

"Did you, though?" he asked, finally scooping up a spoonful of meat, sauce, and rice. "Do any of us actually know what we're signing up for when we make any choice?"

"Probably not," I said with a smirk. That he was starting to get existential was a good sign. It usually only happened after a few drinks, which was a sure sign he was feeling himself. Stone cold sober, it meant he was drifting from thoughts about life and settling onto the grand scheme of things where he was likely to be loftier.

His face broke into a grin, and he shook his head. "Sorry. I should probably wait until I've started drinking before I start wondering about life and fate and informed choices."

"You can sit there and eat, and I'll fetch the drinks," I said, pushing up from the table. "You just have to tell me where."

"Oh, in the cabinet. There's a bunch of bottles, but it's the only unopened one."

I found the bottle he mentioned sitting off to the side. I didn't recognize the brand, but the liquor was dark and the bottle looked fancy enough that he had probably spent good money on it.

"You know, until a couple of months ago, there wasn't a day when I didn't drink. You'll want that with at least a little bit of ice."

"What, couldn't get those fancy things that cool a glass without diluting?"

"There's some of those in there too. I just like an ice cube in mine. You call it diluting, I call it altering the flavor as I drink it."

"Fair enough," I said as I opened the freezer and found the ice cubes and the little metal balls he'd shown me a while ago. He might want the flavor changed over time, but I was perfectly content with it staying the same as it cooled. "How bad was it?"

"The drinking?"

"Yeah."

"Depended on the day and how much work I had to do the next day. Sometimes, it was bad. Sometimes, it was okay. It didn't become okay until I woke up one day and realized I'd slept through opening the café."

"Oh shit."

"Double, oh shit. They had to call in Brooke because they knew she had a key. So, guess who was waiting for me when I got downstairs?"

I remembered Brooke. Unbeknownst to Hunter, I had taken quite a shine to her and her to me. The first thing that struck me was how red her thick, shoulder-length hair was and the way her smile somehow emphasized the freckles across her nose and cheeks. It didn't take long to realize that under all her smiles and lighthearted jokes was a woman who was not afraid to tell someone the truth if they needed to hear it, and she could give some boot camp hardasses a run for their money. And I learned after the first time we'd slept together she was very good at keeping things quiet.

"Wow," I said as I poured enough whiskey to fill the highball glasses I found halfway. "And just how much did you endure?"

"Oh, I accepted every bit of chewing out she gave me," Hunter said in a wry voice. "I knew I'd been screwing up for a while, but that was the worst. Even when she dragged me up here to show me the state of the apartment and point out the empty bottles in the trash, I just took it."

"Well, from what I remember, she wasn't a woman to screw around when things were serious," I said, tucking the bottle away and adding ice to his and the metal balls to mine. "And had quite the mouth when she was pissed off."

"True," he said with a chuckle. "Was she like that when you were alone with her?"

I paused to process that as I carried the glasses over. "Interesting. I thought we were good about keeping that quiet."

He gave me a smirk over his food. "Oh, you guys weren't obvious. It wasn't like you went around eye fucking each other. But I know you really well, and although she'd only worked for me for half a year at that point, I knew her pretty well. You two were watching each other every time you were around. That and you acted different around her."

"Different, how?"

"I don't know how to explain it. I knew you were always aware of the people around you. I used to call it paranoia, but now," he said, gesturing to the thin air as if to encompass everything that had happened, "I know it was just alertness you couldn't let go of."

"Pretty sure that's close to the definition of paranoid."

"Point is, you paid attention to her in a different way. It didn't feel wary like it did with other people. It was…attentive."

"Ah."

"That and you looked down her shirt every time you two talked."

"Amazing."

My dry tone made him laugh. "Sorry! It stuck out because even when we were supposed to be hormone-driven teenagers, I rarely caught you checking anyone out. You always seemed to know when I was having a touch of the lust for someone."

"Probably because you were always having a ‘touch' of lust," I snorted, taking a drink of the whiskey and grunting in appreciation. That bottle had definitely cost more than I'd ever spent on liquor.

Hunter had always had a taste for the finer things in life, which had been the focus of derision from many people, including his parents. It was probably a tale as old as time. People at the bottom thought those who aspired to be higher were snotty, arrogant, or just idiots. I'd been called an idiot for signing up for the service, but everything else had been heaped on Hunter, both to his face and behind his back.

It was more than a little stupid. What was wrong with trying to do better for yourself and your loved ones? It wasn't as if Hunter had rubbed the nose of everyone around him because he wanted better than a roach-filled apartment smelling of mold. He had found a life that let him live comfortably and be happy…until life came along and decided, much like our classmates, that he had been living the good life for too long and had forgotten his place.

Life was cruel, but I still thought people were crueler.

"For the record, I didn't care," he told me. "Figured you were keeping it quiet because you didn't want me to know you were sleeping with one of my employees. Which, by the way, isn't against the rules."

"Well, that was part of the reason," I admitted, taking another sip. It would probably take more than one glass for me to feel more than a buzz. Sometimes, my only real entertainment on deployment was my buddies and whatever drinks we kept out of command's sight. They tended to overlook it so long as you were smart enough not to make a big show of it, and we got pretty good at keeping a lid on our alcoholic secret.

"What was the other reason?" he wondered.

It always felt weird for him to know when I was getting laid. I'd known it was a holdover for my true feelings for him and that Hunter had never tried to dictate who I slept with. It just felt weird for the guy I was intensely attracted to, the only guy I'd ever had feelings for, to know what I was doing in the bedroom.

But like every other time that thought had occurred to me, I pushed it aside and buried it. "You know me, Hunt, I don't exactly announce what I do privately with other people."

"Yeah, I know," he said with a chuckle, pushing the food away and closing the container to take a drink. Which I wasn't going to protest over. He'd eaten over half of the food. "I know. I used to think you weren't interested in any back then. Then I found out you were, and I remember being upset."

"Why?" I asked him, getting up to gather everything to throw away or, in his food's case, put in the fridge.

"Because we always told each other everything important, you know? I'd warn you about the new bruise I got because I pissed my dad or mom off, and you'd tell me about how you had to eat butter and bread because your parents forgot you existed again while they were out. I told you about my crushes, and you didn't mention you were getting laid on the regular."

I snorted, picking up my glass. "I don't know about ‘on the regular,' but yeah, I can see what you mean."

"It was pretty regular," Hunter chuckled. "At least from what I heard."

We'd had this conversation before. "You know, people in high school always exaggerate about everything. And when they aren't, they're usually lying."

"Well, still," he said, pushing up from his seat. "C'mon, if we're going to drink and talk, we might as well do it in comfort. The furniture in the living room shouldn't go to waste."

I followed him. "You know, it wasn't about keeping things from you."

"No, I know. I didn't figure out what was happening until you had your first girlfriend. You told me about her pretty quick."

"Well, yeah, that was important."

"Which was what I needed to realize. You tell me everything when it's important. You getting laid wasn't important, but finally dating someone was. So, I learned to let go of being hurt because…well, you are the way you are. I've always loved you for who you are, no point in starting to get upset about it that far into the friendship."

We walked into the living room, which I believed had once been a meeting room when it was a business. The obvious clue was that one of the three walls was made entirely of glass, including the door with its curved metal handle. Like the rest of the apartment, it was covered in smooth tiles, and there was a large rug in the center of the room, which most of the leather furniture sat on, a TV on one wall, and shelves full of plants under the large windows looking out over Port Dale.

Hunter slid onto one end of the couch, facing the windows. "I thought about making this my bedroom, you know? Have the bed under those large windows, but I didn't in the end. Chose the room at the end."

"Didn't want to spoil the view?" I asked, nodding toward the skyline as nearby downtown was illuminated by the setting sun, giving the illusion the city was on fire.

His face fell as he swirled the contents of his glass around, making the ice and glass tinkle. After a moment, he sighed. "That would have been my first counterargument a couple of years ago. But after everything…well. That all changed for me. My first counterargument couldn't have been more foreign to the man I was."

He drifted off, and I looked at the windows. Then, I glanced behind me toward the wall of glass. I remembered the security system, the double-locked thick metal doors, and where his room was. "You didn't want to be exposed to anyone who might have gotten in, did you?"

"That's it," he said with a shake of his head. "It's funny how many changes can be made to your life due to one thing. Now, I live like I might be under siege at any moment. I carry a knife and a taser whenever I leave the building. And I even got a gun."

That caught me by surprise. "Did you now?"

He smirked. "I'll give credit where it's due, you almost managed to hide your surprise."

"Well, you were never against guns, but you always said you never trusted yourself to hold one. Even when I offered to take you to the range and show you step by step, you refused," I told him.

He took a big drink and grimaced, probably more at the thoughts in his head than the smooth liquor. "Well, like I said, things change. So much about my life changed two years ago, and I'm still finding different ways it has. It would almost be amazing if it weren't so depressing."

There wasn't much I could say to that other than, "I know what you mean."

"About your life changing because of one thing?"

"Yeah."

"What was it?

"Two things."

"Um, okay. What were they?"

"The first time I killed a man, and the first time I watched a friend die."

He swallowed hard. "I see, okay, yeah. I guess it's two things for me too."

I could guess one was Lucas, but Hunter averted his eyes. Was the second that he'd been attacked as well? I knew he'd been beaten badly and stabbed three times before being left to die. He damn well nearly had too. If it hadn't been for a trio of drunks, Hunter wouldn't be sitting here talking with me, and I'd be mourning the loss of him. Sometimes, being in this city felt hopeless, being surrounded by so many people who didn't care because of how numb they were, and then there were people like those drunks who could have easily minded their own business but instead chose to help a stranger.

"The friend was a guy I got along with pretty well in my first squad," I told him, trying to pull him out of his thoughts.

He looked startled. "Oh…no, don't…you don't have to tell me."

I shrugged. "It was years ago. Easier to talk about now. Especially to you."

"I…how long ago?"

"I was nineteen."

"Oh."

"He was a good guy. Had a few brothers back home and liked to talk about them. Never could figure out if he liked or hated them, but he was always talking about them. Really wanted to make his old man proud. Was pretty cocky too, always trying to compete with everyone around him. Didn't matter if it was arm wrestling, shooting, or just learning knife tricks other guys knew. It was pretty annoying at times. His name was Logan."

He'd also been sweet once you got under all that bluster and the need to prove himself. It probably wouldn't have surprised anyone with a basic understanding of psychology, but he was just scared of not matching up to people's approval. All he'd wanted was to be accepted, seen as he really was, and not be judged for it. He'd found that with me, and in him, I'd found the first man I was able to be with.

"One minute," I said, getting up from the couch and going back to the kitchen to retrieve the bottle. I figured we would both want more and wouldn't feel up to getting it later. "Alright, here."

"You two were close then," Hunter asked as he eyed the bottle, sipping from his glass.

"The best of friends," I said, knowing we were more than that. I couldn't have said exactly what we were because we'd never discussed it. We were close. That much was true, and after a few awkward first encounters, had grown comfortable with sharing sex. We'd shared tents and bunks before, where we'd lay together in privacy, holding each other tightly and sharing parts of ourselves and our lives. It had made us more than just friends with benefits, but not quite together. "He was there the first time I killed someone."

"That bad, huh?" Hunter asked softly.

"No, killing was the easiest thing in the world. Aim like you've been trained, and pull the trigger until the threat is neutralized. You just have to ignore the nagging feeling later when everything's calm, as you remember seeing their body go limp and watching the blood pool under them. Then you start to think about the people they knew, who had loved them, who he wouldn't be coming home to. And then you start thinking about what the hell you're doing there, what any of you are doing in that damned place."

"Shit."

"But then you have to face doing it again and again and realize that if you keep doubting yourself before a fight, you're going to die…or get someone you care about killed."

His eyes drifted to me, wide with worry. "Is that what happened?"

"No," I said with a relieved laugh. "I'm not responsible for his death. No, a cell operating in our area kept giving us trouble. The real trouble came from the fact that we couldn't tell who was helping them. There was one villager who I was damn sure was working with them to sabotage and attack us, but any time we followed a lead, he was always absent. Funny how so much seemed to tie to him, though. I couldn't figure out why Command kept holding us back from bringing him in."

"Did you?"

"Yeah, but only when it was too late."

"What do you mean?"

"One day, we were out on patrol—a normal day. Hot, boring, and…well, anyway, we came under fire. After the long ass days we spent roasting, going out of our minds with boredom, we almost welcomed shit hitting the fan. I might have thought the same thing that day, but once we got under cover, a shot caught Logan in the throat, right through the artery. There was no time for a medic. He was gone."

It had taken only a couple of minutes. The wound had been that brutal. To me, it had taken forever as I'd knelt there, trying to hold him, my hand pressed to his wound in a futile attempt to staunch the blood. They'd told me afterward there was nothing I could have done, the bullet had torn his throat, and there was no saving him. They hadn't had to be covered in his blood, though, to watch the fear in his eyes as he realized he was going to die or hear the awful gurgling.

I flashed him a smile, hoping he would realize I was okay. "It was…not the easiest thing to deal with."

"God, I can't imagine," he said, looking me over. "And is it bad that I'm thankful it wasn't you? You were right there with him."

"Be it fate, God, or luck, it wasn't," I said with a shrug. "It took him instead."

He refilled his glass, and I wondered if his drinking had improved his alcohol tolerance. Used to be he could barely get through a couple of drinks before getting goofy. "You mentioned your Command wouldn't let you go after this guy?"

"I did."

"Why? Was that connected to this story about your friend?"

"Because you see," I said and mentally shrugged, refilling my glass. I had already hinted at the story earlier, so I might as well tell it, "that was when I realized I'd had enough. I knew that villager was responsible for a lot of the shit we'd been dealing with, and I'd had enough."

"What did you do?"

"You asked me earlier what things could be worse than all the other ways of coping I listed, and I avoided it."

"You did. Why?"

"Because one of the worst ways…is revenge."

My statement hung in the air as he stared at me, his eyes flitting over my face for several seconds before darting toward the window. I would have paid decent money to know what he was thinking at that moment, but I stayed quiet and let him deal with it. Once, I might have said the idea of vengeance couldn't possibly run through someone like Hunter's mind. That was before some of the worst things that could happen to someone happened.

"What was his name? The villager."

"I don't know."

"Oh."

"I didn't care what his name was. What I cared about was what he'd been doing, what he knew, and who he'd been telling."

"Did you find out?"

"I did," I told him, taking another deep drink. "It wasn't hard to figure out where he'd be. We had plenty of information on the villagers. So it was just a case of getting away from base and into the village when no one would notice I was gone. After that, it was getting him and taking him somewhere we could be alone."

Hunter stared at me for another few moments before nodding slowly. "And…you got what you wanted?"

My mouth twisted like a mixture of a grimace of pain and a smirk. "Well, what I thought I wanted from him was answers, to know what he knew. I got those things and then some. But that wasn't what I wanted."

"What did you want?"

"To hear him scream, to hear him beg, to see the fear in his eyes as he realized death was right there beside him, and there was nothing he could do about it."

Once again, Hunter nodded, leaning back against the couch and taking another sip of his drink. "And you got what you wanted."

I stared back at him, wondering what his reaction would be when I told him the truth. Not the whole truth, of course. He didn't need to know the gory details about what I did to that man to get my point across. He didn't need to hear about the screams, the way he bled, or how he begged and pleaded, even when I'd told him there was no leaving the room I'd taken him to, not alive. No need to go into how I had to dig the man's grave well away from the village because I hadn't thought to make him do it before I'd cut his throat and watched the life leave his eyes.

"I did," I finally said with a nod. "And that's the life I've never forgotten. That's the one that sticks with me."

"Because you hated yourself for it."

"Because I didn't."

I expected the smallest recoil from him in response, but all I saw was that thoughtful, pensive expression as he stared into his glass of liquor. He wasn't even fighting to hide his worry, disgust, or fear as he sorted my story through his mind. And I couldn't help but wonder if he knew his reaction was precisely the one I feared the most, which was why I'd hesitated to tell him the story.

"Did you get caught?" he asked me finally.

"No," I said with a shake of my head, unsure how to feel about his calm reaction. "He was noticed missing, of course, but no one could find a trace. It struck me as interesting that Command showed his disappearance more attention than they'd shown for what he was doing before."

"You think they knew what he was doing?"

"I think they had a sort of deal with him. It wasn't too long after that we suddenly found ourselves gearing up to take the cell in the area down. We did, with more mess than I would've liked, but we did it."

"You think he was a mole."

"I know he was."

"He told you?"

"That he did."

"And you didn't lead with that?"

"Dramatic effect."

Finally, something broke through his thoughtful, stony expression…a smile. "I didn't know you were the type."

"You'd be surprised."

"Apparently. So they were using him for information, and he was still passing along information to the cell."

"Yeppers. He didn't know what they were doing with the information since it was enough to move on the cell, but I think I know."

"What's that?"

"I think they were trying to get information from him about other cells. Sure, they all operated independently to prevent that kind of thing, but we'd learned a while ago that many cells, if not most, tend to break that rule. You just have to find the weak point in the system, and it's usually whoever is giving them information but not part of the cell."

"Really? Why?"

"Because members of the cell are obvious to anyone looking for them. But informants in the local population? Those blend in and are harder to track. What was so odd about him in the first place was the way he stood out with our intel. Little did we know, Command had a bigger idea in mind."

"But you didn't."

"I learned to take that attitude later, but then? No. All I saw in my head was the revenge I thought was due. For what he helped do to my squad and others, what he helped do to Lucas, and everything that had happened to me because of it."

"Do you disagree with that?"

"Hm?"

"Now. Time has passed. You've got to think about it. Do you regret it now?"

"Look," I said, not wanting to encourage the discussion but knowing I was in too deep to leave it now. "That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing to do. So many things could have gone wrong, and I'm damn lucky they didn't. Not to mention, I screwed up the OPs in that area, and who knows how many people paid the price for that decision."

"That's not the same as regretting it," he noted, watching me intensely.

I sucked in a breath. "Do I regret doing it? No. Did it scare me shitless after I thought about it? Definitely."

"Because you were capable of it?" he wondered.

"No," I said, bowing my head slightly. "Anyone's capable of doing what I did. I'll never let anyone say they wouldn't be because all it takes is the right motivation."

"The right motivation?"

"What I did to that man was bloody and awful," I told him, trying to hold his gaze so he would understand what I was trying to say, understand the gravity of it. "Rage is not enough. Even hatred isn't enough. It's…it's something else entirely, and I'm not even sure we have a word for it. But it's something very specific, something that makes you look past all the normal stuff designed to make us avoid doing that shit to another person. It's an ugly, monstrous thing that lives inside all of us, and you don't usually see it unless you're desensitized to violence."

"Like being a soldier," he said.

"Yeah. Or also, in my case, you see something so horrible and heartbreaking that it changes something inside you for good."

"I see."

The worst part was I believed him. He did see. He had already been talking about the things that had changed in his life since the attack and the loss of Lucas. I would have been shocked if his thoughts hadn't turned bloody and violent. Hunter had always been sweet, but weak or scared was not something I would have called him. There was a core of iron in him, and as I knew personally, that inner strength was precisely what could twist up inside him and lash out at the world.

"And what scared me," I said, making sure I still had his attention as I continued to explain, "was the understanding that this wasn't just a one-and-done thing. What I had done had awakened something inside me that I would have to deal with for the rest of my life. If I didn't stop myself then, and believe me, it wasn't easy because he had friends I was sure were helping him, I would never stop ."

"You make it sound alive," he said with a little laugh, tipping more liquor into his glass and holding the bottle out to me.

"It's…I don't know. It feels like it's conscious sometimes, alright? I don't know how to explain it. Unless someone's done it," I began and shook my head. "I managed to win out over it. I suppose being stationed somewhere else helped a lot. But even then, I got to thinking about other people in the new area who might be just like him, who might be helping to cause us even more pain. And then…well, temptation kicked in."

"But you managed to do it?"

"I did, yeah."

"Well, that's what counts, right?"

"That's true."

He smiled at me. "Don't worry so much, it's not like you. It's not like I'm going to judge you for it, . I wasn't in your position. I didn't go through what you did. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you were wrong when I just…my whole sense of right and wrong might be screwy. Maybe it always has been. But I do know you're not a monster and never have been. To me, you're the same man you were before you told me that story."

There should have been relief at those words, but I could only watch him as he got up to fiddle with the Bluetooth speaker on a shelf under the TV. After he was done, he seemed perfectly normal as he fiddled with his phone before quiet rock music started playing.

"So, I was thinking," he said after the song got halfway through. "It's been a while since I went out. Well, actually, it's been since Lucas died that I went out and did anything if I'm honest. I only leave this place to go shopping."

That made sense. "Okay, you thinking about doing something?"

"I know going out and partying was never really your thing," he said, smiling at me. "You're more of a quiet bar and beers kind of guy."

"True," I chuckled. "But if you want to go out and have a good time at some club, drinking overpriced cocktails and dancing to shitty music, then I'll go with you."

"Yeah?" he asked, and I realized he'd been worried about going out alone, not whether I'd be okay with the idea. Honestly, if it would get him out of the house and doing something he used to love, I would happily sit in an overcrowded club with him if it meant he was getting back on his feet.

"Absolutely, name the day and the time, and we'll go," I told him.

"Great, we'll go Friday night. Maybe we go out Thursday evening and see what kind of clothes we can get you."

"Seriously? You want to take me clothes shopping?"

"Just for an outfit. C'mon, you've done it before with me."

I sighed as he looked at me hopefully, unaware that he was giving me the puppy dog look I would never have a hope of resisting. All the man had to do was look hopefully at me, and I would give in, even if I absolutely loathed clothes shopping. He wasn't all that big into it either, but as I'd learned from previous trips, he loved dressing up with me for some reason.

"Oh, fine ," I said with the most pitiful groan, knowing I would hate every minute.

Yet it was all worth it to see his wide, happy smile as he began to bob his head to the music, and I knew I'd do it again.