Hard to Hold on To

  Easy’s gut tightened. Sara had taken that risk trying to help the team, but it had inadvertently set off a chain of events that led to Jenna’s kidnapping after Sara’s thug boyfriend realized what she’d done. “And?” he asked.

  “The files on Charlie and Becca were both dossiers compiling information on jobs, associated addresses, and known routines. Pretty clearly part of the Churchmen’s plans to grab them. The Nunya file—gangbanger-speak for “none of your business,” I’m guessing—listed illegal business deals going back several months. It appears Church routinely bought heroin using girls and cash, then sold the heroin to raise coin and buy guns. No details on who the trading partners were, though.” Marz waved a hand. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Easy said, nodding to Charlie. “I’m just glad you have some help now.” Marz had been handling 90 percent of their research on his own, but since his rescue, Charlie had rolled up his sleeves and become integral to the team on all things computer.

  The movie played on, and the women didn’t return, so Easy figured they were hanging out. Jeremy and Charlie made room for him, but as Easy sat there, two competing thought streams interrupted his ability to just relax. First, how damn good it felt to be with the guys. Not working, not stressed, not under fire. Just kicking back and shooting the shit.

  Which was quickly followed by the whole muddied stream of thoughts that said Easy was an asshole for not fessing up about how fucked his head had been. Still was.

  Say something. Just do it now. Everyone’s here. We have the time. Just open your mouth.

  His adrenaline spiked at the thought of saying the words that needed saying. His stomach squeezed. He realized he was bouncing his foot.

  Fuck. He was a ball of anxiety.

  All the more proof he needed to spill. Before his bullshit got someone hurt. Only way that would be acceptable was if it was him.

  No. No more of that.

  Shit.

  Easy’s gaze settled on Shane as the credits rolled. Shane knew something was up. He’d asked a few times, most pointedly this morning. And the guy had medical training. Maybe Easy could practice this opening-himself-up crap with just one of them first.

  Coward.

  Yup.

  Pulse spiking, Easy leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees, and looked at Shane. “Can I talk to you a minute?” he asked, mouth dry, gut twisting.

  “Of course.” He arched a brow. “Uh, here or . . .”

  Easy nodded toward the back hallway that led to Shane and Sara’s room.

  Shane was immediately on his feet. Easy didn’t make any eye contact with the other guys as he got up and followed, but instinct said he had a whole lotta eyes on his back right now.

  In the bedroom, Shane flicked on the light and closed the door. “What’s up?”

  Easy sat heavily on the edge of the bed and looked down at the floor. “Don’t really know where to begin.” Maybe he shouldn’t do this. Having made the ask and dragged Shane back here, he had to say something.

  Shane sat next to him. Hands clasped, he gave Easy a sideways glance. “Wherever you can. Wherever it’s easiest.”

  He gave a rueful laugh. “Ain’t no part of it easy,” he said.

  Shane didn’t say anything, didn’t push him, didn’t rush him. Just sat there, providing constant, silent support.

  Finally, Easy blew out a long breath and remembered how Jenna had made him feel as they’d talked before. And, really, who else in the world could he tell if not his teammates? Hell, you almost couldn’t be a veteran without knowing at least one fellow vet who’d attempted or committed suicide these days. Sad fucking fact. He didn’t want to put that kind of pain on his friends, not after everything they’d already been through.

  Besides, how much longer could he slog through the shit this way? Right now, he was headed down a path he’d never thought he’d walk and he didn’t want to travel anymore. Which meant it was time to ask for help.

  “I have these thoughts sometimes.” Even as his resolve to do this firmed up, his heart was a hammer against his sternum.

  “Like what?” Shane said in a soft voice.

  Easy swallowed hard, feeling like such a weak, fucking coward. “Like . . . that maybe . . . it would be better . . .” He shrugged. Giving voice to this was like performing a self-amputation. Messy, imprecise, and hurt like ever-livin’ hell. “ . . . if I wasn’t here.”

  “By here, you’re not talking about Hard Ink.” A statement, not a question. So Shane was following him, then.

  He shook his head. “Here as in, you know, uh, alive.” His scalp prickled at the admission, and he forced himself to look at Shane.

  The guy’s face was a hundred percent rock solid. No pity, no sympathy, no disgust. But Easy saw the concern settle into his friend’s gray eyes, and just that much of a reaction brought tears to his own eyes.

  Lots of fast blinking to keep those motherfuckers from falling. He clenched his jaw so hard he gave himself a headache.

  “Okay,” Shane said. “Are these passing thoughts or are you thinking of ways to maybe make that happen?”

  Easy had to wait a minute to respond, because he wasn’t sure he could trust his voice not to crack. And damn if a single tear didn’t escape. He scrubbed it away. “Haven’t tried anything,” he said, wanting to make that much clear. “Mostly just general thoughts. Though, lately, some actual ideas have come to mind.”

  “Am I the first person you’re talking to about this, E?” Shane asked.

  Dropping his gaze to the floor, he nodded. His throat squeezed, his eyes throbbed with the pressure of threatening tears, his stomach twisted.

  Shane’s arm came around his shoulders.

  And the reality of not being alone with the weight of these feelings crashed down on Easy. He lost it.

  He lost it like his body was expelling a poison, hard and fast and violent.

  Sobs ripped out of his chest. He slid off the edge of the bed and went into a balled-up sitting position on the floor. He buried his face in his arms and wrapped his hands around his head, just trying to hold himself the fuck together as he fell apart. Easy could’ve probably counted the number of times he’d cried in his life on one hand, and doing it now was about as comfortable as swallowing crushed glass.

  Shane’s embrace followed him to the floor, and was a constant, steady presence as wave after wave of grief rolled through him. Easy tried to hold them back, he really did. Every muscle in his back and abdomen ached from the effort to restrain the sobs, or at least to hold back the noise of his grief.

  Adrift in a roiling sea of agony, time became meaningless. I just want this to end, please let it end, please take all this away.

  He had no idea how long it went on, all he knew was that by the time he could manage a full breath again, he was damp with sweat and hot with embarrassment. At some point, he’d nearly curled into Shane’s chest, or Shane had pulled him in. He couldn’t begin to remember.

  “Sorry,” he croaked, voice like sandpaper.

  “Nothing to apologize for,” Shane said. And, whatdya know, his voice was full of the thin and tight, too.

  Easy sat up, tugged at the hem of his shirt, and wiped his face on it. An odd lightness of being and an utter exhaustion fell over him like a wet blanket.

  “I don’t want to be a liability,” Easy rasped, forehead in his hands. He heaved a shuddering breath.

  “You could never be that, E. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he said, emotion bringing out Shane’s Southern accent.

  So completely wrung out that it took effort to lift his head, Easy forced himself to face Shane. That glassiness in the guy’s eyes was damn hard to look at, but Easy appreciated it, too. Because it meant someone cared. It was proof Easy mattered.

  “We are not losing you, too, brother. You are not going to be one of today’s twenty-two. Nor tomorrow’s. Nor any day’s. That’s a fucking promise,” Shane said, nailing him with a glassy-eyed stare.

&n
bsp; Twenty-two. Easy knew exactly what that number represented. The number of American vets who committed suicide. Every. Goddamned. Day.

  “I need help,” Easy whispered. Hard as it had been to say the words, the admission was like an exorcism—it left him feeling empty but more himself than he’d been in months.

  “We’re gonna work on that. I want you on an antidepressant immediately. They take time to get into your system and start working, and sometimes it takes a little experimentation to find the one that works best. You need therapy, too, man. Just tellin’ it straight. But the shit of the situation is that’s gonna be hard for you to get right now. At least if you stay here.”

  Those words hung there for a minute, and Easy shook his head. “I’m not leaving.”

  “Easy—”

  “Not just because of the mission, Shane. Part of me thinks that if I hadn’t come . . . well, something mighta happened. I think Nick’s call saved my life. How fucked-up is that?” He shuddered another breath.

  “I don’t think it’s fucked-up at all. On some level, every one of us needed this. The reunion, the chance at redemption, some answers—all of it.”

  Blowing out a long breath, Easy forced his shoulders to relax and reclined his head against the mattress. “I’ll take the meds,” he said. “I’ll try anything.” Anything to be a better teammate and a better man—for himself, the guys, and Jenna. Sitting here now, he had to wonder why he hadn’t done this sooner. Why he’d let the despair grow so dark and deep? The only thing he could think was that they’d reminded him of who he’d been and who he could be again. With help.

  “This isn’t the kind of thing that a family doc would normally call in a prescription for without seeing you first. Let me think about it, and we’ll get that part squared away in the morning.”

  “ ’Kay.”

  “I hate to ask this, but do you have a weapon up in your room?”

  Easy dragged his head upright again. “Of course.”

  “I’d feel better if you stored it in the gym,” Shane said, regret clear in his eyes. “Depression plus opportunity plus weapons training equal up to the rampant suicide problem among vets. Add the kind of ingrained instinct not to fear pain that we had beat into us, and it’s a recipe for disaster.”

  “Okay,” he said again. He understood the logic, but it still stung. “I don’t want to be benched, Shane. I’ve done my job this week. I didn’t let it interfere.”

  Shane nodded and arched a brow. “I can agree to that as long as you’re checking in with me regularly about where you are.”

  Another smack in the ass. But, whatever. “Fine.”

  Clapping him on the shoulder, Shane said, “Good man. Now, I want you to do one other thing for me. There’s an assessment checklist that evaluates the presence and severity of PTSD. I’d like to have you fill it out. It’ll give me a more quantitative baseline to work with.”

  “Yeah,” Easy said. “Sure.”

  Shane shifted beside him. “I’m going to have to ask Nick or Marz to borrow a printer. So I need to know if the guys can know, or we’re keeping this private.”

  Easy appreciated the option. He really fucking did. “I think they gotta know.” He shook his head. “I was worried you all might not understand. But now that I told you, I know that was the bullshit talking.”

  “Why wouldn’t we understand, E?”

  “ ’Cause you and Nick, and Marz and Beckett, you guys still have your best friends. And I—” A knot in his throat cut off the words.

  “Aw, fuck. I miss Rimes, too. We all do. I get it, though. You guys came up and were together from the beginning.”

  Nodding, Easy tried to swallow. “And it was my fault,” he rasped out.

  Shane clasped a hand on the side of his neck and forced their eyes to meet. “How do you figure?”

  “He was covering me. And then he got hit, and I couldn’t get to him. When I finally could, he was already so far gone. I just watched him die. For me.” The words flew out of his mouth, a rush of guilt and shame that had been eating at his soul for more than a year.

  “Not your fault, Easy. Not any part of it. Was only by the grace of God that the five of us walked out of there. Actually, only two of us walked.” The intensity of Shane’s gaze willed him to believe.

  The words “I didn’t see any grace that day” perched on the tip of his tongue. But they weren’t true, were they? Marz very probably should’ve died out on that road. When that grenade sheared off everything below his right knee, the blood loss was massive, and the shock was immediate. Yet he’d lived. And the shrapnel had very nearly taken out Beckett’s eye, but he could still see. But, all this time, those weren’t the things his mind had been able to recall.

  Easy shook his head. “I don’t know, man. My head hears what you’re saying, but my heart . . .” He shook his head again.

  “It’s gonna be a process, but you’re going to get through it. And I’m going to be there for you every step of the way.” Shane squeezed his neck and sat back.

  “Thank you,” Easy said. “It’s not enough, but it’s all I got.”

  Shane smiled, a smaller version of his trademark crooked smile, the one that earned him guy friends and swooning ladies in equal measure. “It ain’t even a thing. Now, how do you wanna do this with the guys? One by one, all at once, do you wanna wait—”

  “Now,” Easy said abruptly. “All of them.”

  “I’ll see if they’re still out there. If not, I’ll round ’em up. Gimme five?” Shane rose to his feet, waited for Easy to nod, then walked out the door.

  As the dim murmurs of voices from the living room reached him, Easy’s stomach went topsy-turvy again. But it was less the terrified anxiety of before and more just the anticipation of getting it over with, so he could take the first step down the road to healing.

  Years later, and not nearly long enough, Shane knocked softly at the door. “Ready?”

  Easy went to push off the floor when Shane’s hand appeared in his line of sight. Easy clasped hands with the guy and let himself be pulled up. And wasn’t that the perfect fucking analogy for what was really happening here.

  “You got this,” Shane said. And then Easy followed him out to the living room.

  Everybody was there, pretty much in the same seats as before except for Marz, who now sat by Beckett. But all the slouchy relaxation was gone. There was a tension in the air and in the guys’ posture that said they knew something serious was up.

  Easy braced his hands on the back of the empty recliner, Shane standing next to him.

  Shane cleared his throat. “Do you want me to—”

  “No. I gotta do this.” One by one, Easy made eye contact. Nick, Marz, Beckett, then over to Jeremy, Charlie, and Becca, who’d returned from upstairs. They might not have been part of his Special Forces team, but they were a part of this now.

  “What’s up, E?” Nick asked, concern plain on his face and in his voice.

  “I’m, uh, I’m in trouble,” he said, palming the top of his head. Questions shaped everyone’s expressions, and Easy knew he’d have to do better than that. He crossed his arms and focused on a point in the middle of the room. “I’ve been, um . . .” He licked his lips and shook his head. “Shit, I don’t think I can do this.” Restlessness suddenly crawled through his limbs, and he paced toward the door. When he turned, Nick was right there.

  “This is just me and you,” Nick said. “Whatever this is, I will have your back in a heartbeat.”

  Easy met the guy’s pale green eyes and saw the truth of his words. Silence rang loud in the room, and Easy was present enough in the situation to understand that what Nick offered was a proxy for talking to the group as a whole. Smart damn guy.

  “Suicidal,” Easy finally forced out. “Thoughts, mostly. A lot, actually. Some basic planning. No attempts.”

  Somehow, the silence got quieter, like Easy’s words had deadened every bit of ambient noise, too. He couldn’t even hear the sound of Nick’s breath.
/>
  So everyone had heard him loud and clear.

  Thank God.

  Easy swallowed hard. “I should’ve said something sooner—”

  Nick stepped closer and grasped Easy by the shoulders, and then he nailed him with a stare. “You are my brother as surely as if we shared the same blood, and I will help you beat this thing however I can. However long it takes. Whatever backup you need. I am here.”

  Easy nodded. Marz and Beckett offered similar words of support, the latter of whom showed more raw emotion on his face than Easy had seen since the moment Beckett had learned about Marz’s amputation. Jeremy and Charlie gave silent nods of support, and Becca a big hug and a whispered offer of help anytime. He appreciated every single expression of concern and support.

  When it was all over, Easy felt like he’d humped a thirty-mile ruck march with a sixty-pound pack on his back. At least. But it was the absolute best kind of exhaustion, because it left him feeling free.

  Chapter 8

  IT WAS THREE o’clock in the morning, and Jenna couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t scared, at least not by the memories and images of her kidnapping. She and Sara had drifted off while talking—an old habit from way back—so she wasn’t alone. And she was in her right mind enough so that her sister’s presence here, Easy’s presence somewhere nearby, and all the other Hard Ink guys being here, too, made her feel safe enough to slip into unconsciousness.

  That wasn’t the problem.

  What was scaring her was that Easy had never returned. Not to check on her. Not to get ready for bed. Not for nothing.

  Shane had come, though. To check on both Sara and Jenna. And something about him hadn’t looked . . . right. Maybe it was the exhaustion on his face, or the way he seemed to regret parting from Sara, or the way his gaze didn’t quite meet Jenna’s.

  Something was up.

  Jenna’s gut-deep certainty had her peeking at the time on the new phone Shane had apparently given Sara. Tiptoeing to the door, Jenna held her breath as she turned the knob.

  “You okay?” came Sara’s slurred voice.