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Current Day
“ANOTHER, MR. ABBOT! Again! This is your final day, so once more unto the breach!”
Kyle Abbot wasn’t sure he had another in him. Another beer, sure. Another baseball game or rack of ribs or Wes Williams novel, you betcha. But Ezra Moore was sending him to lap the Avenging VIII’s obstacle course for the ... huh. Which time was this anyway?
He’d been dead meat when he’d rolled out of bed at zero-four-thirty hours, downed a green smoothie in the kitchen, then headed for the gym. A few days from now he’d be fine. But at this particular moment... Yeah. Not so much.
Groaning, he used his shirt sleeve to wipe the sweat from his eyes. Then he took a deep breath and set off for the tires and the rope and rock walls.
The training barracks at the team’s compound were spartan. No TV, no cell phones, no internet. A library of classics, but nothing written in the last fifty years, and no access to current events. Meals were simple. Showers were quick. Downtime was limited. At the end of his solo stay, he’d be lucky if he remembered how to speak to another human being.
Not that he was much of a talker or had a problem with solitude, but Ezra’s instruction was as much about the mind as the body, and the grueling drills took an ass-grinding toll.
He was here more often than the others. As a result, his body was a work of art.
His mind... well, that was why he’d come.
He was beginning to doubt he belonged on the team.
The thought had been weighing on him for a while now. His place with the Bruces was solid; he loved Jeb and Lucinda as if he’d been born into their family along with their biological sons. He’d cried with Asa when Loren had been taken, but he hadn’t known how to comfort the adults in their grief. Instead, he’d devoted every waking hour to his training.
He’d grown strong. He’d grown smart. He’d become more capable than the other kids in many ways. It still hadn’t been enough. The Bruce family continued to suffer the loss of Loren. Nothing he tried eased their pain. That sense of inadequacy had stayed with him.
If he couldn’t make things better for the people he loved, how could he help those he didn’t know? It was a child’s way of thinking; of that he was completely aware. But he couldn’t shake it. At the end of every mission, he felt as if he could’ve done more, done better. That he’d missed a way to repair the damage, to reverse the destruction.
That he’d failed.
Which had him questioning his place with the Avenging VIII.
“Again.”
He stood with his hands on his knees, heaving, sweat dripping off his nose, his chin, soaking his hair to the roots. He’d let his mind wander on the last lap. He knew that. Obviously Ezra did too and was making him pay. This time he’d focus. He’d feel his body. Every muscle as it stretched and flexed to carry him toward the end goal.
He spit out the bile burning his throat and took off. Maybe when he finished this round, he’d know what that goal was. Because even with all he’d done as an A8 operative, that was the one thing he was lacking. A sense of purpose. A defining objective.
A reason to stay alive.
#
CONSIDERING THE HOUSING equipment was state of the art, Kyle could’ve done his laundry at the compound. Instead, he decided to put the training facility behind him.
His past was what sent him there, the demons he carried along with his backpack and phone. His past that refused to stay buried, that he hoped to excise once and for all.
Stupid, really. He knew what would happen, how the memories would come to vivid life when he arrived at the facility, sharing his sleep, his showers. Keeping him company on the obstacle course.
Still, he returned, a self-flagellation that made no sense. He wasn’t a fool, doing the same thing, expecting a different result—even if it appeared so from the outside looking in.
Maybe that’s what Ezra was trying to whip into him: He couldn’t run from the events that had made him who he was. He’d had no control over his first ten fucked-up years. He’d had no control over the Bruce family’s suffering. All he had was himself and the here and now.
He flipped off the truck’s radio, tired of the static. When he stopped, he’d grab his phone from his duffel and hook up his tunes. He ached from his eyebrows to his toenails. It was a hurt that felt good... something else he figured was part of Ezra’s pushing him to the edge.
He had to know his limits, those of his body as well as those of his emotions and mind. Once he did, he wouldn’t keep expecting more of himself than he was capable of.
The washateria sign came into view, surprising him. As often as he’d driven this road, it shouldn’t have, but he was running emptier than usual. He needed sleep. He needed one of Kiki’s burger baskets—the sharp cheddar, the wedge-cut fries, the thick Angus beef grilled a juicy medium-rare. Tomatoes from her garden. Red onions. His stomach growled.
Laundry first, he decided. He’d sit and watch his boxers and T-shirts tumble. Hell, he’d be a rebel and wash his whites with his jeans. He had just about reached that level of not giving a shit, no matter Ezra’s extreme mentoring. Then he’d head home, call Kiki to hook up his food to go, and down it in the elevator before he hit the bed for twenty-four hours straight—
What the hell?
The scene that met him as he slowed for the turn into the parking lot had sweat pooling at the base of his spine. His scalp bristled. He popped his neck, flexed his fingers on the wheel, and analytically sliced up the view: Row of storefronts to the right. An aged import. A panel van. Woman near the door. Three men to the left facing her. One visibly armed. A Beretta M9.
Kyle knew the pistol well.
He released his seat belt and gunned the truck forward, skidding to a stop between the woman and the men. His bumper clipped the one with the gun, sending him to the pavement.
The other two reached for weapons and rushed him as he jumped from the cab. Shielding himself with his door, he grabbed the Beretta from the ground and slammed the butt into the downed man’s head, putting him out of commission. Then he turned toward the others.
He spun the second to the ground, landing hard on his hip and taking a blade to his shoulder in the process. Shallow wound, bleeder, arm still worked. Gun in his hand, he swung, connecting with the third man’s jaw. He stumbled back long enough for Kyle to hop to his feet and kick out as man number two charged. The knife skittered up under his truck. He kicked again, tangling his legs with the second man’s and going down with him once more.
That’s when he saw the woman scrambling beneath his truck for the knife. And that was his undoing. She distracted him and he took two seconds too long to come up fighting.
Man number three was back in the game with his fists. Kyle’s jaw bore the brunt. He spun and the gun went flying, bouncing into the bed of his truck. Before he turned, another knife came at him, glinting. He dodged, ducked, saw the woman vault over his tailgate.
Distracting him. Again.
And that was all he knew.