Drawing my switchblade, I stiffened up, standing over a stump with a spare sharpener we used to keep our shit stabby. “He ain't taking us anywhere, brother. It's the goddamned Deads screaming for blood.”
“Can't argue. Won't be easy, though. Some of our boys got a good chance of getting shot to shit on this run. Deads got the numbers. We've got the brains, the balls, and bigger fuckin' bullets. Only question is if it'll be enough.”
I snorted, ripping the sharpener up and sliding my knife through it. “You're going soft like Skinny boy, Firefly. Ever since you married that chick and knocked her up. You're talkin' like you're afraid.”
“Afraid? No.” I could practically hear the steam hissing out his mouth. “Fuck yeah, family changes a man. I'm gonna have a kid hanging on my arm in five or six months. I ain't going back on anything the Prez orders, and neither is Skin, because both of us have got a fuck of a lot more to fight for here than you do.”
My eyes tried to dig a hole through his skull. He didn't have a fuckin' clue.
Firefly and Skin, they'd go off like bombs for their women, their kids, putting the patch last. For me, these colors came first, second, and third, equal partner to the bloodlust boiling me alive for over three fuckin' years.
None of the brothers knew what really happened to Piece.
They didn't know about the blood oath Prez promised me the night I reported in. Didn't know he'd told me to keep it quiet because we didn't have the strength to fight like we needed to in those days.
Dust slapped his big arms around me, pulled me close that night, promising we'd rip the throats out of the sorry fuckers who'd done my brother one day, when the time was finally right.
Prez got me drunk. Held me back. Stopped me from going deep into Georgia on a suicide run, with nothing but my gun, a pack of grenades, and enough rage to blast myself to kingdom come.
Would've done it, too. Would've driven into the Deads' clubhouse and blown myself up like something outta the shit overseas.
Firefly's rifle cracked. I blinked.
We'd stopped talking. I slid my knife against the stone hard and fast, thinking about skinning the fuck outta every sick motherfucker I could find who wore the bloody hand on their cut.
His shot went straight through the boards hiding the dummy whose head I'd taken off, and kept going. The mannequin's body joined its head in a million pieces, shattered beyond redemption.
“Goddamn, this baby's got a kick. Helluva a scope on her too,” he said, more to himself than me. “Haven't had this kinda firepower in my hands since the army days.”
“That's one big fuckin' check mark in our column,” I said. “Quit worrying so much about the op. We're gonna kick their asses so hard into the ocean, the Grizzlies will be on their damned knees, begging for our routes. Haven't ever let death stop us before, and we're not gonna start.”
“Brother, I'm telling you, you've got it all wrong. Ain't death I'm worried about.” He looked up, anger in his big blue eyes. “It's my wife and kid coming up without me that's making me stand here and practice the shit outta this gun 'til I've got it right. It's a motivator – not a damned detriment.”
“Whatever. We'll see about that.” My fingers began burning.
I had to test my knife. Firefly's mad eyes stayed on me the whole time as I laid my hand against my tree bark, taking the freshly sharpened blade in the other. I started stabbing that fucker right between my fingers like a jackhammer.
All the brothers winced when I did it. Turned their stomachs, expecting me to lose a finger or two every time.
Fuckin' pussies, all of 'em.
They thought I was outta my damned mind.
Maybe I was, ever since that night when the lights went out forever.
My blade stabbed faster, faster, dangerously close to carving off one of my digits, closer on the next thrust. Fucked up as this shit was, it always took the edge off.
Reminded me how close death and dismemberment lurked every day, wearing this patch. Reminded me to be fearless, hard as a stone, ready to do whatever it took to keep my Veep patch and mean it.
Reminded me that giving yourself something to lose was fuckin' stupid. With two brothers going soft thanks to their girls or babies on the way, it'd be up to me to pick up the slack, to charge in and cut every throat we needed to, without any second guessing.
Some of those sick bastards probably had old ladies and kids, too. That family shit would make them hesitate, and it'd be fatal when my knife went through their throats, before they put theirs through mine.
Firefly sat on a log, cleaning his gun, when my fingers finally cramped up and gave out. I dropped the knife, letting it clatter against my boot. Picked up some mud when I reached down to grab it, and I wiped it on my thigh, feeling a little hate streaming out my body.
Wish there were a whole lot more going with it, but fuck if I hadn't stopped wishing long ago.