—Chapter 2—

—Mistakes—

Kellan turned around.

To his surprise, it wasn’t the two men from the bar—there were four others walking out from the harsh shadows cast by the streetlamps. They all had jewelry jutting from their lips, ears, and eyebrows. The words Fear Nothing had been tattooed on their forearms. They were teenagers, like all local street gangs, and the four thugs approached from different angles.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Kellan said.

The four didn’t reply as they advanced.

One goon withdrew a switchblade and Kellan instinctively placed a hand on his sidearm hidden in his jacket. Kellan stopped himself from drawing his gun when he noticed the teen’s poor grip on his blade.

They’re just kids, Kellan told himself. Untrained kids. This isn’t like the last time.

The thug with the switchblade rushed in. Kellan grabbed his wrist and easily kicked out the kid’s footing. Then he ripped the blade out of the thug’s hand and hurled his attacker to the ground.

Two of the thugs lunged, and Kellan met the first with a solid strike to the liver—kid never saw it coming—and the shock sent the kid’s internal organs on a cigarette break. The second guy got a punch on Kellan’s right ear and then wrapped his arm around Kellan’s neck. In a sheer display of power, Kellan flipped the boy over his body and slammed him against the asphalt.

The fourth thug, a mere two feet away, pulled a .22 handgun from the waistline of his jeans. Kellan grabbed the barrel and smashed it back against the kid’s face, breaking his nose and chipping a tooth. Then Kellan tore the handgun from the kid’s weak hold, backed himself against the side of his car, and watched in confusion as the first thug got to his feet.

Without a switchblade, the thug stumbled forward, his arms outstretched in a poor and ineffective mode of attack.

Kellan tucked the stolen gun away and grabbed the kid before the idiot could try anything else.

“What’s wrong with you?” Kellan asked, holding back a laugh. “If you needed money this badly, you could have—”

The boy vomited, coating Kellan’s arm in a yellowish mass of writhing worms and fluids.

Kellan yanked his hand away in horror. Then he shoved the kid into a nearby car, his combat reflexes kicking in. Kellan ripped off his jacket. The worms squirmed down his forearm, the sticky slime of the vomit causing them to cling to everything they touched. The sting of the worms burrowing into his flesh shocked him more than anything else. Shaken, Kellan pulled off his shirt and raked it across his skin.

“What the hell was that?” he shouted.

Kellan threw down his shirt and examined his arm, all while keeping an eye on his attackers. His skin appeared unharmed, though the phantom sting lingered on Kellan’s thoughts. He twisted his forearm and saw nothing that indicated damage—no evidence the worms had even existed.

But they had, right? Kellan turned his arm around several times, pressing his fingers against his skin, hoping to feel something.

Nothing.

The thugs scrambled to their feet and then took off into the darkness.

Kellan let them go, his desire to corral them nonexistent. After a few shaky breaths, he glanced around. His gaze fell upon two figures across the street.

It was the two stalkers from Nino’s Place. They stood under the light of a streetlamp, their hoods up, but their attention locked on Kellan. For a moment they just stared. Without a word, they turned away and then continued down the street, leaving Kellan to his lonely parking lot.

Had they been watching the entire time?

Kellan took in a deep breath.

“I have to report this,” he said with a sigh. “Goddammit.”

***

Fort Bragg was half-empty for the joyous holiday. Kellan sat in his car, staring at the dashboard. He glanced at his phone, hoping Dr. Hanley would be working. Normally he was always working, but it was 12:30am, technically Christmas day. Kellan had already reported his stalkers but reporting about worms would be new.

Kellan glanced at his arm.

No signs of the worms. No marks or scabs. As a matter of fact, Kellan was just as healthy as ever. He worked out for two hours every day—as per his mandated training—and jogged another hour at night, to keep his endurance high.

His body was a weapon, and he maintained it.

So where were the worms?

Kellan couldn’t get the image out of his head.

Mistakes were written in blood. That was what his old commanding officer would say. I should’ve been more careful. I shouldn’t have let those thugs get so close.

Even though he was distracted, Kellan took note of an FBI vehicle in the parking lot—the BMW that the deputy director loved to drive. Which meant the Delta Force would likely be doing some sort of training exercise.

On paper, the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta—commonly shortened to Delta Force—didn’t exist. Formed in the late Seventies, the unit had been created in response to the growing threat of terrorism. Trained for direct action, reconnaissance, hostage rescue, and counterterrorism missions, the operations of Delta Force were kept classified and all discussion outside of command was prohibited.

Despite that, word of the unit’s existence had spread. The Delta Force had become a thing of legend in American pop culture, though their operations were still highly classified.

Since Kellan wasn’t active… he wasn’t on the “need to know” list.

He hadn’t been called in for any exercises.

“That’s okay,” Kellan said aloud—his shadow his only company. “As soon as the nightmares go away, I’ll be called in again.”

Kellan looked at himself in the rearview mirror.

“What?” He narrowed his eyes. “You think that’ll take awhile?” He leaned back in his chair. “I’ll have you know I finish every assignment I’ve given in half the time allotted.”

His own joke amused him, but the silence was deafening.

“Maybe I should go to the hospital.”

But if the doctors didn’t find any worms…

Kellan sighed. “Nothing would say crazy like raving about imaginary punk-parasites. I’d be removed from active duty permanently.”

That frieghtened him more than worms. At least with worms, he could take medication and get them removed. But if he was removed from the Delta Force, Kellan didn't know what he would do with himself. I can wait. See what happens. I'll be fine.

His thoughts returned to the encounter with the thugs.

The worms he had seen…

Kellan closed his eyes, exhaled, and then started his car. When he opened his eyes again, he felt a sense of determination. It was his life, wasn’t it? He was in control? Greer and Jones wouldn’t want to hear he was alone on Christmas.

Kellan glanced at the time on his phone. 1am. His joking and wits indicated good mental health, right? Right. But they didn’t help with the profound loneliness Kellan occasionally found himself facing.

Mavis had wanted to meet at 2am. Maybe she still would.

I’ve stayed up for three days in a row on several occasions, Kellan reasoned. What’s one night of missed sleep while I’m on mandatory leave?

***

Kellan ran his nails over his body.

Everything itched, right down to his gums. It took a permanent piece of his brain’s processing power to ignore the urge to scratch, and with what willpower he had remaining, he shoved his hands in his pockets and continued as normal.

“I didn’t think we’d be seeing each other again tonight,” Mavis said as she straightened her shoulder-length hair. The coffee in one hand spewed a pillar of steam into the winter air. “I thought you had a curfew. What changed your mind?”

“Let’s just say it was the psychologist’s orders.”

With a restrained smile, she asked, “Oh, really?”

“I have a strange psychologist, I know.”

“I dunno. Prescribing a date sounds like my kind of remedy.”

Kellan scratched at his side. He almost called it quits, but he gritted his teeth and refused to leave. If he excused himself at the beginning of a date, he knew it would be misconstrued as something horrible. Besides, he couldn’t be alone, not with his dark thoughts and a fridge full of beer. Without work to distract him, what did he have?

Kellan walked the path of the Fayetteville city park, Mavis close by his side. The place was lit and vacant, and it suffered from the cold just as much as the rest of North Carolina. He zipped up his hoodie, disappointed that his sullied jacket sat in the trunk of his car.

For their first date, Mavis had asked to grab a drink and walk through the park. Kellan couldn’t believe she knew a coffee stand open on Christmas morning, at 3am, but she had proved him wrong. Mavis knew Fayetteville better than he did.

Kellan glanced around as they walked, squinting through the early morning fog. The streetlights pierced the darkness in the park, keeping it bright, but the gloom beyond the sidewalk remained untouched. He stared off into the distance, straining his ears to keep track of various voices and footsteps. How many people were in the park Christmas morning? Kellan and Mavis weren’t the only ones… could the others be his stalkers? Were they following him?

While caught in his own musings, Kellan hadn’t realized how far he had gotten from Mavis. He stopped and waited for her to catch up, cursing himself for being so inattentive.

She hurried after, unable to hide her limp, and kept her gaze low.

“Let’s address the elephant in the room,” Mavis said once they resumed their walking.

“There’s no elephant. Just us. Techincally no room, either. We're in a park.”

Mavis half-smiled at his joke, but then returned to her cold expression. “Everyone asks about my scars. Everyone stares when I walk. You don’t have to pretend. Let’s just get it out of the way so that you don’t have to speculate behind my back.”

“I know why,” Kellan stated. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”

Mavis narrowed her eyes. “You just know everything, don’t you? Why don’t you tell me what you think happened?”

“It was a grenade. Something homebrew. If it had been military grade, you would’ve died, but you have too many scars, so I assume you were close, but it lacked the punch.” Kellan rattled off the information with the cold tone of a dictionary. He had seen similar injuries in the past. They had ended careers.

“Yeah,” Mavis muttered, turning away. “I can’t believe you got all that information from a few scratch marks.”

Kellan half-smiled. “Trust me. It’s the product of years of training.”

She straightened her leg and walked a little faster. “Yeah, well, I’m not so bad. You should’ve seen the others in the truck. They’re chair-bound now. The medics say I was lucky I didn’t lose an eye.” Mavis ran her fingers through her hair, along a line on her scalp.

“Is that why you dye your hair?” Kellan asked.

Mavis pursed her lips. “You notice every little damn thing, don’t you?” She huffed and then sipped her hot coffee. “Women like to have secrets, pal.”

“I’ve heard that hair growing on or around scars can come out discolored, even gray. It’s a logical conclusion that you’d dye it to cover that up.” Kellan shrugged. “You probably picked the bold color to distract from your other scars. But I’ll let you have your mystery.”

“Yeah, okay—enough about me, hotshot. What about you? What branch are you in?”

“It’s classified.” Kellan smirked. “Men like to keep secrets, too.”

Mavis rolled her eyes so hard, she almost lost her cup. “You’re one of those Special Forces guys. Of course. It all makes sense now.”

“Of course?”

“Look at you.” She jabbed his side with her finger.

Kellan lifted an eyebrow.

Mavis replied by attempting to wrap a single hand around half his bicep—and failing to do so. She stared up at him with a sardonic expression. “Look at how tall you are. And look at your scruff! Grunts don’t wear five o’clock shadows like you Special Forces guys.” Mavis reached up and ran her knuckles along his unshaven jawline.

“Whelp, you’ve done it,” Kellan said with a smile. “You’ve cracked the mystery. You can expect a call from the chief of police thanking you for your dedication and investigatory skills.”

“Oh, so when you deduce everything about my injury, you get to be all smug, but when I figure out your rank and file, all I get is sarcasm?”

“I told you that you’d get sick of me,” Kellan quipped.

“Uh-huh. What branch of the Special Forces are you in?” Mavis touched a finger to her bottom lip. “SEAL Team Six? ISA? I bet I could guess if you showed me your gun.”

Kellan didn’t register her question. He stopped walking and stared across the park to the far walkway. Two men stood near a grouping of trees, their nondescript gray clothing blending with the fog. Had Kellan not been looking, he might have missed them.

His stalkers. They had to be.

Kellan broke from the path and took a few steps onto the grass before stopping.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Mavis asked.

The men by the trees… In every way they were the men from the bar except…

Kellan rubbed at his eyes and then glared. The guys in the bar were different, he thought. Right? The two men in the park had olive skin and slick, black hair. They were a mix of races, perhaps Mediterranean, but not the two men from before, different, yet still so very similar, right down to their hooded sweatshirts and jeans. They even stood at the same height. Were four men following him? Why? What was there to gain? How had they known he had gone to the park?

Mavis met Kellan out on the grass and followed his gaze. The men turned and hustled away.

“Why’re you staring?” she asked.

“Don’t they look familiar?” Kellan whispered. “Just like the guys from the bar?”

“No. They’re different.”

“Didn’t you see their clothes? Jeans and sweatshirts.”

“You’re wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. What’s wrong with that?”

Kellan watched the two men fade into the fog.

He itched… so much. He scratched while he stared.

The men stopped at the precipice of the fog and turned one last time, staring for an extended moment before resuming their escape. Did they want him to follow? Or were they worried Kellan would approach? Were other thugs and gangsters lying in wait around the corner? Maybe it was a mistake to go to the park, Kellan thought. I shouldn’t have met Mavis. Not after what happened.

“You’re seriously weirding me out,” Mavis said with a forced laugh. “Those two guys look nothing like the guys from the bar. They’re probably brothers, or maybe they were just enjoying each other’s company. I bet you scared them off with your staring. Honestly, you look like you’re ready to run them down or something.”

Mavis didn’t know of his stalkers, or his fight in the parking lot, or about the worms. Kellan scratched at his itchy arm while his mind mulled over the myriad of possibilities. He exhaled and returned to the park’s designated pathway. Perhaps he was wrong, but should he take that chance?

“Sorry,” Kellan said. “I got confused.”

“It’s fine. Just don’t go freaking out strangers in the future, okay?” Mavis overhand-tossed her empty coffee cup in the nearest bin, murmuring a swoosh noise.

Droplets of water sprinkled over the cement. Kellan flinched when a raindrop hit his eye. He didn’t care for the rain. Visibility became impaired, the constant beat of water drops drowned out all other sounds, and the slick chill made movement difficult. Perfect for a mugger or group of thugs, on the other hand…

“We should get to my car,” Kellan stated. Anything to get out of this park.

“All right.”

Kellan broke into a jog, heading straight for the street he had parked his car on. Mavis kept his pace for a short distance before her foot slipped on the water, causing her to nearly trip. She corrected herself, but the grimace on her face betrayed her agony. The sudden increase in rain didn’t help anything either. Her clothes soaked up the giant droplets, adding unnecessary weight.

Kellan walked back to her, but she avoided glancing up at him.

“Go on ahead,” Mavis said. “I’ll catch up.”

He scooped her into his arms, holding her like a bride.

Mavis jerked and struggled. “Put me down,” she commanded, her voice unsteady. “I don’t want people thinking I can’t walk.”

“Trust me,” Kellan said with a reassuring smile. “If anyone sees us, they won’t be thinking, that girl can’t walk, they’ll be thinking, that guy is tryin’ reeeaaal hard to get laid.”

Mavis snorted and laughed, unable to hold it back.

Kellan waited, ready to put her down if she insisted, but content to carry her if she acquiesced. Mavis relaxed in his arms and tucked her head under his chin as though the spot had been made for her. He took the gesture as acceptance and continued his way to the street.

Fourteen-mile hikes, dead drops in the middle of the wilderness, and endurance training made the walk an easy task. Kellan knew he couldn’t carry Mavis forever, but what strength he had he was more than willing to share with a comrade-in-arms.

Kellan kept his alertness high as he made his way through the park. Two separate lights flickered and died, blanketing sections of the park in darkness and allowing the gloom to creep up on him.

Each light was closer to him than the last—it couldn’t have been coincidence.

Had Mavis seen? The lights were going out around them!

Kellan held her tight, fearful he would need to drop her if it came to a fight. The water rushing over his skin quelled the itching, however, and his body felt more like its old self. If they were thugs like the last, they’d be sorry.

He made it to his car unmolested and glanced over his shoulder.

No pursuers.

At least, not that he could see.

“You never told me anything about yourself,” Mavis whispered. “Why are you on mandatory leave?”

Placing her down, Kellan pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked his two-door Honda Accord. Kellan opened the passenger door. As Mavis stepped in close to enter the vehicle, he stopped her.

“When you were deployed, did you ever find yourself behind enemy lines?” he asked.

She glanced up and met his humorless gaze. She shook her head in silence.

The only assignment Kellan hadn’t aced had been three months ago. Until then, Kellan had had a spotless record.

Every mission successful.

Every hostage saved.

Every extraction perfect.

But his luck had finally failed while he had been in Syria. Kellan and two of his teammates—Greer and Jones—had been caught inside a warehouse during a bombing. The collapsed roof had trapped them in place. Over the course of six days, Kellan had freed himself, killed the neo-terrorists who had attacked, and even dragged his two teammates all the way to the extraction location.

His supervisors had deemed him a hero, even though all he had to show for it were the bodies of Greer and Jones.

Six days in enemy territory. No food. Barely any water. Kellan had known Greer and Jones had been dead days before he’d reached American Forces. He had wanted to return their bodies to their families, but carrying around two corpses…

The nightmares that had followed had put Kellan on the “at risk” list.

In order to avoid a “mental break,” he had been placed on mandatory leave until Dr. Hanley supported his return to the Delta Force.

“I want to protect people,” Kellan said, his voice quieter than before. “That’s why I joined the military in the first place. But one time… I couldn’t.”

He had never told anyone outside the Delta Force about his assignment.

Kellan stepped around Mavis and made his way to the driver’s side door. He shouldn’t have said anything, even as vague as he had been. It was against the rules. Kellan regretted mentioning it by the time he sat down in the driver’s seat, but at the same time, it felt good to tell one other human being besides Dr. Hanley. Just saying it aloud took some of the weight from his soul.

Mavis buckled herself in, her brow furrowed. “Are they making you—”

“It’s not like that,” he interjected. “It’s complicated. I just… haven’t recovered.” Kellan brought his car to life and glanced between all the mirrors. Still no signs of trouble. He took an easy breath. “Where did you park your car?”

“Actually, I was hoping we could continue the evening.”

Kellan lifted an eyebrow. Mavis turned away, hiding her face in the darkness of the vehicle.

“Unless you don’t want to,” she added.

It occurred to him that Mavis had been working the graveyard shift at a second-rate bar on Christmas Eve. Perhaps she didn’t have anyone either.

Perhaps she wanted company just as desperately as he did.

“Where to?” Kellan asked.

“Do you live in the barracks or here in the city?”

“I have an apartment here in town.”

“Then that’s where we should go.”