Little Dark Secret (Storm's Soldier Book 2) (13 page)

Calix

The investigation wrapped up within days. The tribunal’s justice worked swift. Their judgments tended to lean harsh.

I still got far less than I expected.

All they could pin on me was dereliction of duty and criminal intimidation of a civilian. The felony-level charges were not proved. Despite confessing what earned me the bullet, the sweep teams found no drug residue at the facility. The only blood at the scene was mine. The Storm’s Soldiers had taken to drug trafficking better than they ever did to white nationalism.

A civilian court would have pressed for a full felony charge. The evidence of gunfire and the Soldiers’ involvement could have been built into enough proof for a dishonorable discharge with time in detention. But that would take time. The tribunal seemed keen on not spending it.

In truth, it seemed like Montego held back. He still growled at me in the defendant’s seat, but his eyes didn’t radiate that old hate. He wanted me out, but he didn’t want me buried.

The only reason I could imagine for that was Rosa.

In the end, I was discharged with a less-than-honorable distinction. It was better than dishonorable. I faced no jail time. I could keep my medals.

But they still stripped me of my rank. They took my uniform. They withheld income I was owed and revoked my veteran status. Then they marched me off the base.

I bore it all with silence. None of this was unearned. Rosa might have forgiven me, but the US military could not afford her kindness. There were too many lives at risk for that.

I even saw the good in it for me. I needed a new start, free from my past.

But as I waited for my taxi outside, looking out at a flat expanse of Georgia brushland, I had nothing to do but listen to the distant sounds of another brotherhood I had lost. Beyond the fence, whistles pierced the air. Gun fire chattered faint in the distance.

Men’s voice chanted in unison, rising and falling as they approached and passed somewhere behind me. Some instructor might be making new arrivals runs laps. Perhaps they had earned it, perhaps they had not it. It didn’t matter. If they were lucky, a few of those recruits would one day gleam the exercise’s purpose.

Trouble found you whether you earned it or not. Nothing forged a bond better than sharing that misery.

I had learned that lesson long before I arrived, but I had appreciated it best here.

I watched a green munitions truck roll in past the base entrance. Both soldiers working the gate had been trained under me, but they did not even regard my presence as they let it in. Their world wanted nothing to do with mine.

Still, when the pedestrian gate behind me creaked open a minute later, my breath caught. I glanced back and saw Dennis come out. He lit towards me with a great grin.

“Thank god I didn’t come all this way for nothing,” he said.

Just the sight of him in his drab olive fatigues made me feel a sudden amiable warmth.

“I’m not sure you’re right in that assessment,” I said.

He made a show of looking me over. I only had on a white undershirt, jeans and a couple duffel bags containing my personals. It felt close to naked. Dennis shook his head.

“Na man, you ain’t nothing. You still you. Where’s that bike of yours though?”

“Can’t hold all this,” I said, hefting my arms.

In truth, I’d parked it back in the city again to keep it from being confiscated. It was the one piece of my time in the Storm’s Soldiers that I still had any pride in. I wanted it waiting for me far away from here.

“I see. And you got more than what’s in your arms right? You’ll be ok out there?”

“I’ll be ok. Saved plenty while overseas.” I sighed. “But leaving this is harder than I expected. I’ll find something to do, but I don’t know if it can match the service.”

“Not many things can.” Dennis shook his head, thoughtfully. “It’s true what you said right?”

“I’ve said a lot of things.”

“I mean your closing statements in front of the tribunal. The bit about regretting choosing the wrong brotherhood to support against your conscience.”

“Who told you about that?” Only people directly involved with me had been allowed in my tribunal. Dennis had not been called.

“Sgt. Lilton. He was at the trial.”

“Oh.” I remembered Lilton’s staunch defense of my work on base. “Yeah, it’s true.”

He nodded off at the landscape. “I figured as much.”

We both looked out in silence a while. I didn’t know what he came out here to do. I didn’t know if I could handle it. Even this simple act - standing beside a man I had bled with - was quickly forming a lump at my throat.

A bright yellow dot blurred into view far down the road. The taxi started coming down the long stretch toward us.

“You know what you’re doing next?” Dennis asked.

“Figuring out who’ll have me,” I said. “The terms of the discharge will make things difficult, but it’s not unearned.”

“No. But neither is that Purple Heart.”

I looked at him and saw the deep reverence on his face. “The tribunal was right about that. It’s not enough to make up for what I did. Even if I were the hero you think I am, that still wouldn’t be enough.”

Dennis’s look sharpened. “You know, man, I joined to become a hero. Half my uncles served. Both my grandpas did - one in Vietnam, one in Korea. The stories they would tell, you wouldn’t believe them. And the guys in them? Larger than life.”

He shook his head. “There are heroes, but they’re not something other than human. Some beat their kids. Others get blind drunk. They got flaws just like the rest of us. Just cause you fucked up here doesn’t mean you’re not a hero somewhere else.”

I hung my head. I could not accept his faith, but I couldn’t face it either. “If I was ever anything, it was because I was inspired by the men around me.”

The taxi was almost here. I didn’t know what else to say. There was no time to say it anyway. I wanted to apologize to Dennis, to say I was sorry for letting him down. But that sentimentality would have been rebuffed. It was beneath both of us.

Instead, I simply said. “It was an honor to have served with you.”

“The honor was all mine.”

We turned face to face and saluted each other sharply. Dennis had a grim look, his smooth, brow fighting to remain unwrinkled. I felt the same difficulty overcome me.

He smiled and dropped his salute to an extended hand. I clasped it and pulled him into a hug, as the taxi ground to a stop behind me.

When I broke away, I realized my hand held a piece of paper. It had a number scrawled on it.

“This your number?” I asked.

Dennis laughed out to the clouds. “Haha, nah man. I ain’t trying to get you to fuck me. This is my uncle’s number. I think he can help you out on that whole job front. Give it a week, then give him a call.”

I placed the note in my wallet, then shook Dennis’s hand again. “Thanks, brother,” I said.

“You gave me a second chance at life,” he said. “Least I can do is the same.”

I climbed into the back of the taxi with my bags, and Dennis shut the door. He stood there, arms folded behind his back, watching as we did a U-turn and headed out. Soon he was a tall dash against the base fence. Then, he was gone and the base was just a blur in my memory.

“Where to?” the cab driver asked.

“North.”

I gave him the address for my father’s house. It would be a quick stop, but it was an important one. No matter what I felt in my heart, nothing had changed until the thoughts presented themselves as action.

Then, perhaps, I could leave this life.

The street lay calm and pleasant when I arrived. My father’s old brown Buick sat on the driveway. It took a minor unknown out of the plan. Still, my heart sped up.

I told the taxi driver to wait and went in. The house lay still as death, but I heard creaking in the kitchen.

“Calix?” my father called out. “Are you here?”

“Yes,” I said, but I didn’t go down the hall.

Instead, I walked up the stairs, scanning the photo frames. Most of the pictures were ancient, but there was one my father had created after my mother’s passing. Half the dozen photos had been removed - the ones with Vaughn.

I picked out one of the rest - one with me standing under the ‘White Pride’ flag. I was staring sadly off screen, as if someone had called my name. It seemed apt.

I took the picture out of the frame, set the rest back on the wall, then went out to the kitchen. My father sat off in the dining room, typing slowly into a laptop. He was already dressed in a warm brown buttoned sweater and pleats.

“Free day today?” he asked, checking his watch. “It’s early.”

He knew nothing about what I had faced this past week. True to form, I had protected him from it. It was time to stop.

“They’ll all be free days,” I said. “I’ve been discharged from the army.”

His mouth parted. He set his glasses down and got up.

“My boy,” he said, coming over. “Tell me everything.”

“You know everything,” I said. “You know why I’m out.”

He stopped at the edge of the kitchen, holding himself up against the wall. There was a knife edge to my words and I felt it. This would have to come sharp, I knew. Otherwise the cut would be messy.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly, I am. We knew this was a risk, but I am sure it is no easy thing to face.”

“It wasn’t so hard. I told them the truth.”

“You told them about us?”

“I told them about the Soldiers. Your own crimes are safe.”

His cheeks glowed red. “I have committed no crime other than advocating for safety and change. But if they know of your affiliation with the cause, they might bear down on us anyway.”

“The only reason they don’t is because we pose no real threat,” I said, gathering my strength for the final slice. “And the truth is I have no further affiliation with the cause.”

“What?” He looked stunned a moment, then nodded. “Ah, I see. So you lied to protect us.”

“I didn’t lie. I’m not lying now.”

His face took on a bunch of puzzled expressions. “You’ve lost me.”

“It’s the other way around.” I lifted the sheet off the fridge, and saw Vaughn’s old image staring back at me. “You’ve lost me. Just like you lost him.”

His eyes flared wide. “What on earth are you talking about? Is this some sort of joke?”

I pinned my image under Vaughn’s. Only my face was visible, but it was enough.

“All these years,” I said. “I have tried to be your arm. I have tried to carry out the vision you set forth. But my arm is attached to its own brain. It’s time I listened to that.”

My father came over, flustered. “I have given you plenty of power within our group. Do you want more? Do you want to take over?”

He must know what I meant. He was not dumb, yet he was holding on to a hope that he was wrong, a hope that he could bring me back with some desperate move. It was his nature.

“I have gone the same way as Vaughn,” I said. “White nationalism has no appeal to me anymore.”

His eyes tightened. “It’s a girl. A dark woman has seduced you.”

I laughed. It was odd to think of Rosa as a dark woman, when she was so full of energy and vigor. It was odd to think I would have once accepted this assessment, or even repeated it.

“You lost me the day you sent me to become a true soldier,” I said. “I saw the world. I saw real things to fight for. But, yes, it was indeed a woman who finished the transformation.”

His eyes condensed to coals. I thought he would erupt in rage, but suddenly he started blinking. He clutched my shoulders. “You are abandoning your father for a woman?” he said. “After everything we have been through?”

“It is because of what you put me through,” I said, softly.

His face was quickly becoming a mask of grief, but I didn’t break. I did not even hug him. Our relationship had spanned decades, but it was all logic. Anything to avoid the emotional fracture at the heart of it.

“You abandoned us,” I went on. “The day mother died, you abandoned us. What came back from the grief was not the father I knew. I was too young to understand the change, just that you needed me. And so I supported you, and I continued to support you well beyond what my experiences taught me was right. Vaughn leaving should have woken me up, but I was too sturdy. Too stubborn. It took two years of the military to make me confess the truth deep within. It took a bullet wound to break my will and a caring woman to heal me right. But now I see it clearly.”

“See what?” he said, desperately looking into my eyes as if they held the answer.

“You are wrong,” I said. “The cause is wrong. That’s just the truth. Grief shattered you, and you didn’t find all the pieces.”

I pulled out his grip. He stood there like a statue, completely wordless. There had always been a threat that this would destroy him. That he would just crumple. But there was a strength to him - a strength which had eventually made him rise from the bed after that month of grief.