Page 11 of Hard Corps (Selected Sinners MC 7)

My head was throbbing, my ears ringing, and my heart was beating at a rapid rate. My hearing was slowly returning, and the dull drone between my ears was almost as deafening as the bomb blast. I shifted my eyes down along the front of my blouse, only to see that I was covered in blood from head to toe.

Filled with adrenaline, and numb to whatever pain I may have felt in its absence, I waved my hand to the other side of the street. Todelli and his fire team ran across the street and began to patrol along the side of the damaged buildings.

As I watched them work their way toward the corner of the intersection, a second bomb blast shook the ground beneath my feet with so much force it dropped me to my knees.

God fucking damn it, I’m not ready to die.

Not yet.

As I attempted to stand, I glanced over each shoulder. It appeared that my entire platoon of Marines was almost all injured by shrapnel, and all of the vehicles in the convoy were damaged to the point of being useless. Our only way out of the mess we were in was to fight, and I would be damned to hell if they were going to continue to detonate bombs at will without one hell of a fight from me and my platoon.

Still on my knees, I stared down at the ground. Incapable of standing on my feet, but confused as to why, a short study of my uniform provided the answer. My left leg was crimson colored and my hip had a piece of steel in it the size of a deck of cards. The exposed piece of steel burned into my fingers and the palm of my hand as I gripped it between them and pulled against it. As the pain reached a peak, I released my grip and stared down at the piece of shrapnel.

Half way there, Jacob.

I gritted my teeth and gripped it in my hand again. The smell of burning flesh rose into my nostrils as I clenched my jaw and pulled with all my might. As it finally came free from my trousers, I released my grip, exhaled, and collapsed onto the ground.

I peered up into the morning sky, realizing my left leg was incapable of functioning. I shifted my eyes toward the abandoned civilian vehicles on the other side of the street and gripped my M4 tightly in my right hand.

I don’t ask for much, but I’m asking for a little assistance right now. I’m crawling across the street, and I’m protecting my Marines. Any help you can give me would be appreciated.

“Call in a medevac, and get these men treated by our Corpsman. I’m going to find these sons-a-bitches,” I shouted toward Cunningham.

I turned toward the burned-out Toyota truck and began to crawl across the open street, dragging my damaged leg behind me. Using my elbows and one knee, I crawled the thirty feet against the pain, leaving a trail of blood behind me. As I reached the corner of the truck, movement in the open window of a bomb-blasted building across the intersection caught my eye. The building, facing the intersection, was at a ninety-degree angle of the convoy, and almost completely out of sight of the Marines taking cover behind the Humvees.

Excited to have found the insurgents, but not so foolish to let them know I had done so, I signaled to the Marines of second squad to come across the street and assist in taking out the enemy.

As soon as the first Marine stepped from behind the cover of the Humvee, he was shot. I watched in horror as the second Marine, directly behind the first, was shot as he tried to pull his fallen comrade to safety.

You motherfuckers.

I gave the signal to hold tight and turned toward the building. I had a straight line of sight to the window, but apparently the enemy had been focused on what he was able to see of our vehicles and hadn’t seen me crawl across the street. I watched as three men with rifles sat and waited for another opportunity to shoot at my men. So far, they hadn’t noticed me.

Realizing I could probably get one or possibly two shots off before giving away my position, I crawled toward the front of the vehicle, hiding the majority of my torso underneath the front of the truck.

With my chest, shoulders, and head exposed, I flattened myself into a prone position and took aim at the man on the far right.

Going home in a wheelchair is better than going home in a box. You can do this, Jacob.

One shot, one kill.

I squeezed the trigger.

The man slumped out of sight, obviously killed instantly by the impact of the bullet.

Two more, but you better be quick.

As I took aim at the second man, he and the third began looking frantically to determine where the first shot had come from. Now shooting toward the convoy, but causing damage to nothing but the vehicles, their silhouettes were clear in the open window of the building.

Squeeze, Jacob. Don’t pull, squeeze.

I squeezed the trigger.

The second man fell out of sight.

The Marines taking cover behind the convoy began to cheer and scream. Out of my peripheral I saw one of them point in my direction.

And I wasn’t the only one who saw it.