Always and Forever: An Echo Rescue Series Novella Read online

  Always and Forever

  An Echo Rescue Series Novella

  Hope Daniels

  Encompass Ink

  Copyright © 2019 by Hope Daniels

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by Pretty AF Designs

  Edited by Lily Luchesi

  Contents

  Playlist

  1. Troy

  2. Troy

  3. Ricochet

  4. Troy

  5. Rico

  6. Troy

  7. MARSHALL a.k.a. RICO

  8. Troy

  9. Marshall

  10. Troy

  11. Marshall

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  Playlist

  Bad Liar by Imagine Dragons

  Immigrant Song by Led Zepplin

  Say Amen by Panic at the Disco

  Don’t Give Up On Me by Andy Grammer

  Love Me Anyway by Pink (featuring Chris Stapleton)

  Troy

  Three AM Text

  This had better be good, Troy thought closing the door to his truck. More like slamming it, but it was neither here nor there. As far as he was concerned, when no one else was around to say otherwise, he was just closing the damn door no matter how much noise it made. Besides, this was just one of the reasons he chose this town and this land — to be left the fuck alone. Which made him wonder why he was being summoned into the Sheriff’s Department via text. Once the overhead door opened wide enough for him to peel out, Troy stepped on the gas burning rubber only to slam on the breaks just outside of the high-tech fencing.

  Troy waited until the automatic lock engaged on the security gate before he pulled out onto the highway. His high security clearance, PTSD, and cache of weapons just another reason he chose this area rather than going home to be watched over by his mom. Last thing he needed was well meaning busybodies in his business fucking with his everything. Especially his love life, or lack thereof. A quick check into the rearview mirror showed the coast was clear behind him and gave him a look at the scar running from the corner of his right eye down his cheek in a jagged line. The white puckered flesh matched the dozen or so other marks on his body. Some self-inflicted, others not so much. Yet again, they didn’t mean shit. He was alive. They weren’t.

  The facial scar didn’t bother him as much as the deadened, lifeless man staring back did.

  Who the fuck am I?

  As trees became a blur of browns, blacks, and the green of a low-lying branch, or even an occasional semi’s lights flashing in the windshield, Troy pondered the question. The answer was simple. He was simply a walking dead man. A killer. A ghost. A survivor. He stepped on the gas to outrun himself, or hoping he could end it. Though he knew he wouldn’t. He never did. Instead he ran, fought, trained, hunted, literally pushed himself to find the terrorists, wishing for one of them to do it for him instead. Home grown or otherwise. Scary as shit the things he did with computers. Not as much of a freak out as what he did to alleviate the nightmares that would come whether he was asleep or awake.

  Which brought his thinking back around to why Tom had texted him at three in the morning and wanted him to get his ass in gear. Not often you get asked to do a favor for a small town Sheriff, hell or any cop of any sort for that matter. It makes them all jittery and shit. It made him act like a junkie heroin addict jonesing for his next fix, a reaction he completely understood.

  It was a feeling Troy had become BFFs with since his buddy had died on his watch. Both men should have been paying attention to their surroundings rather than talking about fucking each other’s brains out. Fuck how did Jay even pop into his head? He’d had a hundred relationships since then. No asshole, you’ve had a hundred times to get your rocks off, but none of which were relationships.

  Maybe that was why he was being called to the “principal’s office” so to speak. As he drove, a million thoughts raced through his head. Did he fuck up at the bar last week? He didn’t think so. Troy tried to keep to himself. The bartender even had a small table put in the back corner for him and a few of the guys who’d served that he’d gotten to know. To say it was hard to acclimate to a normal way of life was over simplifying things by a fucking mile. At least for Troy. Then again, not all soldiers had served in the same capacity or ever would.

  Once he parked, Troy reached for a cigarette from the pack in his t-shirt only to remember he’d quit. Un-fucking-believable. Why had he reached for that crutch today of all days? He stopped smoking for Marshall. When they broke up, he never started up again, not even overseas, and now he was reaching for a cig? Shit. Fuck he didn’t even have a pack on him. Walking into the cop shop unnerved him more than he was letting on to anyone watching him or even to himself apparently.

  “Hey,” Troy smiled at the officer on duty. “I’ve been called in by Sheriff Russell.”

  “Your name?” The bored as hell officer didn’t even look up from his magazine. Rather, he just flipped to the next page relying on the security feed to do his job for him.

  Troy sniffed. “Troy Ashford.”

  Upon hearing his name, the peanut behind the desk snapped to and practically gave himself a concussion from getting up so fast. Served him right as far as Troy was concerned. Asshole. What if he’d come in here loaded with weapons? By the time he’d reacted, even with the metal detectors, the officer would’ve been talking to Saint Peter. Not to mention the fact that Troy could have deactivated the video feed and interrupted the outdated detectors with what he had back at his place. If he had wanted to, that is.

  “Shit. Sorry about that. The Sheriff’s been waitin’ for you. I’ll buzz you right back.”

  Troy arched a brow, surprised he wasn’t even going through the pat down, wand screening, and other measures he’d normally have to endure to get to the cells and inner workings of the department.

  “Yeah, Sheriff will be real glad to see you. It’s the first thing he said when he came back from his call. He doesn’t usually go out on calls, but it must be someone important, huh?” Troy didn’t think the guy was a rookie, but his mouth was saying one thing and his attitude was telling a different story. Verbal vomit was definitely best left at the front desk and not on a case where discretion was key. Actually, Troy wondered if the deputy got hired during the time when it was who you knew, rather than what your qualifications were. Not that there was a union, but the man was virtually un-fireable in this backwoods town. His daddy knew somebody who did something for somebody who knew the Sheriff and got him the job watching the desk. Another bad cop, of sorts. Only this one was an idiot. He reminded him of cop from Dukes of Hazard.

  God, he loved that show.

  He tuned the fool out as he led him down the darkened hallway.

  “You can’t keep me here, Uncle Tom, and you know it. Either find a reason to put me in a goddamn jail cell or let me the fuck out of here.”

  “Sit your ass down soldier. In this room I’m not your uncle, I am your superior officer. Do you understand me?” the sheriff commanded.

  “Fuck you, Sheriff! You don’t have the balls to be my superior officer. You sure as shit can’t keep me from walking out of this room.”

  The shout pulled Troy outta his own head. That voice made his lungs forgot how to take in oxygen and his heart jumped into overdrive while his rather forgotten dick jumped to life. Marshall. Just where the fuck you been and why are you here now?
<
br />   “It seems like that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Tom stated. “You’ll look pretty goddamn funny walkin’ outta here with a chair hangin’ off your six.”

  “Only because you have me handcuffed to the table and my mom will have my ass if I killed you.”

  Troy stood outside the heavy steel door. He could only imagine what the two men looked like on the other side. What Marshall looked like after all these years. Has he thought of me? Why had he been brought into the middle of this family affair? It was all kind of fucked up, that’s for damn sure. But rather than being led into the interrogation room, he was led past the door of fun and games and into the observation lounge. Troy used the term loosely. Very loosely as it was more like closet.

  “Wait here, please. I’ll let the Sheriff know you’re here.”

  Officer Shit For Brains let Tom know he was there all right. The a-hole pounded on the window. I could have done that, asswipe. “Thanks,” he said aloud.

  “No problem,” the officer stated before going back out to the front desk.

  Alone now, Troy let himself look at the angry bull of his ex in the next room. Bull is the only way he could describe him. Marshall looked a little worse for the wear at approximately six feet four, give or take an inch, broad strong shoulders, muscular arms and thighs, hair longer than usual, but what got Troy was his eyes. Even though Troy knew, without a doubt, the man could not see through the window, he felt as if he was staring directly at him. Yeah, the place was a closet, but he hadn’t said a word and Marshall knew someone was on this side of the glass. It didn’t deter Troy from staring at him or wishing things had been different when they signed up for differing branches of the military, but looking at Marsh now, all the old feelings came back. It made him twitchy and twitchy was not Troy being in control.

  Drawn into the soldier’s pain, somehow Troy felt he could remove that pain and replace it with — replace it with what? What the fuck was he supposed to replace it with? Roses and sunshine? Troy snorted. Some days he did good just getting his own ass out of bed and downstairs to his pretty ladies. It was what he called any of the vets who came looking for his brand of therapy. How the hell was he supposed to help Marshall, when he was as fucked up more than the man on the other-side of the window? Maybe more. It takes one to know one. Maybe it takes one to heal one. Is that what you’re supposed to do for me Marsh? Heal me? Troy scoffed at the idea, as much as he wanted it to be true. Maybe they could heal each other. That thought was the only light in his dismal existence as of late.

  “Troy.” Tom opened the door letting in the bright light from the hall, dream revealing brightness. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry I had to drag you out of bed at four in the morning.” He nodded towards the other room. “I know you two have a history, but if you can’t help him — I don’t know what we’re gonna do. Marshall’s got himself into a situation. I might be able to get him out of it, but only if I can prove he’s gotten some help.”

  The despair rang true from Tom’s lips. The sheriff worried about his nephew. Maybe he had been close to the ingrate at one time before Afghanistan. We’d all been close to people before Afghanistan. I’d had Jay during, but that was a lifetime ago. I’d cared for him, but he wasn’t Marshall.

  “What exactly do you think I can do for you, Tom? All that history might help, or it just might fuck us both in the ass, and not in a good way.”

  It was the first time he’d seen the man appear defeated.

  Nah, Tom wasn’t defeated. He was tired, true. Never defeated. He didn’t have it in him to give up the fight, but Tom did snort in what could be termed as laughter.

  “I’m hoping you can work with Marshall. He goes by the handle Ricochet. I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  He left unsaid that he’d owe me big time. One of those “call me when you’re in deep shit” type situations. It was tempting. Especially looking into those haunting eyes.

  “What happened to him and his unit?”

  “Don’t you want to ask him?”

  Troy smirked. “You’re telling me the official version. He’ll tell me the real story. They ain’t necessarily going to be one and the same.”

  He stood there staring at Marshall. No, not Marshall. The man handcuffed to the table was Ricochet. Marshall was buried deep within and as Tom told the story of how a cocky, know-it-all kid became a soldier, went up the ranks quickly, and was sent behind enemy lines by mistake. Mistake my ass. Troy knew he’d have his work cut out for him. Unless you lived it, you didn’t understand it so he nodded now and again or asked a question and took it all in.

  “If I do this you stay away?” Troy stated, though he framed it in the form of a question.

  “Fuck no, I’m not going to stay away. He’s my family.”

  “He’s under my protection. I’m not going to intentionally hurt him, but he will be hurt. Just watching him struggle in there I can tell he wants to fight. He needs it right now. I’ll spar with him until he has fought all the anger inside, all the ghosts. He’s going to be bruised and broken down. But I won’t kill him. Nothin’ like that. I won’t let him hurt himself.” That was the last thing he needed. A fucking suicide. He didn’t think Ricochet was suicidal, though. “I can’t even imagine how angry he’ll be when he sees me,” he said mostly to himself.

  No, this guy was something else entirely. The more Troy watched him through the window, the more he wanted to get him alone. What have you seen to do this to you?

  He knew what he’d seen. What he’d heard. He’d been way up the ranks. Privy to shit some Generals didn’t have access to. It came with the territory of being able to hack your own ass and knowing more languages than was sensible. It was why he was still on active duty, yet not. Why his pay grade was classified.

  “Trust me, Tom. I’m not going to hurt him. He needs a lot of therapy. Maybe even more than I do and he needs time. I don’t know what the fuck he saw, but it’s eating away at him from the inside. Until he can tell someone, or work through it, he’s going to be what you see in there — an angry, confused half-cocked jackass who cannot be around people. He doesn’t think he deserves the right to survive, or to be able to function in a normal home. If you want any chance of him being able to come back to your family, let me try to help him. My way.”

  Troy turned back toward the window. Blue gray eyes stared straight back at him, boring into his soul.

  “Can he see in here?”

  “No, why?” Tom moved to stand beside Troy in the too-tight space, making Troy step away from the two-way glass. He could swear those eyes tracked from his to Tom’s before landing on his again.

  “You were giving me the low-down on what you know.” He ignored the question and redirected Tom. “I want him blindfolded and put in my truck. Oh, and leave him in the cuffs. Just make sure I have a key.”

  It was close to six and the sun was rising by the time he and the pissed off soldier who was in his truck headed to his complex. So far, Ricochet had tried to twist out of the seatbelt, throw himself out the door, move his hands to unbuckle the belt and kick the shit out of his front panel. But all he had managed to do was give himself a headache when he banged his head on the back window while throwing what Troy called a temper tantrum. He bashed in the glove compartment door so that he had to rip it the rest of the way off. Now that pissed Troy off. So much so he’d gotten zip ties out and bound his legs together.

  “Let me out of here you fucking bastard. I’m going to shove these cuffs up your ass right before I rip your head off.” Violence rolled off Rico in waves. Troy soaked it all up. To be this close to the man after all these years was driving him insane. “I know it’s you Troy, so get this blindfold off.” Silence. “You cocky fucker. Get. It. Off.”

  Troy figured if he was up in arms over the blindfold, he really wasn’t going to appreciate the fact that he was going to press his thumb into his groin, effectively shutting down the blood flow to his leg with one hand while he wrapped the zip tie around both legs. Mr. Happy jer
ked against Troy’s zipper as he felt the rounded curve of Rico’s balls, but he shoved his libido down. Being turned on was the last thing he should be with Rico essentially his prisoner. Christ, what was he thinking? It was business first.

  “Don’t think tying up my legs is going to help you, Troy,” Rico growled. For that is the persona Troy was dealing with. Not his childhood friend Marshall. The soldier with the handle of Ricochet, aka, Rico, protected Marshall from whatever the fuck the man had done or seen in Iraq. Troy could respect it, for now. The battle to self-worth wouldn’t be easy. It sure as fuck wasn’t for him. He still struggled like a recovering alcoholic; he took it one day at a time. It was all he had to give right now. True to his word, Rico did a dolphin swim move catching Troy’s hand between the smashed glove box and Rico’s thigh.

  Troy bit down on the inside of his cheek until copper coated his taste buds. It was then, he temporarily shut down the flow to Rico’s brain and made him pass out, but it didn’t last long.

  “Is this how you get your rocks off now? Make your prey pass out so you can fuck ’em and leave ’em wanting more? You’re nothing but a cock-sucking, pussy-eating, closeted motherfucking man-whore.”

  All this time, Troy had been silent, but just as he knew what buttons of Rico’s to push, Rico knew which buttons would set Troy off as well. Troy wasn’t bisexual like his friend. But he wasn’t open about his sexuality either. Never had been. It was a hot topic for him because who he fucked on his own time was his own damn business as long as the other person was a consenting adult. It had little to do with being in the service and more to do with being beaten down by his asshole of a dad, but the truth remained that who he had screwed was his business. Being called out pushed him past the point where he thought Rico should go.