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Trent had saved his life, then gotten himself blown up.
Hunter’s thoughts raced. He was bomb squad. He should have seen the trip wires surrounding the area. He should have cleared them out or marked them. That washisjob.
And lack of doing his job had resulted in his brother dying.
It was his fault. His brother’s blood was on him.
A deep ache filled him, and he rocked himself back and forth. No. Trent couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be. Hunter wanted to beat the tar out of him for leaving. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, rocking and moaning, but suddenly a heavenly image struck him—his parents welcoming Trent into their arms. It stopped his manic thoughts because he knew that wasn't an image he would have conjured on his own.
He sat up, rubbing a hand over his face in confusion. “Trent?”
A wave of warmth washed over his body, and he suddenly felt ensconced by the presence of his mother. He was overwhelmed by the sudden feeling of love and peace.
“Mama?” he whispered, somehow not surprised that she would be with him. He reached for the hand he swore he could feel on his shoulder.
Then the warmth was gone. The ache was back, but it didn’t hurt as much.
Hunter opened his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Now he felt the strength of his father. That little pat on the shoulder and “pick yourself up, little camper” kind of push.
Roughly, he stood, then bent and picked up his gun, turning on the safety and holstering it. “You can’t be gone,” he said to his brother, whom he knew must be there if his parents were.
Another surge of warmth hit the center of his chest, and he was sure his brother was listening. His eyes filled with tears, and he took off out of the room and down the stairs.
“And I’m still pissed at you for leaving me, bro.”
He rushed out of the lighthouse and back toward the caves, seething. Was he “emotionally okay” for active duty? He’d kept his face stony and given the answer that every SEAL always gave: yes.
He cursed again and again. What did they want him to say?
It had always been the biggest joke among the SEALs, among his friends, that the Navy had the best dang psychiatric help in the world, yet no one used it. After big ops, they got sent to Switzerland, and they’d sit around this place in the mountains where they would talk about theirfeelings. The tricky little thing was that if you said you had a problem, you weren’tfitfor active duty.
It was a nice little catch-22. A nice little “eat of the fruit in the garden and then be cast out” situation. You could never have a problem. So instead, SEALs used dark humor and a lot of medication to cope.
Trent used to joke that his fear wasn’t the enemy; his fear was that he wouldn’t be able to get his hands on another sleeping pill. Hunter had always been so judgy of Trent for that. He’d always prided himself on not using medication to deal with his problems, never using alcohol or smoking or doing any kind of drugs. Of course, this had always been a point of tension between Hunter and Trent. Trent called him the “good boy.”
Hunter clenched his hand into a fist and yearned to clock his brother. Dang him. Why did his brother get to be the first one to go? They’d always darkly joked that they had to go together, because they were twins and that’s what twins did: they entered the world together and they would leave the world together.
He thought of the gun he’d put in his mouth. He wished he could have pulled the trigger, but … he knew better than that. He thought of something his father used to tell them about death: “God put you on the earth, and God gets to decide when you leave the earth.”
His father was famous for his Stone family lectures. He had been a larger-than-life man, but he had always remained steady to a principle that was simple: God, country, and family, in that order. He didn’t trifle with questions like why this or why that. His answer was always “Because God made it that way. Because God put you on this earth.” And then he would ask their mother to quote a scripture to back him up.
His mother would always have one, too.
Thinking about his mother gave him some comfort. She had always sat patiently at his father’s side while he lectured. Often, when the kids were young, she would hold one of them, or she would sit on the floor with them and scratch their backs or arms. It was kind of like being in church, except you didn’t know how long the lecture would take.
That was also a source of many jokes. Since Hunter and Trent were the youngest, they would get in the most trouble when they were disruptive during one of the lectures. They’d always joked about it and made fun of it.
Now, those lectures felt important, especially the one about when life ended.
“Thanks, Dad,” Hunter whispered, his mind clearing.
Kensi had recently been putting together the Stone Family Lecture Series, a little thing that had started as a funny project but turned into a more important legacy series, as Trey liked to call it. Kensi had written things down as best as she could remember, and then they’d all added to what they remembered of each lecture.
Once, Hunter’s father had been so angry with him and Trent for messing around during his lecture. Since they had wasted the family’s time, after the lecture they had to stand in the corner and face the wall for twenty minutes. Hunter had been devastated by the punishment, but Trent had just placed an arm around Hunter’s shoulders and told him that getting punished together would just give them more time together anyway.
Unfortunately, it had been kind of a theme in their lives. Hunter tried to be careful and never get in trouble, but if Trent was taking heat, Hunter would take it with him, just because that’s what he felt should happen.
