Fight By The Team (Team Fear Book 2) Read online

  Fight by the Team

  A Team Fear Novel

  Cindy Skaggs

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Excerpt from Live By The Team

  About the Author

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Cindy Skaggs. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the author: [email protected]

  Edited by Jessa Slade

  Cover design by L.J. Anderson - Mayhem Cover Creations

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition August 2016

  To Debbie, for helping me through my most terrifying days. Friendship like yours is a gift I will never forget.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the awesome people who made this book possible, especially Hannah Schrank for being the science behind my writer mind. Any errors are my own. You tried to teach me the ways of organic chemistry, but I am a Humanities major. There was only so much you could do.

  To my writing friends Beth Rhodes and Jennie Marts, you ladies made this book possible through your friendship and your persistence. To Jessa Slade, the talented editor whose work forced me to be a better writer. To L.J. Anderson, for giving me such an amazing cover design. To Karen Gault Skelly for letting me use her last name for my DB and for being my first reader for this project. To the fabulous people at the Pikes Peak Library District, especially Christine Dyar for never blinking an eye at my weird writer questions.

  And, as always, a lifetime of thanks to my children, Brianna and Noah, who support my dreams and give me the time and space to write. I am blessed and honored to be your mom.

  Prologue

  Six months ago

  No one claimed the body. Yellow crime scene tape snapped in the wind, torn and shredded like forgotten party streamers. Wood boarded the windows, blinding the house. The media disappeared to the next great American tragedy, leaving the ranch house a macabre footnote in history.

  Rose camped out for ten days in a crap motel room in the dusty Texas town, waiting to pay respects to PFC Madigan who had given his life as a sacrifice that could by no means pay penance for all he had done or that had been done to him. Ten days with the stench of the cattle awaiting slaughter and an ever-present hot wind. Ten days to consider his complicity in his teammate’s death. Ten fucking days too long. The bodies of Madigan’s wife and kid were shipped to family back East for proper burial, but they left Madigan to rot in the morgue fridge, destined for a pauper’s grave.

  Nothing about that shit was right. Rose made the calls, first to the family who didn’t want to take his call. He arranged for a simple pine box and a no-frills grave marker.

  PFC Madigan. Twenty-three years old. Husband, father, hero.

  The words he couldn’t put on the stone were longer than his arm. Warrior, rebel, man of radical action. Experiment. Soulless, hopeless, worthless. Monster. At the bottom of the stone, Madigan’s last words were etched: No fear. A fitting epitaph, more curse than blessing, the truth of their very existence.

  There was no service, no hymns, no priest to give final absolution, but when the sun reached its zenith in the blazing sky, a procession pulled through the metal arch of the country cemetery, kicking up dirt and stirring up ghosts. Eleven vehicles, eleven men, eleven experiments who had gambled their very humanity for mother Army. Four months ago, mother Army had cut them loose. Each now sported a Section Eight discharge, medically unfit for duty; and the attack on their honor and their service burned worse than the unforgiving Afghan sun from their final deployment.

  Madigan was their first casualty. A new father, Mad Dog had been angry and paranoid, unemployed, and—apparently—bat shit crazy, and only the men arriving at the cemetery understood why.

  A motorcycle roared into the lot last. Ryder was the second in command next to Captain Johnson, but the captain was MIA. Dressed in black leather, Ryder dismounted and followed the trail of silent men through the stark field of weathered headstones.

  The sun beat down like hellfire on the men of Team Fear. Rose grabbed a twelve-pack of near-beer from the cooler in the back of his pickup and walked to the rectangle of freshly turned earth. The heat index was high enough to make his eyeballs sweat. He swiped it away and tossed a frosty beer to the men as they arrived to circle the grave. They twisted the caps off, the hiss of released pressure sending chills across overheated skin.

  “To Mad Dog.” They lifted their bottles in silent salute, sharing one last drink with their fallen brother. Across the grave, Gault’s eyes tightened. Rose lifted his eyes to the sky to avoid meeting Gault’s gaze, to avoid the shame hiding there. They’d failed Mad Dog. They’d failed the team. Rose swallowed the beer, washing away the bitter taste of regret. Sweat dripped down, stinging and making his eyes water. When he finished, he swapped his empty for the last full bottle in the twelve-pack. He twisted the lid before pouring it over the grave.

  “Never did get a taste for this crap.” Santiago’s dark eyes hid behind black shades. “Miss the real thing.”

  Nods of assent from the men. Craft, a tall, agitated man still dressed in camo—still a warrior—tossed his empty into the box with a clatter. He pulled a fifth of whiskey from a pocket.

  “Stand down.” Ryder stepped toward the booze like it was the enemy.

  “Back off, brother.” Craft turned his upper body away and twisted the cap. “It’s not for us. For Mad Dog.” The earth drank the whiskey, leaving the soil barely damp. “I figure he’s gone, he may as well enjoy the real deal.”

  “Damn straight.” Gault gave him a quick fist bump. “You buy the shit we read in the paper? That Mad Dog went all Kandahar on his family?”

  Rose pressed his thumbs against his eyes, rubbed deep to push back the memory. “Saw it myself.” The image from the upstairs haunted him. Some things you couldn’t unsee. Blood had washed the walls. Maggie’s dead eyes stared sightlessly. Rose’s sister Camy was the same age, and the comparison did little to help Rose sleep at night. Protection was his default, and he hadn’t been able to protect Maggie Madigan whose life had been cut short because some Department of Defense scientist was playing God.

  The drug protocol they had volunteered for had turned Madigan rabid, had made it possible for him to kill those he loved. If Madigan flipped his lid, the drugs could alter any of the men standing in the miserable Texas heat, including Rose. “It happened.”

  “Saw Mad Dog pull the trigger.” Ryder squinted against the sun’s glare. “We all know why he did it. He couldn’t live with what he’d done.”

  “Fuck this
shit.” Stills tossed his beer bottle at the empty twelve-pack. It landed against the others with a clatter. “Fuck this morbid shit. I’m remembering Mad Dog plotting to kill Craft after the skunk sprayed him. The man had a plan.”

  “Only way to get rid of eau de skunk was to bury the body,” Fowler added.

  Craft choked out a laugh. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Santiago’s lips twisted into a smile. “Mad Dog was extreme.”

  The men broke into small groups, telling Mad Dog stories while ants crawled through the dried-up river of whiskey. Rose stood at parade rest next to the grave, listening to the stories and trying to reconcile the man he called brother with the carnage he’d seen in the upstairs bedroom. He wanted the shadow of doubt the others clung to, but he’d seen the evidence. From that moment, he’d wondered who was next. Which one of the men talking trash would lose their sanity and destroy someone they loved? By accident. Rose had to believe Madigan hadn’t wanted to kill Maggie and the baby. He sure as shit meant to kill himself.

  According to Ryder, Madigan had been rambling. Afraid. Ryder had said Mad Dog was shaking with fear, which made no damn sense. No fear wasn’t a motto. They were medically enhanced to prevent excitability. The day it happened, something in Madigan’s eyes had shifted. He’d been fully aware when he’d pulled the trigger.

  Santiago was the first to depart. “Long drive home.” He twirled his keys around one finger, the nervous movement belying his easy demeanor. “Any of you assholes need me, call.”

  “Live by the team, die by the team.” Ryder shrugged his shoulders as the weight bearing down on him settled into place. “You need help, we’re there. Every last man.”

  Gault’s fierce determination creased grooves in his square face. “We’re not losing another teammate.”

  “Hooah,” the soldiers agreed. Numbers were shared before the men retreated to their vehicles. Finally only Rose and Ryder remained at the graveside. “What happened to your car?”

  “Sold it.” Ryder rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Sports car attracted too much attention. I figure we’ve done enough of that already.”

  The words lifted the hair on the back of his neck. Ryder had a habit of keeping information to himself. “Something you want to share with the rest of the class?”

  Ryder glared at the flat horizon. “Not a thing. Just watch your back.”

  “Right.” They’d been through hell together. Rose knew Ryder’s tells. “You’re about to do something stupid.”

  “I’m not about to follow Mad Dog into the great big PX in the sky if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That leaves a host of dumbass moves wide open.”

  Ryder pulled sunglasses from an interior pocket of his jacket and put them on before turning to shake Rose’s hand. “Watch your fives and twenty-fives.”

  The second reminder to watch his back rubbed him wrong. Rose pulled Ryder in for a shoulder bump. “Stay frosty.”

  With a last clap on Rose’s back, Ryder took the nearest exit, the roar of his motorcycle lasting long after he’d disappeared down the dirt road. The dust settled, the sound faded, yet Rose couldn’t leave Mad Dog to the ants and the Texas heat.

  A calm akin to that of the Tomb of the Unknown settled over the cemetery. The silence, the stillness, the sacredness were like that tomb, but Madigan’s grave was a forgotten, shameful secret. There were no soldiers keeping silent vigil. No public rituals. Rose stood sentry for several quiet minutes, acknowledging what his teammates could not. They were all destined for a plain pine box.

  Rose choked down a lungful of oppressive air. He’d fight the slide into inhumanity as long as he had fight left, but when the time came, he’d end himself before he took any innocents with him. That was his sacred vow.

  He had family to protect. Iowa was a long-assed drive away, but after nearly two weeks in the miserable Texas heat, Rose needed to check on his mother and sisters. He needed to eliminate the memory of Maggie’s dead eyes. Go home, he thought, make sure life went on despite the crap in his head, and then it was time to settle his affairs. Protect what was his. Friends from back home could keep his sisters safe if anything happened to him, if he needed to go underground or worse. He didn’t have much time before he was called back to the team.

  Determined, he marched back to his truck. Whatever Ryder wasn’t telling him was big and it involved the experiments. It involved Team Fear. They were out of the Army and out of the experimental program that had failed. They were no longer soldiers. No longer whole. They were the walking wounded, each and every man. Mad Dog was the tip of spear.

  Time could not heal all wounds.

  Chapter One

  Present day.

  Debi tiptoed across the rough carpet with her boots in one hand and car keys in the other, searching for the exit in the dark. A slim line of light signaled the door in the no-tell motel where they were staying. She reached for the doorknob and hit solid mass.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” The deep male voice zipped out like a Taser, striking her chest and spiking her nerves.

  “Crap.” She stumbled back, tripped over a dining chair, and landed on her ass. Pain shot up her spine, and then a dull throbbing started where her backside hit the concrete floor. The anemic carpet did nothing to break the fall. “You scared the crap out of me.” The man shouldn’t move without a whisper of sound. He was built like a Humvee, so he ought to make some freaking noise. She put a hand to her heart to soothe the raging panic that threatened to burst the erratic organ from her chest. “What are you doing, sneaking around this time of night?” She had no idea what time it was.

  “Could ask you the same thing.”

  “I wasn’t—” She cut herself short. Honesty, she owed him as much honesty as she could afford. “Of course I was sneaking around.” Why else get dressed in the dark? “As much as I enjoy your protection services, a girl needs time alone.” The truth was a little more mortifying than that.

  Rose flipped a switch and one of the side lamps turned on. The light stinging her eyes, so she blinked away the pain. When her vision cleared, she saw the most ripped human being she ever laid eyes on. Abs and biceps and whatever the hell was not so discreetly hidden in his boxer shorts. All of it hard-packed flesh. Male perfection. That right there was why she needed out. Twenty-four/seven with a man built like Thor made her as anxious as a horse at the starting gate. She had to get away or jump his muscular ass, and as fun as that sounded, adding sex to the wreck of the last week was a seriously bad idea.

  They were on the run from a rogue military group who wanted to eliminate Rose and the rest of his former Special Forces team. For all anyone in their cozy little group knew, Debi was collateral damage in a fight that had nothing to do with her, but the psycho from Team Echo had said Debi knew more than she let on, which was scary true. The stress of it had her jonesing for a nicotine fix, and she really didn’t want the beautiful man in front of her watching her suck poison into her lungs.

  “Help me up.” She lifted a hand and Rose yanked. The man didn’t know his own strength so he nearly lifted her off her feet. She landed against his chest. Solid contact, and God help her, the man was built. She swallowed and stepped away from his tempting flesh.

  The team had three rooms down one side of the dusty motel. Debi’s best friend Lauren and her husband Ryder had one room, the soldiers in one, and Debi in the middle with the bodily perfection of Sergeant Rose as a bodyguard. He was the kind of soldier who made you want to enlist in whatever games he wanted to play. He turned to double check the locks, exposing the shadow of a drawing. The tattoo was the last thing she needed to see. Tattoos and muscles were as far from academic as she could get. Rose turned to face her, a look of disapproval flexing in his strong jaw.

  It was time to put some serious space between her lusty thoughts and the ginormous tattooed man in front of her. He stood as the perfect foil to her ex. Damnit all to hell. On the run was not the time for f
un and games. “I really need to get out on my own.” Her voice came out breathy. A pulse jumped in her neck.

  “If you need feminine products, I don’t mind running to the store, but you’re not going out alone.”

  Heat burned her neck and face. The big guy was offering to buy tampons. Good God. She couldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she turned and yanked the covers over her tangled sheets. As accommodating as he was, good money said he would draw the line at making a cigarette run. The clock showed it was shortly before sunrise. She’d never get to sleep now, not that she’d gotten much since the run-in with the men from Echo. “I don’t need any help in that department, thanks.”

  “We’re not sending a woman out alone.” Rose walked around and straightened the covers on the other side of the bed. Half-naked man, tangled sheets, and crazy chemistry. A flush simmered under her skin, and it had nothing to do with embarrassment. She needed sex or a smoke, and right now, the cigarette was less dangerous.

  “Relax, Rosie.” The silly nickname helped put emotional distance between them, because they were squared off on opposite sides of the bed and her imagination had her bridging that gap. “I’m not going to chase down the psychos from Echo on my own. I just...” The quiver in her voice pissed her off. She fluffed a pillow and slammed it against the faux wood headboard. “Need. Out.”

  He stared at her like he saw straight to her soul. “Explain.” He sat on the poorly made bed, his blue and green boxers clashing with the orange bedspread.

  She tried to keep her gaze above his shoulders. Tried. Really hard. “I’m not used to so many people in my space.” She paced away to keep her wandering eyes from seeing more than she should. Her fantasies were realistic enough without all the details fleshed out. “I have zero time or space to myself. I’m not the kind of girl who stays home all the time. I’m out, doing things. I have a business—” She cut herself off to reorganize her thoughts. “I have business to take care of, and I can’t simply walk away from my responsibilities. There’s food in the fridge at the ranch that’s going to rot, I have a job and a life, and sitting in this tiny room, listening to you guys plot strategy has me one step from turning into a raging witch.” Too many unfiltered words spilled from her mouth.