With an icy tone, my father cut Kael off before he could finish. “You’ve already overstayed your welcome, Martin. She’s my daughter, and I don’t need you to speak to her. Karina, we can discuss this when he leaves—which will be now.”
“No one is leaving until I get an answer,” I snapped at my dad. My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking. “This is my house.” I wasn’t sure if I was telling them or reminding myself.
My father’s eyes bore into Kael’s. “You’re so close to that medical discharge you want. And if you don’t watch it, we’ll all be fucked! Your career will end before you even leave Fort Benning. What are you going to do with a dishonorable discharge, boy?”
“I’m not your fucking boy. And I’m not fucking afraid of you.” Kael stood, his back straight while talking to my father. It shocked and impressed me. “There’s nothing else you can do to me, or to Mendoza, to any of us.”
“And how much blood is on your hands, Sergeant Martin?” My dad growled at him before turning to me. “Did he tell you he’s on the verge of getting himself a dishonorable discharge? What kind of future would you have with him, Karina?”
Kael’s attention was on me, and his eyes were glassy like he was holding back tears of anger. “It’s him, Karina. He’s a senile narcissist who has convinced himself he’s some sort of god and he’s nothing.” Kael’s veil of composure was gone.
I stood there between them as their truths swirled around me, trying to stick.
“Are you denying that you came into my office, shivering, your leg all bandaged, and signed your name on the bottom of that page, Martin? You signed official documents, you even got a promotion after that. You signed it. Mendoza signed it. Lawson signed it. All of you! And now you decide, almost two years later, to come back and try to backtrack?”
My dad was in full-on officer mode. It was sickening to watch the way he knew just how to warp the tone of his voice to whip soldiers into submission, like he sometimes did with Austin and me.
Kael spoke in a detached, steely voice. “He was sent into the wrong house. Shots were fired at him because no one did a proper surveillance. You know that you neglected your command, keeping yourself entertained back at camp while Mendoza, Lawson, and I went in. He didn’t know who was inside when he fired!”
“Soldiers and civilians die, on and off the battlefield. It’s a part of the job. It’s what you signed up for. I’m sorry this happened to your friend. At least he’s still alive, unlike most of mine.”
In this moment I saw clear as day why my mom grew to hate the man standing in front of me. His skin was ashy and fell in loose folds around his jaw. That, combined with his shock of white hair, made him look like the ultimate villain. Like the kind of man who conjured up demons or ate children alive. Compared to him, Kael looked wounded and hurt, more hero than antihero. He looked no older than eighteen.
“I did what I had to do to help you, all of you.” My dad pointed an accusing finger at Kael. “I watched you pull a body into camp, barely able to walk yourself. I did what I believed to be right, and I have a hell of a lot more experience with this than you do.”
“You were protecting your own position! You didn’t give a fuck about us or our lives! You only cared about your retirement and not jeopardizing your legacy,” Kael snarled at my dad. “Tell your daughter how you used the lives of young men and women to get promotions and medals. Tell her how you constantly threatened us, making sure we never so much as whispered your name. My fucking friend is losing his mind over the guilt and he can’t even talk to anyone about it.” Kael stepped toward my dad. They were now to face-to-face.
“Are you hearing yourself, Martin? You’re a soldier. I’m a soldier. We’ve seen and done things most people can’t dream of. If you’re haunted by what you’ve done, you’re a piss-poor excuse for a man.”
Kael stood silent as my father continued his demeaning rant.
“You know what will really haunt both of you? If he can’t feed his family and has no paycheck, no healthcare, nothing. That’s haunting.” My dad’s thick finger pressed against Kael’s chest. I took a sharp breath, Kael didn’t react. “You really want to get back at me, Martin? Sleeping with my daughter isn’t the way to provoke me.”
Kael didn’t flinch, but my nerves and anger erupted.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I exploded. “You don’t know anything about us or what we’re doing!” My dad had the nerve to slap us both with an accusation that wasn’t even true.
“This is bigger than whatever childish game you two are playing, Karina. This man can’t be trusted. He’s an unreliable liar. He’s put people in danger, real danger—you and your brother should keep your distance.”
My dad’s golf shirt was pulling, untucking from his jeans, and his skin was red, all blotchy. Like a liar, or an innocent man on trial. I couldn’t tell. Like my mom said, there’s always more than one lie for every truth. I looked at Kael again.
“At this point you don’t even care, do you, Martin? You have your bags all packed to move up to Atlanta and, what, are you going to take my daughter with you?” He laughed, then continued, “I know you bought a house there. Word travels fast around here. You know that better than most.”
Words burned in my throat, failing to escape. There was no way that what my dad was saying was true.
“You bought a place in Atlanta?” I turned to Kael, but he was speechless, and my confusion turned into devastation. “Did you?”
I couldn’t hide my shock as he nodded.
“When were you going to tell me?”
I wanted to touch his face and turn his cheek toward me so he would have to face me, but I was too stunned to move.
“You knew I was leaving,” he said simply, as if we were discussing what to eat for dinner. His jaw was clenched, but his mouth was flat, nothing to read. I couldn’t tell if he was putting on a show for my father, acting like he didn’t give a shit about me, or if he just really didn’t. He was just the other day offering to take me to his place, here in town. Not in fucking Atlanta. I hated being gaslit. But I wasn’t even sure that’s what Kael was doing, since there was zero emotion is his eyes; he didn’t even care enough to manipulate me.
“That doesn’t answer my question, Kael. When are you going?”
“Soon.” He barely spoke.
I couldn’t breathe, but managed to ask, “When?”
“Not soon enough,” my dad replied for him.
I couldn’t look away from Kael, not even to tell my dad to shut the fuck up. When I searched Kael’s eyes, I couldn’t find what I was looking for. I couldn’t find anything.
I felt my anger too intensely to control it. I needed a reaction from him, so I pushed against his chest, but his body didn’t move at all. Even the way the fabric of his uniform felt against my palms triggered me. The green and tan had always been an omen to the bad shit in my life.
I pushed Kael’s chest again. I needed reassurance that the person I’d come to know was in there somewhere, that I hadn’t invented this. As my hands touched his chest, his grasped for mine, latching on to my wrists.