The sun was lower now, painting the Virginia sky in bruised purples and oranges, but the party showed no signs of slowing down. If anything, the alcohol had turned up the volume. The air was thick with the smell of cheap cologne mixed with barbecue smoke, a combination that was starting to give me a headache behind my eyes.
I was leaning against the railing of the deck, swirling the melting ice in my cup of water, trying to blend into the woodwork. It was a skill I had perfected over years of undercover work. Becoming gray, becoming forgettable.
But forgettable wasn’t on Kyle’s agenda today. He spotted me from across the patio. I saw his eyes lock onto me, glossy and slightly unfocused from his fourth or maybe fifth Bud Light.
He grinned, a predator who had just spotted a limping gazelle, and started weaving through the crowd toward me. “Hey, there she is.” Kyle bellowed, slinging an arm around my shoulders. His weight was heavy, oppressive, and he smelled like stale hops and sweat.
The family’s very own paper pusher. He squeezed my shoulder hard, his fingers digging into the muscle. I didn’t flinch.
I just stood there letting him play his game. So, Shiloh, he slurred slightly, leaning in close, his breath hot on my face. I was just telling Uncle Bob about the difference between us real warriors and the pogies.
You know what a pog is, right? I knew exactly what it meant. Person other than grunt.
It was the derogatory term infantry men used for anyone who wasn’t on the front lines. Cooks, mechanics, administrative clerks. In his eyes, that’s all I was.
A pog. A fobbit who never left the safety of the forward operating base. I’ve heard the term, I said evenly, taking a sip of my water.
Yeah, well, you’re the definition of it. Kyle laughed, looking around for an audience. Aunt Sarah and Uncle Bob were chuckling, eager to be part of the joke.
See, while guys like me are out there, you know, Oscar Mike, that means on the mission, by the way. You guys are just sitting back enjoying the Wi-Fi and the chow hall. My eye twitched just once.
Oscar Mike meant on the move. It came from the phonetic alphabet. O for Oscar, M for Mike.
It didn’t mean on the mission. Any boot fresh out of training should know that. But here he was butchering the lingo to impress civilians who didn’t know a rifle from a rake.
Sounds intense, Kyle. I said, my voice flat. Intense?
You have no idea, he scoffed, puffing out his chest. You have to have your head on a swivel. Constant vigilance.
You never know where the threat is coming from. Constant vigilance. I looked at him, really looked at him, and in that moment, the cousin I had grown up with vanished.
In his place was a tactical problem, a threat assessment. My brain switched gears effortlessly, slipping into the cold, analytical mode that had kept me alive in places Kyle couldn’t find on a map. Target male approx.
180 lbs. intoxicated. Balance compromised.
I scanned his stance. He was leaning heavily on his left leg. His right foot crossed over his ankle in a casual arrogant pose.
If I were to sweep his left knee, just a quick sharp kick to the paranal nerve, he would drop like a sack of cement. Defense zero. His hands were occupied, one holding a beer, the other gesturing wildly in the air.
His chin was jutting out, completely exposed. His jugular vein was pulsing beneath the skin of his neck. A perfect inviting target.
Analysis: Amateur. If this were a bar in Kandahar or a back alley in Beirut, he wouldn’t have lasted 10 seconds. He had no situational awareness.
He had let an enemy, me, get within striking distance without assessing my hands or my posture. He was loud. He was visible.
He was a walking casualty. If this was a war zone, Kyle, I thought, the words echoing loudly in my skull. You’d be dead 10 times over before you even dropped your beer.
You listening to me, Shiloh? Kyle poked me in the chest with a finger. I said you wouldn’t last a day in my boots.
The poke was the trigger. It was a small physical aggression, harmless in a family setting. But my body didn’t know we were at a barbecue.
My body remembered the rules of engagement. Contact front. React.
For a split second, the world slowed down. My hand tightened around the plastic cup of ice water. The plastic crunched loudly, buckling under the sudden pressure of my grip.
My knuckles turned white. Every fiber of my muscle memory screamed at me to move. Step in, trap the arm, strike the throat, neutralize.
It would take less than two seconds. I could envision it perfectly. The look of shock on his face as his airway collapsed, the sound of the beer can hitting the patio pavers, the silence that would follow.
I took a sharp breath, forcing the violence back down into the dark box where I kept it. I released the tension in my hand, though the cup was now permanently deformed. “I’m listening, Kyle,” I said.
my voice barely a whisper. I’m just taking it all in. From the corner of my eye, I saw movement.
Grandpa Jim. He was still in his lawn chair under the oak tree, but he was no longer looking at the grill. He was looking directly at me.
His eyes, usually clouded with age, were sharp and clear. He wasn’t looking at my face. He was looking at my hands.
He saw the crushed cup. He saw the shift in my stance. The way I had subtly bladed my body away from Kyle, protecting my center line, ready to strike.
He knew. He gave me a nearly imperceptible nod. A soldier’s nod.
Stand down, Marine. Not here. Not yet.
The connection broke as Kyle let out a loud belch, slapping his stomach. Anyway, he announced, “Bored with tormenting me since I wasn’t fighting back. I need a refill.
The civilian beer goes down like water. You want anything, Pog? Are you good with your whatever that is?
I’m good, I said. He rolled his eyes, turning his back on me completely. Another tactical error, and sauntered off toward the cooler, shouting for Uncle Bob to toss him a cold one.
I let out a long, shaky exhale. The adrenaline was still humming in my veins, a low voltage buzz that made my fingertips tingle. I looked down at the mangled cup in my hand.
Ice water dripped onto my shoes, cold and sobering. I had been tested and I had held the line. But as I watched Kyle high-five another relative, laughing at some joke I couldn’t hear, I realized something terrifying.
The restraint was fraying. The mask was slipping. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could play the part of the meek, useless cousin.
Not when the hero was begging to be taught a lesson. I tossed the ruined cup into the trash can. It hit the bottom with a hollow thud.
One more hour, I told myself. Just survive one more hour. But the sun was setting and the shadows were getting longer.
And in the dark, monsters tend to come out to play. I just hoped Kyle realized before it was too late that he wasn’t the monster in this story. He was the prey.
The shadows under the oak tree were deep and cool, a sanctuary from the glaring artificial lights that had just flickered on around the patio. Kyle had wandered back over, drawn not by interest, but by the need to have an audience for his beerfueled bravado. He stood swaying slightly, holding a fresh can of Bud Light, looking down at Grandpa Jim.
“So, Grandpa?” Kyle slurred, his voice too loud for the quiet corner of the yard. “You were in Nom, right? That must have been wild.
Lot of action, like full metal jacket style. He grinned, expecting a war story full of explosions and heroism, something that would validate his own fantasies of combat. Grandpa Jim didn’t look up immediately.
He took a slow drag from a cigarette he wasn’t supposed to be smoking, doctor’s orders, and exhaled a thin stream of blue smoke into the humid air. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded like tires crunching on gravel. “It wasn’t a movie, son,” Jim said softly.
“It was wet. It rained for 3 weeks straight in ‘ 68. Your boots rotted on your feet.
You didn’t see the enemy. You just heard the jungle moving. And you smelled it.
The rot. The damp
