Merciless Ride Read Online Free

look over at my long-time friend as he gives me a shit-eating grin. I shake my head at him.  
    “Come on, man, that’s fine pussy right there.” He turns the truck around and drives away from Tessie’s place.  
    “Boomer, don’t even go there. She’s going through some shit. She needs a friend.”  
    “It’s been fuckin’ years since Tracie. Let go of the regrets, man.”  
    “Fuck off, Boomer.” My tone is sharp enough he knows to drop the subject of my own sorted past.  
    My past. My regrets. The ghost that holds me back. Tessie should know it’s not in her best interest to be my friend. This was a bad idea. I will see it through, get her car safe, and slip her some money. But she is right; we don’t need to be friends. Tessie needs a good man and good friends, not the black soul I am. I’m poison. I’m a plague to everything I touch. How could I let myself forget it for even one moment?  
    Tracie’s final words haunt me.  
    “It’s you, Andy. You carry the darkness of death with you from the war. You’re a trained killer. That’s what they’ve done to you. The man I once knew and loved is now a long lost memory. You keep telling me it’s service to my country. No, you’re tainted, Andy. You’re a killer and you’ve killed us. I can’t take it anymore—what could’ve been. It’s now my blood on your hands, too.”  
    I rub my hands over my face as the final shot rings out through my head. Her blood covered me both inside and out.  
    After serving my country for nine years in the Army, after selection and training with Special Forces and getting my green beret, my first love couldn’t stand to even look at me. The elite, the badass, the sniper, I came home from training, from deployments, from war to my girl’s shame in what I had become. It was all too much to bear. The deployments, my nightmares, her knowing what I sometimes had to do without really knowing.  
    Even though I never told her anything, she made her assumptions. In the end, she took her own life right in front of me. I couldn’t save her.  
    She was the girl next door, literally—my neighbor growing up. High school sweethearts, everyone planned out our lives for us in a way. Only, I joined the Army rather than working in her dad’s garage. I took the path less traveled. I did the unexpected. I changed the plan and forced her along for the ride.  
    She couldn’t handle the separation. All that time apart, she was left wondering where I was, if I was safe; all while I was riding an adrenaline high and running off the pride of serving my country. Nothing gained ever comes without sacrifice. My sacrifice in not settling down and having kids for my choice to serve my nation. The cost was much too high for Tracie, a payment she never signed on for. I was trained. I was equipped with tools and coping skills. She was not. She suffered alone. The darkness consumed her until it was all too much to take for even another breath.  
    The thing is, if she had never met me she would still be alive with two point five kids and a house with a white picket fence: the American dream. That’s all she ever wanted. I took it all from her, crushed her dreams and took her life.  
    Momentarily, I let Tessie’s situation cloud my judgment. I was wrong; I can’t be her friend. No, I will help her, but then I need to walk away. Rex will eventually stop chasing tail and step up to be there for her. Besides, she’s got Doll and Tripp for friends. She certainly doesn’t need me and my baggage.  
     
     

 
     
    Life  
     
     
     
    Another day, another dollar, or at least, that is what I keep telling myself. One day, I will have a regular nine to five job. One day, I will pick Axel up from school, do his homework and have dinner with him, give him a bath, and then settle in for bedtime snuggles. One day, I won’t get up from putting him to bed to leave for work. No, one day, I will be able to go from tucking my son in for sleep and