Carlie Simmons (Book 3): The Way Back by JT Sawyer

both men smiling at the crowd on deck below who
were raising their fists and howling.

 
    Chapter 22
    Twenty-Four Days after
Departing White Sands Military Base
    In the morning, after they had eaten
breakfast together at the antique oaken table in the dining room, Eliza was
cleaning off the utensils with a paper towel. She paused for a minute as she
put a steak knife away in the drawer and turned towards Willis, who was still
sitting at the table finishing a glass of water.
    “How do you turn it on and off?”
    “You mean my desire for you? It appears I
can’t.”
    “No, I mean your ability to, you know,
take someone’s life, and then go back to eating a sandwich or playing cards the
next day.”
    “It’s different for everyone. For me, it’s
always been about self-importance. I don’t mean that in an egotistic way. More
like, too many people in my life rely on me and me on them.” He paused and
looked out the window then back at Eliza. “In the beginning of my training, I
used to recite to myself, ‘I must win this battle,’ over and over again while
doing my moves. And then I remember the first real-world firefight I was in
after joining the Secret Service. I had all this training in firearms and combatives
and I just got pissed.” He leaned both his arms on the table and interlaced his
fingers. “I remember thinking, in between the bullets whizzing past my head,
‘how dare you come into my world and threaten everything that I love—my friends
fighting beside me, my president, my country. I will fucking destroy you.’ When
you’re that angry, your fear gets squashed and your adrenaline can be channeled
into a powerful tool for getting the job done and prevailing against
overwhelming odds.”
    Eliza paused in her work again. “Wow, I
didn’t know all you Secret Service types were so in touch with your inner
Yoda.”
    Willis laughed and leaned back. “Believe
me, this isn’t a mental space you want to dwell in for long. It’s a brief split
in your psyche where you unleash the animalistic part of the brain to quell a
violent confrontation. Like having a shotgun under your jacket that you blast
away with when things turn to shit on the street. Afterwards, you pack it
neatly back into its storage box until you need it again.”
    “It sure isn’t like I ever imagined it
would be, you know, from all the movie gunfights and zombie flicks I saw
growing up. I just hope that on this trip, we…that we…” She paused, searching
for the words. “I hope that we can just avoid any more encounters along the way
and get to Fort Lewis without having to use these skills,” she said, looking
down at the pistol on the counter beside her.
    “Me, too,” he said, standing up and
arching his back in a stretch. “But just remember those five words: ‘I must win
this battle.’”
    “Hmm, I like the other five words better: ‘I
will fucking destroy you.’”
    Willis chuckled and shook his head. “With
that fiery look in your eyes, I’d hate to be facing you when you’re really
unhinged.”
    “So what ever made you get into personal
protection work? You seem like the kind of driven, capable person who could
have pursued anything in life—why the Secret Service?”
    Willis tilted his head to the right,
pondering the question. “You know many of us agents have had this conversation
between ourselves and most of us found that we all have in common the fact that
we are the oldest amongst our siblings and it was nearly unanimous that we got
our noses broken more than once as kids fighting off the schoolyard bully. I certainly
did, sticking up for my little brothers back in Houston. My dad abandoned us
when I was six and after that life was about pure endurance and trying to watch
out for my siblings. Sometimes just walking to school was a daily survival
ordeal given the shitty neighborhood we lived in.” He rested both arms on the
table, interlacing his fingers. “Later, after I got out of the military, I
wanted