Read The Debt 8 (Club Alpha) for Free Online Page B

couldn’t
possibly give a shit at this point.”
    Somehow, this admission seemed to take
the steam out of Jake’s anger, and he sat back in his chair.   “You’re upset about Afghanistan,” Jake
said.   “You still hanging onto that
crap?   Is that it?”
    Kurt slid back suddenly, his eyes wide,
his gaze wild.   “I told you to let
me go!” he shouted.
    Raven backed away, frightened at the
abrupt change in demeanor.   But Jake
was unafraid.   He sat there, unmoved
by his friend’s theatrics.   “I
wasn’t going to let you go AWOL, asshole.   You would’ve ended up in military prison.”
    Kurt let out a cackling laugh and looked
up at the ceiling.   “Good old Jake
Novak strikes again.   You always did
think you knew what was best for everyone else.   Meanwhile, you couldn’t find your own
way out of a shoe box.”
    “Is that so?”
    “Yeah,” Kurt said, his gaze meeting
Jake’s, challenging him.   Suddenly
Kurt looked all too sober.   Sober and angry.   But then Raven saw that his jaw was trembling and his eyes were
wet.   “I looked after you when you
came back,” Kurt said, his voice breaking.   “I was the one who told you about Peyton, showed you that she was no
good for you.   And I was the one who
encouraged the music, said you should go for it, that your songs were good
enough to make a career out of it.”
    Jake threw up his hands.   “Yeah, so I made you my manager.   I paid you back tenfold.   I don’t owe you a thing.”
    Kurt looked down, his tongue probing the
inside of his mouth like it was trying to find a way out.   “You should’ve let me leave when I tried
to escape.   I knew what the price
was for getting caught.   But I
needed out.   I needed out because I
couldn’t hack the shit.”
    Jake shook his head.   “That wasn’t going to happen and I won’t
apologize for trying to protect you from yourself.”
    “Protect me?” Kurt laughed.   He stood up, waving his arms like a
crazy conductor.   “Protect me, he
says.”   Kurt looked at Raven.   “I bet he never told you what we did out
there.   I bet he didn’t tell you how
we killed those people—“
    Now Jake stood up, his chair falling to
its side.   “Shut up, Kurt.”
    “I thought you said she could hear
anything I had to say to you,” his friend laughed.   “More bullshit from the master of
manure.”
    Jake darted forward and grabbed Kurt by the
front of his shirt and cocked his arm back.
    “Don’t hit him!” Raven screamed, running
forward and trying to pull Jake off.   She instantly saw how impossible it was.   Jake was like iron, immovable, and far stronger than her.   She couldn’t have held him back if
there’d been fifty of her.
    But he did listen to her.   At the last moment, Jake lowered his
fist.   Kurt seemed almost
disappointed.  
    And then, surprisingly, Jake’s
ex-military friend who’d been so cold and cruel to Raven, began balling like a child.   Tears
poured down his face and his entire body started to shake.   “Why couldn’t you let me leave?” he
sobbed.  
    “Because,” Jake said.   “I just couldn’t.”
    “I’ll never be the same,” Kurt roared,
but there was no anger left in him.   He was broken.   “I can’t ever
forget the things I did, the things I saw.”
    “We all have to live with what we did,”
Jake said softly.
    Kurt broke down, literally falling to the
floor, and wept into his hands.  
    “What happened to you out there?” Raven
asked, unable to keep her thoughts to herself.
    Jake turned and looked at her with eyes
that were haunted.   “You don’t want
to know.   You truly don’t want to
know.”   Then he knelt down next to
his friend and began consoling him quietly, whispering, talking to him.
    Raven knew that she was witnessing
something very few people would see in their lives.   They were two combat veterans who’d seen
too much, and normally they wouldn’t allow a civilian to intrude on their
private