Conflicted Home (The Survivalist Book 9) A American (fun to read .TXT) 📖

She then looked at Ian and smiled. “Try not to kill yourself with those doughnuts.”

Ian just looked down at his cup, afraid to make eye contact with her because Jamie was burning a hole through the woman’s head. “Nice chatting with you,” he replied.

She didn’t say anything to Jamie and Jamie made no attempt to speak either. Once she was out the door, I said, “Well that was fucking awkward.” Looking back and forth at them, I added, “Why don’t you two go somewhere and have make-up sex now. It’ll make the ride back a lot less tense.” I knew Jamie hated that kind of thing and I was really, really hoping Ian would take the bait. But he just looked into his cup, even as Jamie stole a glance at him.

“Fuck you, Morgan,” Jamie replied as she got up to refill her cup.

Ian chanced a glance at her and said, “Come on, man. Don’t say shit like that.”

I laughed, rocking my head back as I did. “Look at your whipped ass!”

I didn’t see Jamie was returning. I only realized something was up when I noticed Ian look past me. Just as Jamie slapped me in the back of the head. “Mind your manners, asshole.”

Rubbing the back of my head, I laughed. “Yes ma’am,” I replied.

We spent another couple of hours in the breakroom drinking coffee, as none of us could stomach another doughnut. At the moment, I couldn’t face the thought of eating another one. Ian went to a corner of the room and stretched out on the floor to sleep. Jamie waited a little before finally joining. I smiled when she lay beside him and he put his arm around her. Since they were going to snooze, I pulled a chair over to the wall and rocked it onto its back legs, folded my arms over my chest and dozed off.

There is no way I would put myself in such a vulnerable position if the old man were around. But he wasn’t, and I thought I was safe. Fat chance. I woke up when the chair slid out from under me. I was on my back before I opened my eyes. When I did, I was looking up at the old man and Dalton. Sarge was looking down, shaking his head. He held a coffee cup in one hand and a doughnut in the other. Dalton stood beside him with a doughnut on each finger like a fat doughy ring.

Rubbing the back of my head as I got up, I said, “You really are an asshole.”

“You make a shitty Indian. You know that?” Sarge replied.

Still rubbing my head, I said, “What?”

“Can’t sneak up on an Indian.”

“I’m not a fucking Indian!”

Sarge laughed. “I know you’re not. Just told you.”

Mike and Ted walked in and Mike’s eyes went wide when he saw Dalton with the pastries.

“Dude! I want one!” Mike shouted.

Dalton looked at the doughnuts and licked the one on his middle finger before extending it to Mike. “You can have this one.”

Mike didn’t hesitate. He snatched it from Dalton’s finger and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. “Try me again,” he mumbled with a full mouth.

Meanwhile, Ted had fixed himself a cup of coffee and was leaning against the counter eating one himself. When Mike looked at him, he said, “You could have just got one from the box.”

Looking past Dalton and seeing the box, Mike pushed him out of the way and rushed it. He stuffed two into his mouth and started stuffing them in his dump pouch.

“What the hell do you want?” I asked Sarge.

“Can you drive a tractor trailer?”

“Yeah. Why?”

He nodded. “Good. You’re going to drive a truck pulling a trailer. Come on, I’ll take you over to it.”

I nodded at the door into the warehouse and asked, “What about this stuff?”

The old man pointed at Ian and Jamie sleeping in the corner and replied, “They’ll get it. Come on, we need to go get this truck.”

I followed him out into the warehouse. The truck was being loaded and looked to be nearly to capacity. The trailer was also being loaded. I don’t how much of my Christmas list I was going to get, but it looked impressive enough. We went outside, and I was surprised to see a large armored vehicle with an enormous cannon sitting beside the Hummer. Doc was leaning against it, trying to keep out of the rain.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

“That,” Mike replied from behind me, “is a Stryker M1128 Mobile Gun.” He walked past me to the machine and hugged it, laying his head on it. “And she’s all mine.”

“What the hell are we going to do with that thing?” I asked.

Mike stood up and patted it, “Blow shit up of course.”

“We’re taking this back to Eustis, so we have a way to deal with armor like we encountered last time,” Sarge added.

“Don’t let them fool you, Morgan,” Ted said. “That thing is a huge piece of shit. I hate em.”

Mike climbed up on the machine and patted the cannon. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I won’t let the bad man hurt you.”

“Look at the size of that damn cannon,” I muttered.

“Oh yeah!” Mike shouted. “This is a 105-millimeter rifled gun. And we’ve got a load of ammo for it.”

“That’s all fine and dandy,” Ted said. “Until that shitty auto-loader goes down and we have to climb out on top of it to fix it.”

“Irene will not let us down!” Mike shouted back.

“Come on, Morgan. Let’s leave these idiots so they can jerk off in private,” Sarge said as he got in the Hummer.

“How the hell are we getting that thing back?” I asked.

Sarge hit the starter and replied, “Drive it, of course.”

“Do we have enough people?”

“We’re leaving the MRAP. We need something to deal effectively with the threat of armor. This is as good as it gets.”

I looked over my shoulder at the hulking war machine as we pulled away and asked, “Can