Shadow Born: A Joseph Hunter Novel: Book 1 (Joseph Hunter Series)

a possible life I had never lived.
When I built up the courage, I removed my phone from my pants pocket to call my boss, tell him I would be late into work. The device had suffered an abhorrent amount of water damage, and it refused to power on. I shoved it back into its cave and closed my eyes, breathing heavily through my lips.
In the darkness of my hungover yet halfway-sober mind, I relived the war I had fought in from over a decade ago. I could still smell human blood and the blackened odor of a fired gun and the rank stench of mud. I could hear the screams and the sobs and the promises of revenge.
In my mind, I saw my wife’s charred bones—seven years ago, to the day.
Those images always filled the darkness of my mind. To erase them, I had to drink. Otherwise, death played between my ears all night long. If I couldn’t drink, I just stayed awake and drove the streets like a broken, burnt-out, sleep-deprived vigilante—but it was better than staring at my ceiling fan.
Unable to reside in the nightmare for long, I opened my eyes. Sweat beaded my forehead and slid down my face. I needed to go home and shower, clean the rest of the shit and the mud off me, step into dry, warm clothes—then head to work, if the boss hadn’t already fired me. Job started at six in the morning, which had come and gone with the sunrise.
“One thing at a time,” I said, standing from the park bench. A shower would come first—maybe some one-on-none hanky-panky, if I was lucky—followed by a handful of painkillers washed down with hot coffee and scrambled eggs.
Then I would deal with my boss.

2
Twenty minutes later, a ride share service—hey, if they’re not paying me, I’m not saying their name—dropped me off at the edge of my property. I shuffled up the quarter-mile-long gravel driveway, stopping to stare at and contemplate the meaning of the abnormality parked before my home. A car that didn’t belong to me.
I gnawed at my lower lip and picked at a loose nail, studying the vehicle. White paint. Tinted windows. A fancy emblem that I didn’t recognize—not because it was an unusual car, but because there was little else in life I cared for less than cars. Maybe designer fashion, actually, or organic, glutton-free food. I’m getting off topic, though. For a second, as I regarded this strange vehicle, I wondered if my boss had tired of my habitual tardiness and hungover performances, and had decided to pay me a visit. But I had lied about my address on the application, so… nope, not him.
As I stood before my front yard, I suffered a mild case of comparisonitis. It was all weeds and dead grass and dirt—a real eye sore compared to Derek the Nerd’s pristine yard. I grimaced as another pang of envy overtook me. That nerd had everything I wanted—a living wife, my daughter, and a manicured lawn. He probably even had a sprinkler box not overrun with black widows. What I wouldn’t give.
Sighing at the chaotic world I had created for myself, I stared past my dead yard to my decrepit trailer.
Let’s get this over with right now. I’m not Bruce Wayne. I live in a trailer, not a mansion with a butler and a hidden cave. Big whoop. I’d slapped a single-wide onto a three-acre lot of dirt and weeds. The size, though small, is plenty big enough to satisfy lonely, old me—and yes, that’s exactly what she said. Also, let’s go ahead and shatter a couple stereotypes. I’m not that guy with a hairy gut rolling out of his sweat-stained shirt who shotguns discount beer in his underwear. Have I done that? Most definitely. But I was doing that long before I bought the trailer. Let me tell you something else about my home. You ready? Sitting down? There’s faux stone on the face of it and a sconce right next to my very penetrable front door. So, yeah, I’m luxury as shit. Oh, you’re tired of hearing about my single-wide? Ready to move on and read about who had left their car parked on my property? Well, guess what? You’re the judgmental prick who sneered at the mention of my beautiful, leaky-when-it-rains trailer.
Now that we’ve cleared that up…
I stepped onto the cracked cement sidewalk that led to my faded front door, and I froze a few feet from the deadbolt. My hand was in my pocket, fingering the key.
A pair of dog tags dangled from the door handle. They clinked lightly as the morning breeze brushed against them. I wiped my lips with the back of my arm, then lifted the dog tags off the handle and placed them around my neck. I shoved the house key back into my pocket.
Why bother using it now?
Xander would have left the door unlocked for me. He was thoughtful like that—always considering the needs of others and putting them before his own. That beautiful bastard loved Jesus more than I loved a bottle of tequila and a solid beating from a strong and firm woman wearing nothing but high heels.
Opening the door to my trailer, I stepped into the dim-lit foyer—a small space with a short table to the side. At just over six-hundred square feet, my home was basically a shitty studio apartment on wheels. It was a place where I went to shower and sometimes sleep. The kitchen was too cramped to utilize effectively and the sink wouldn’t support more than three small dishes at a time.
I emptied my pockets—house key, wallet, and phone—into a bowl on the entry table, then stripped off my wet clothes and carried them to the laundry room, which the home designer had placed in the master bedroom. I tossed my shit-stained outfit into the washer, poured a little detergent in there, and turned the machine on. I opened the dryer-slash-dresser, hoping to find a pair