Mayhem || B. Bradshaw

Chapter 3

     BRADLEY LOOKED LIKE HE HAD SEEN A GHOST. His body tensed up, transfixed as his gaze lingered on her, his jaw slowly slacking.

     "Bradshaw," Lizbeth said with a sharp breath, the muscles of her jaw tensing. She tried her best to ignore the quickening heartbeat and the weakening knees his intense gaze gave her, and instead stared him dead in the eyes.

     The music slowly changed into a new song, which seemed to kick Bradley out of his aghast state.

     "I– Liz," Bradley managed to get out in a whisper, taking a step closer to her, his chest heaving up and down. "I–"

     "Bradshaw," Hangman interrupted Bradley, and both him and Lizbeth diverted their attention towards him. "As I live and breathe," Jake said, though his eyes seemed to flicker suspiciously between Bradley and Lizbeth while he took the cue stick from Bob's hands.

     "Hangman," Bradley seemed to have recovered from his encounter with Lizbeth, and returned to his normal self, confidence boosting from his stance. "You look..." he bobbed his head, "good."

     "Well," Jake took a position by the pool table, and aimed at the white ball. "I am good, Rooster." He took the shot and straightened out, walking towards Bradley with challenging steps, the corners of his mouth stretching smugly. "I'm very good. In fact, I am too good to be true."

     Lizbeth rolled her eyes, and shook her head at Hangman. The guy had a very inflated ego. Too inflated, actually.

     That won't last very long. Just he wait until he flies with me.

     "So, anybody know what this special detachment is all about?" Payback seemed to change the subject in hopes of preventing a situation between Hangman and Bradley. Which would be impossible. Those two had it out for each other like cats and dogs.

     "No, mission's a mission. They don't confront me," Hangman answered, aiming at a new target on the pool table. "What I wanna know, who's gonna be team leader? And which one of y'all has what it takes to follow me?"

     "Hangman, the only place you'll ever lead anyone is an early grave," Bradley said, and Lizbeth couldn't help but snicker. Bradley seemed to stand even straighter after that.

     Hangman seemed impressed, but Lizbeth knew he wasn't finished when he straightened out and walked around the table with a confident smirk lingering on his face.

     "Well, anyone who follows you is just gonna run out of fuel," he began, and Lizbeth sighed silently. It was a little bit true. At least it had been, years ago, but she didn't doubt that it still was.

     Bradley was one for consistency.

     "But that's just you, ain't it, Rooster? You're snug on that perch, waiting for just the right moment..." Hangman stood right in front of Bradley, his eyebrows raising smugly, "that never comes."

     There was a slight pause as the two men almost seemed to be staring each other down, before Hangman grinned "I love this song!" just a second before the artist sang "Slow ride!".

     Lizbeth shook her head, though a humoristic smile played on her lips. It seemed a bit too planned, but she didn't doubt that Hangman had changed the song earlier on, just in hopes of pissing Bradley off.

     Typical Hangman.

     "You sure you're team leader material, Seresin? With your way of recreating the Hunger Games with your own teammates?" Lizbeth lifted her head with a smirk, her voice loud enough for everybody to hear. "Funny how you're always the last one alive after the test. But that's just how you are, ain't it, Bagman?"

     "Talk to yourself, Mayhem," Hangman winked. "You're able to chaos yourself into your own grave."

     "It's called creating havoc for the enemy," Lizbeth lifted her eyebrows challengingly. "Maybe you should try it out once? Then you'd probably have more air-to-air kills than me."

     "It's a wonder you're not grounded yet," Hangman shot back. "Heard your number of tower flybys has increased since the last time we spoke."

     "I'm just too valuable," Lizbeth winked with a smirk, staring Hangman down. "They don't wanna lose me."

     "You tell yourself that," he said with a last look, before walking away.

     "Well, he hasn't changed," Phoenix approached Bradley and Lizbeth, her eyes lingering on Hangman's receding figure.

     "Nope." Bradley answered, though when Lizbeth looked at him, his eyes weren't set on Hangman. He was looking at her. "Sure hasn't."

     With one slight touch on her hand, which was enough for her whole body to freeze, he left her standing wide-eyed with a grin spreading on his face. That bastard. He knew exactly what buttons to push.

     "Check it out," Coyote said, gesturing towards the entrance to the pub. Lizbeth let out a shaky breath and looked over.

     "More patches." Another group of naval aviators arrived at the bar.

     "That's Harvard, Yale, Halo–" Coyote began to list them up, and Lizbeth's mouth dropped. They were all elite Top Gun graduates.

     "Shoot, is that Omaha?" Lizbeth said as the last pilot entered, sharing a look with Phoenix. She had flown a mission with Omaha before, earlier in her career. He was unbelievably good.

     "What kind of mission is this?" Fanboy voiced Lizbeth's thoughts. If all of them were called to Top Gun, Lizbeth couldn't fathom how difficult it was. The pilots gathered in the pub were the best in the country.

    "That's not the question we should be asking," Phoenix turned towards Fanboy, determination drawn on her face. "Everyone here is the best there is. Who in the world are they gonna get to teach us?"

     No one was able to answer Phoenix's question, but it lingered in Lizbeth's mind. She honestly had no idea of one person in the Navy who was still active and had the experience and reputation preceding theirs.

     Though, she didn't get the chance to ponder more on the matter before her thoughts were interrupted by the lack of music.

     The crowd around her clamored as the sounds from the speaker slowly died down, and she looked around to see Bradley putting the cord from the machine down on the floor.

     She took a sharp breath when she understood what he was going to do. He had pulled the same trick during their training at Top Gun. Lizbeth took a hesitant step backwards when Bradley sat down by the piano and began to play with the keys.

     "Hey guys, come on," Phoenix encouraged everyone around her to follow her over to Bradley, knowing from her Top Gun experience with both Lizbeth and Bradley what was to come.

     But Lizbeth didn't follow Natasha. Instead, she stood transfixed by the pillar, her hand fumbling about to find support to help her stand.

     She barely heard Penny's bell ring and nearly missed the action of Hangman, Fanboy and Payback throwing out the old Top Gun graduate that had been occupying Penny's bar for the night.

     Instead, her eyes were trained on Bradley, on his fingers flying easily over the keys as if he had done it more than a million times before. And she knew he had.

     And then he began to sing.