have decided to recon the areas to our east. Satellite images aren’t revealing much, and sometimes, there’s no substitute for boots on the ground. At dawn, I take a dozen men to scout the area where we’ve seen more activity. The plan is to divide into two teams and check out a couple of the I.S.’s former not-so-secret safehouses. They appear deserted, but this enemy excels at hiding in plain sight. We arrive at first light, and I huddle up with Sergeant Rivers to go over the plans for his team one more time.
One minute I’m talking to Rivers on my left, standing near the back of a tan MRAP tactical vehicle as we examine the map.
The next, I’m flat on my back as my brain struggles to make sense of the scene around me.
What happened?
Thin patches of pale blue sky peek through thick black smoke that billows and undulates above me like a writhing snake. The acrid stench of chemicals, burnt flesh, and blood is overpowering. I can’t hear anything except the ringing in my ears.
We’ve been hit.
Where’s Rivers? Where’s my team?
Get up.
I shift my eyes left toward the eight o’clock position. The vehicle is flipped over, orange flames surging from a yawning hole in its side. Soldiers lie scattered on the ground.
My men.
I see figures, but I can’t make out who they are as a red haze obscures my vision.
As the ringing in my ears fades, I hear their screams.
My men need help. I have to help.
I blink to clear my eyes and roll my head left. I move too quickly, and dizziness and nausea wash over me. I squeeze my eyes shut until it passes, then open them. A man lies a few feet from me, but I can’t tell who it is. His head faces skyward, and he’s covered in blood. Crimson liquid saturates the sand around him. His right arm is just beyond my reach. I scoot toward him, fighting another wave of nausea.
I have to help.
It’s hard to move. Why is it so hard to move?
One inch. Two.
I stretch out, barely able to grasp his fingertips. I tug once. Nothing happens. I slide over another inch, get a firmer grip, and pull harder. His head lolls toward me. A chunk of blackened metal protrudes from the left side of his throat. His lower jaw is missing. Sightless brown eyes stare at me from charred flesh.
Rivers.
He’s gone. Let him go.
Help someone else.
More yelling. Pleas for help. I angle my head, looking past my left leg. More dizziness, even though I’d moved slowly. I shut my eyes again, waiting for it to pass.
A soldier howls and flails his right arm. No. Part of his arm. His forearm and hand are gone. Blood spurts skyward, splattering as it lands, staining the pale sand. Beyond him are two others.
They don’t move.
They don’t scream.
They need help. Get up.
I try to move, but my body won’t respond.
Something’s wrong. It’s getting hard to breathe. I gulp, sucking in air, but it doesn’t help. I try to roll to my side to catch my breath, but I’m not able to.
Why won’t my body cooperate?
Intense, searing pain in my right leg seizes my attention. My head pounds ferociously. I take a deep breath to get a handle on the pain, but it’s getting harder and harder to inhale. It’s like I’ve got sandbags crushing my chest, keeping me from taking a full breath.
Get up. They need help.
Get up!
My eyes swim. The pale blue bits of sky melt away. The red haze dissolves as inky blackness encircles the edges of my vision, moving toward the center. My ears stop ringing as sounds fade.
Everything disappears.
Everything except the darkness.
When Tom and Lila leave, I return to my desk chair with two hours until my first client appointment. Fully fueled with sugar and caffeine, I check my email to see what needs to be dealt with first.
My heart leaps as my eyes zero in on an unexpected gift – not just an email, but a video from Mark. A video means he’s alive and well, and I can’t tear my eyes away from the screen.
Pale blue eyes contrast with his tanned face, and the camera field captures his broad shoulders and desert camos. His dark blond hair could use a trim. Despite the fatigue etched in his features, he smiles, and it reaches across the miles like a reassuring hug. When he says, “Hey, Baby Girl,” his familiar voice soothes my ragged soul. The time stamp shows he recorded this right after my nightmare, as though he felt my distress halfway around the world.
I scribble a note to mail him more cocoa, socks, and his favorite cookies. I grip my desk and suppress a squeal upon hearing he might visit soon. When he calls Colonel Sherman “the old bird”, I laugh, missing the colonel’s faux-offended reaction when we’d call him that in private.
Then Mark hesitates, furrowing his brows and pressing his lips together.
He’s worried about me.
He knows something’s wrong, even though I’ve been exceptionally careful with my emails. I refuse to burden him with my struggles. He’s in a dangerous situation that demands his full attention. Being distracted by something he can’t fix jeopardizes his safety and the safety of those under his command. But Mark and I have had a special bond since we were kids.
I stare, transfixed, as he continues. “You can talk to me, Charlie. Always. About anything.” He glances away, rubbing his neck, his mind elsewhere. Then he looks back and smiles again.
“Anyway, I need to run. Tell Tucker and Lila I miss them. I miss you most of all, Baby Girl. Take care of yourself, okay? Love you.” He thumps above his heart twice before the frame freezes and goes dark. My fist lightly taps my own chest two times in response.
When his face fades from view, my soul aches, and I watch the video over and over, long after I’ve memorized every detail, every word, every expression on his tired face.
I wish Mark were here.
Military life isn’t for the faint of heart, both for the deployed or for those waiting at home. It’s hard when your best friend is on the other side of the world. It’s even harder when he’s in a war zone that’s no longer officially designated a war zone because of political machinations. It’s harder still when weeks go by without knowing if he’s dead or alive.
I never thought twice about it when I served because my parents were already gone, as were Mark’s. Neither of us had anyone stateside to worry. He and I only had each other. We enlisted together after my freshman year of college. I became a medic; he chose infantry. We both shipped off to the Middle East, but it wasn’t until several years later that I transferred into his unit. By that time, he was a platoon leader in one of the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan. That’s where I met Lila, a fellow medic, and her now-husband Tucker, one of Mark’s sergeants.
They say foxhole friendships are the deepest, and while we were never in foxholes, we were definitely battle-tested. The four of us are more like family than friends, and each of us would unhesitatingly take a bullet for the others.
Lila and I were medically discharged four years ago. Tucker followed the next year to join Lila here in Cedar Ridge, Colorado. They married several months later. Mark stayed in. Military life suits him – the discipline, the strategy, the control. He excels at seeing the big picture, at manipulating the pieces on the chessboard into proper positions. Just five more years and he’ll hit his twenty-year mark, though I can’t see him retiring. The Army is as much a part of him as breathing.
I think back to his pale blue eyes and easy smile, missing the man I know almost as well as I know myself.
I can’t wait to see him next month.
I slowly become aware something’s happening around me. There’s a familiar thrumming sound, but I can’t place it. I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids are too heavy.
Are those helicopter rotors? I need to check. My men need Air Evac.
My head pounds like a bass drum, throbbing in conjunction with every beat of my heart. I must be alive. Death would be far less painful.
Where am I?
I feel like I’m at the bottom of the ocean. Voices murmur in the distance, too far away for me to understand what they’re saying. Someone moves me, slowly rocking me to one side and then the other. I’m jostled sharply, and intense pain rushes over me. I think I groan, but I’m not sure. A deep voice speaks near my ear. His tone is reassuring, but I can’t make out his words.
Everything vanishes into darkness.
I surface partially at a blast of frigid air. Jumbled voices surround me, talking too fast for me to grasp their words. Strange, unidentifiable odors drift by, smells I associate with hospitals. There’s pain, terrible pain. My head feels like it’s going to burst and my right leg throbs mercilessly. I groan again, or at least, I think I do. I struggle to open my eyes, but I can’t. The blackness overtakes me.
This pattern continues.
Over.
And over.
And over.
In time, the voices change from mostly male to both male and female. I don’t recognize them, but their tones are soothing.
Someone lays a soft hand on my cheek and speaks close to my ear. A sweet, gentle voice, like an angel.
Am I dead?
Someone should tell me if I’m dead.
I still can’t open my eyes. They’re too heavy. And I hurt all over.
I fade in and out as the voices come and go, interspersed with only darkness and pain.
Hot blood snakes up both arms, carving fresh ruby paths through older dried brown streaks before dripping into the clotted puddle on the stone floor. My shoulders scream for relief as the barbed wire suspending me gouges deeper into my wrists. The throbbing low in my belly and between my thighs has intensified. My breasts sting, and my back blazes with fiery heat.
My mouth is parched, my lips cracked. I’m so dehydrated that the sandy dust in the air can’t stick to my tongue. The particles settle on my bare skin, mingling with my blood.
My entire body tenses as raucous laughter approaches from behind. I wrestle against my restraints, trying to wrench free. Heavy boots pound closer, venom in their harsh strides. I struggle harder, but the wire only chews deeper into my raw flesh.
Metal clangs as the door bangs open behind me. I cease bucking, but my body still sways, hanging several inches above the floor. The foul stench of soured bodies assaults my nostrils.
The Chihuahua steps in front of me, and an involuntary shiver races down my spine. I don’t take my eyes off the rusty blade in his hand. He smiles as he pierces my chest with it, not deeply. He carves a shallow slice through the flesh of my left breast – painful, but not fatal. I grit my teeth as blood trickles down my body. He moves lower, dragging the jagged tip lightly across my abdomen, but not cutting flesh. He watches my face as he toys with me, a cat tormenting a trapped mouse.
Fucking bastard.
I know what’s coming, and my body tenses. He repositions his knife at the apex of my thighs, grinning evilly as my eyes lock with his.
Deep-set, heavy-lidded, soulless black eyes. Small and hard, glittering with deep loathing and cruel satisfaction.
He sneers, thrusting his blade upward. Sharp pain follows the invasion of his filthy knife, but instead of crying out, I growl like a wild animal and bare my teeth.
I awaken to the blast of gunfire, down on one knee in my foyer, gripping my gun in both hands. Sweat runs in rivulets down my back. My breath comes in pants as I scan for the threat.
I’m in my foyer. Safe.
Fuck.
Four days in a row.
I hear my cell phone somewhere behind me. “Charlie, you’re safe now. No one can hurt you. Listen to my voice, Charlie. You’re safe now. No one can hurt you. Pick up your phone.” Breathing hard, I lower my gun and place it on the table. It takes a minute to locate my phone beneath the bench. I flop back on the floor, my back resting against the bench as I answer, automatically putting it on speakerphone.
“Sorry, Lila.”
“It’s me, Charlie,” Tucker answers. “Lila’s in the shower. You with me?”
I nod, waving a hand at the camera in the ceiling.
“Tell me what you see,” he prompts.
“I need to sweep under the bench. There are two dust bunnies that I’m counting separately. And my phone is in my lap and I’m wearing red socks. I’m okay, Tucker. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to keep doing this shit to you guys every fucking night.”
Without warning, tears flood my eyes, and I swipe them away and swallow against the growing lump in my throat.
“It’s fine, Charlie. I was already up. Wait, are you crying?”
I shake my head and lean forward so he can’t see my face.
“I can hear you sniffling. We’re coming over.”
“No,” I insist. “I’m fine.”
“Is she crying? What did you do?” Lila’s accusatory tone echoes in my foyer.
“Nothing. She just started crying.”
“I’m not crying,” I insist. “It’s allergies.”
“Bullshit,” they reply in stereo.
“Not bullshit,” I say, getting to my feet, my legs quaking. “I’m fine. What time is it?”
“You’re late today. It’s almost five-thirty,” Tucker says.
At least I let them sleep a little longer this morning. “I’m sorry,” I apologize again. “I'm fine. I’m going to shower. I’ll see you at work, Lila. Thanks, Tucker.”
“Quit thanking me. You’d do this for me.”
I allow myself a good long cry in the shower, an ugly cry, the kind where you’re glad there’s no one to witness your blotchy face and runny nose.
I’m so tired of being broken.
I saw a psychiatrist twice a week for over a year. I thought I was better, but I’m still a fucking train wreck.
Maybe this is as fixed as I get to be.
That thought depresses me more than I thought possible.
When I get to work, Tom’s already there, setting up for his clients in the rehab gym. “You’re early.”
“Hey,” he says, his boyish smile lighting up his face. “I didn’t sleep much. Figured I’d come in and get a head start. You’re here early again, too. Not sleeping well?”
I shrug. “I heard a noise, and once I’m awake, I’m awake. I envy people who can go right back to sleep.”
My attempt at distraction doesn’t work. Tom knows I have PTSD and difficulties with men, but not why. Lila’s told him what happened to her, so he has a general idea, and that’s enough. It’s not that I don’t trust him – I do. I just want one friend who doesn’t know how fucked-up I really am.
Since the best defense is a good offense, I tip my chin at him. “So what’s the real story with you and Whitney?”
He freezes. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not buying that ‘everything’s fine’ speech.”
He frowns. “Why not?”
“Your eyes didn’t match your words. And this?” I gesture to him. “Avoiding my question? That says I’m right.”
He scowls. “You see too much.” I wait with crossed arms until he sighs in surrender. “Maya hates her.”
Maya is Tom’s enthusiastic, precocious ten-year-old. If she likes you, you’re friends for life; if not, there’s little chance she’ll reconsider. For one so young, she’s surprisingly perceptive.
“Did she say that?”
He exhales in a burst. “The words ‘shallow’ and ‘diva’ were tossed around.”
I silently agree with Maya. A few weeks ago, Whitney offered Lila and me autographed headshots while she was waiting for Tom.
Autographed. Headshots.
From the co-anchor of a six am local news show.
In a town with two stoplights and three times as many farm animals as people.
Lila had glanced at me with a look of “Is she for real?” on her face, something that did not go unnoticed by Whitney, who’d snatched her photos up and stalked off at Lila’s polite declination.
Maya’s assessment is spot-on.
“How are you and Whitney handling it?”
“Whitney pretends not to notice while Maya finds creative ways to not-so-subtly insult her. The other night at dinner, she detailed each point of a five-paragraph essay she wrote, contrasting the uselessness of fleeting beauty against the enduring resilience of character and intelligence.”
I fight a smile, thoroughly impressed with Maya’s ingenuity. “Maybe the three of you can work through this.” Tom could do a lot better than Boobzilla, but I want him to be happy, and his daughter hating his girlfriend is a no-win situation for him.
“I don’t think either of them wants to.”
“I’m sorry. Can I help?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Thanks, though.” He returns to sorting colorful therapy bands before glancing up. “By the way, I was informed I needed to invite you to dinner tonight.”
I grin. “You were informed?”
He nods. “By two very insistent females. Maya and Skyler are making spaghetti.”
“I’ll be there.”
He chuckles. “Maya said you’d agree as soon as you heard the word spaghetti.”
“I'd have agreed anyway, even without my weakness for pasta. What time?”
Tom shrugs. “Seven-ish? My chefs are a bit unreliable. There’s a distinct possibility we could end up ordering pizza.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
My day passes quickly. I provide therapeutic massage to five regular clients, all disabled vets between twenty-five and forty years of age. I schedule six new VA referrals and send updates to physicians, working through the papers stacked precariously on my desk. I’m hanging up the phone at the front desk just before closing when the door opens and a familiar figure saunters in. Shaggy blond hair brushes the collar of the white linen shirt clinging to his muscled chest. Steely blue eyes twinkle above his crooked nose, and he flashes me his trademark lazy grin.
“Charlie,” he purrs, “you look beautiful today.” He leans on the counter, his eyes fixed on mine.
I smile. “You say that every day, Blake.”
He winks. “Because it’s true.”
“You’re a shameless flirt. You know that, right?”
Blake Wilson is the most flirtatious man I’ve ever met. He’s good-looking, and he knows it. He’s also extremely appreciative of the feminine form. I’ve never seen him meet a female without complimenting her. It doesn’t matter if she’s eight or eighty, hot or homely. He finds something attractive in each one, whether it’s how her scarf brings out the color of her eyes, the way her smile lights up a room, or how her clothes hug her curves. It’s surprisingly charming, even if it does scream man-whore.
“It isn't flirting if it’s true.”
I roll my eyes. “Tom should be done in a couple of minutes. You’re welcome to wait in the reception area in the rehab gym.”
He ignores my blatant dismissal. “I prefer the view here.”
Blake is Tom’s assistant boxing coach at the center for disadvantaged youth. He’s also a life coach – one of those annoyingly positive people who yammer on about visualizing what you want and seizing the day and making your dreams come true. Maybe that’s why he’s so persistent in his flirtation. And in all honesty, despite his constant stream of compliments, part of me enjoys it when he drops by, because I’m guaranteed a self-esteem boost.
I return my attention to the files from today’s visits. Blake taps the counter with one long finger. “So, when are you having dinner with me?”
“I wasn’t aware that I was,” I reply without looking up.
“How about tonight?”
“Sorry, I have plans.” Thanks to Maya and Tom, it’s true.
“Tomorrow then. Have lunch with me.”
“Plans,” I repeat. I’ll do something with Lila so it won’t be a lie.
“Sunday afternoon,” he insists.
I shake my head. “Sorry, Blake. I have something going on already.” Sundays are when I clean the house and go grocery shopping.
Without warning, he reaches across the counter and strokes my cheek. I freeze as my blood turns to ice and iron bands grip my chest.
“One of these days, I’ll wear you down,” he murmurs, oblivious to my panic. He straightens up just as Tom comes around the corner.
“Hey, man, I thought I heard you out here,” Tom says. “Come on back, I’m almost done.”
Blake walks away, unaware of my distress. My breathing grows rapid and shallow, and I squeeze my eyes shut, dipping my head and pressing the heels of my hands to my forehead.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Slow and deep.
“Gimme a minute. I’ll catch up to you,” I hear Tom say, and I sense his approach.
“Charlie?”
I don’t open my eyes. My fingers fist against my forehead.
Tom squats down but doesn’t touch me. “Hey, Charlie. It’s okay. You’re safe. I won’t let anything happen to you. Take some nice deep breaths.”
I nod, my eyes still closed.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
“Do you need Lila?”
I shake my head no and focus on slowing my breathing.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
It only takes a minute or two before I’m able to unclench my hands, and another one until I’m calm enough to open my eyes. Tom’s worried brown eyes are the first thing I see.
“Thanks,” I mumble, my face growing hot.
“Anytime.” He gets to his feet, his eyes lingering for a moment before glancing questioningly across the room.
That’s when I catch sight of Blake’s curious stare. Embarrassment turns to complete humiliation as I realize he’s just gotten a front-row seat to my shitshow of a life, all because he innocently brushed his thumb over my cheek.
Just fucking awesome.
Because I needed two more people to see exactly how fucked up I am.