17

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

The phone call came at 9:05 that evening.

As soon as Paige answered the phone and heard Kristen’s voice, she knew something was wrong. Kristen was speaking in harsh, staccato bursts, her words racked by sobs.

“I just—just got done meeting with a chaplain—” She couldn’t speak for a moment, overwhelmed with grief.

Paige’s heart sank, her knees buckling. Something had happened to Beef!

“I wanted you to know,” Kristen continued between short and jagged inhalations. “But I hated to be the one to call you. Troy and Patrick’s team were on a mission tonight—”

Hearing Patrick’s name stunned Paige. She reached out a hand to steady herself, bracing her emotions.

“They were all—they were all killed, Paige.” Kristen inhaled sharply. “Twenty of them. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

The words knifed into Paige, disorienting her, jumbling her thoughts. Killed? They were all killed? Patrick said it was going to be a routine mission.

Paige slumped into a chair. Her world shattered, she could find no words to respond.

Killed.

“Some of Troy’s friends and the families of the other men are coming over to the house,” Kristen said. She seemed to have regained a shred of composure. “We want you to come, Paige. You shouldn’t be alone.”

Paige tried to gather herself, to keep the emotions at bay. The shock settled over her. “What happened?” she asked, her voice thin and fragile.

“I’m not sure about the details. The chaplain didn’t know. I just know . . . I just know they’re not coming back.”

Something about the way Kristen said it, her husky voice hollow with resignation, made the horrific finality of it sink in. Paige moaned and felt the weight on her chest—the pangs of regret and loneliness and nightmarish sorrow making it hard to even breathe.

“I’m so sorry,” Kristen said. “I still can’t believe this is happening.” She managed to murmur a few more words of comfort and regret and disbelief. She asked if Paige needed someone to come by and drive her, but Paige said she would be okay.

“You are coming over, aren’t you?” Kristen asked.

“Yes,” Paige said, though she just wanted to be alone.

She hung up the phone and the grief consumed her, ripping her heart from her chest.

She thought about calling her mother, but they were so distant that she had never even talked to her mother about Patrick. Her friends knew Patrick and loved him, but she had been guarded around them, and they could bring no words of comfort now. And so she curled into a fetal position on the couch, clutching a pillow, tears streaming down her face, her sobs coming in jagged, gasping fits.

The one person who could comfort her was gone. And just as Kristen had said, he was never coming back.