The Guardian

by Elicia Hyder

  “No, you didn’t.”

  He chuckled. “No, I didn’t.”

  I held the catheter in place and pulled the needle out. I tossed the needle onto the counter—no need for sterile practices here—and grabbed the IV line I’d already hooked up to the bag. I hooked the tube to the catheter spilling a minimal amount of her blood in the process. Then I sat back, let my face tilt toward the ceiling, and blew out the breath I’d been holding.

  Reuel slapped me on the shoulder. “Nice job, Nurse Warren.”

  “No thanks to you.” I shook my head and stood up, stretching my arms over my head. Then I checked to make sure the fluids were dripping into the line.

  “Some luck winding up here,” he said, looking around the triage room. It was just as I’d remembered it.

  “It’s interesting we wound up here.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about Fury’s personal hell being the place we first met. “But fortunate, too, I guess.”

  “This is a military base, yes?”

  “Yeah. A small one.”

  “Is there a dining room?” His smile was hopeful.

  I pointed out the window. “The chow hall is the light gray building. Not sure how stocked it will be, but we did have IV and saline, so…” I shrugged.

  “I’ll bring back whatever I can find.”

  “I’ll be here,” I said, opening one of the cabinets. After searching all the cabinets in the room, I started on the supply closet.

  Bingo.

  A camouflage bag was on the top shelf. I pulled it down and carried it back to the gurney beside Fury’s. Inside was exactly what I’d hoped for: penicillin and morphine. I had no idea how any of this was possible, and I didn’t really care. I kissed the bottle of liquid penicillin and tucked it back into the bag.

  “Warren?” Fury reached out from under the blankets.

  I moved the bag off my lap and closed the space between the beds with one long stride. Grabbing her hand, I eased down onto the edge of her mattress. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

  “Head hurts,” she said, her eyes still closed.

  “I imagine so.” I ran my knuckles down her cheek. “You’ve had a hell of a day.”

  She had to force her eyes open, as they seemed to have dried shut. The light made her squint, so I shielded her face with my hand. “Where are we?”

  “It appears your psyche is very afraid of the base in Iraq.”

  She looked around the room. “We’re in Baghdad?” Her voice sounded like her throat was coated with gravel.

  “Some version of it. Only parts of the base seem to exist though. The parts where I was.” I pointed to the floor. “I was treated for my broken ribs in this room, but I don’t remember you being here for that.”

  “I came here first when I was looking for you.”

  I wanted to ask why this was hell for her, but she’d had a rough day already. Her eyes drifted toward the IV bag. “Medical supplies?”

  “Yep.” I proudly tapped my chest. “Guess who inserted your IV? You’re welcome.”

  She smiled, but it obviously hurt her lips. “Thank you.”

  “Are you warmer now?”

  “Much.”

  “Think we can sit you up and get some of the blood cleaned off? I’d like to see if I can check out those burns?”

  “Yeah.” She moved to get up.

  I held my hand on her chest. “Relax. The bed moves.” I stood and used the lever at the back to tilt the bed up. Then I carefully folded the blankets down to her waist. The blood had crusted in dried drizzles down her neck. Her hands were stained red.

  I walked to the supply closet, where I’d seen some towels. Then I took one to the sink and turned on the faucet. Nothing came out. “Well, it probably wouldn’t be safe anyway. God knows it wasn’t when I was here.” I returned to her bedside and carefully picked up her arm. “How does it feel?”

  “It hurts, but not as bad as I thought it would.”

  “I’m sure it burned through the nerves.” The edges around the blood stone were bright red. “I wish we could take these off even just to clean it.” I sniffed her wrist. “But if it starts to smell rank, it might be a sign of infection. I found some penicillin if it does. Morphine too, if you want it.”

  “No. I need to keep my head clear.” Her bottom lip was bleeding.

  I opened the medical bag on the other bed and found a plastic packet of Vaseline. I tore it open with my teeth, then spread some on her lips.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The door opened and Reuel walked in with an armload of water bottles.

  “Get out,” I said, walking around the bed to help him.

  He looked surprised and turned toward the door. “Really?”

  “Sorry. I forgot you don’t do figures of speech.” I took a few of the bottles off the top. “Where’d you find these?”

  “I haven’t made it inside the chow hall yet. I saw these piled on a pallet outside and thought you might want them.”

  “Yes,” Fury said, then coughed.

  I carried some to her, laid my haul on the other bed, and twisted off a bottle cap. “Small sips,” I said as I handed it to her.

  Not listening, she guzzled a quarter of the bottle. Then she looked at the label. “This is a US brand. How did it get here?”

  “I have no idea.” I opened a bottle for myself. “I just hope it’s not poisoned.”

  “I don’t even care,” she said, tilting it up to her lips again.

  Reuel put the rest of the bottles on the counter. “I’m going to check the chow hall now.”

  I drained half my water. “Don’t eat it all before you get back here.”

  “No promises.”

  When he was gone, I carried one of the bottles to the sink and soaked a towel. Then I returned to Fury and held it up. “May I?”

  She offered her arm. “Go ahead. Be gentle.”

  I sat down beside her again, carefully stretching her arm across my thigh. I gently cleaned her hand first. Thin blood had streamed all the way down to her fingertips.

  “Thanks for getting us out of there. I know you saved my life.”

  I grinned. “I’ve one upped you now. You officially owe me.”

  She chuckled, then coughed. “Don’t make me laugh,” she wheezed.

  “Sip your water.”

  “How did you do it? How’d you find the way out?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I was totally out of it.”

  “The sword broke the mirrors.” I turned her palm over and pressed the wet towel to it to soften some of the blood. “I smashed our way out.”

  “Nicely done.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How’s the headache?”

  “A little better.” She sipped the water again. “I wonder why we’re here.”

  I’d been wondering the same thing since we’d arrived. “I’m trying not to take it personally.” I was failing too, but I kept it to myself.

  “Because this was our beginning,” she said.

  I nodded and focused on wiping her palm clean. “Do you regret meeting me?”

  Silence hung between us for long enough to make me squirm on the bed. She drank more water, then hugged the bottle to her chest. “Yes.”

  My fingers stopped working.

  “But it’s not why you think.”

  I took her water and put it in her other hand. “Why then?”

  “Maybe if I’d never helped recruit you to Claymore, none of this would have ever happened.”

  I smirked. “You really don’t think Azrael would have found another way?”

  “He could have found another way that didn’t involve me. Or Anya.”

  “What does Anya have to do with it?” I folded the towel around her hand, rubbing gently.

  She laid her head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “He never would have taken her if he didn’t think I could get to you.”

  I straightened. “What?”

  “Abaddon
knew you and I had been together. He came to me in Somalia when I was there with Anya and tried to convince me to get you to help the fallen. When I refused…” Emotion choked her.

  I put the towel down on her lap and held her hand. “Abaddon took Anya?”

  Her eyelids blinked a few times, but no tears came. She was still too dehydrated.

  “Why didn’t you tell Azrael?”

  “I did, but I couldn’t tell him everything, so he didn’t believe that Anya could still be alive.”

  “What couldn’t you tell him?”

  She opened her mouth to speak. Then closed it, pulling her hand from mine to cover her face.

  “Hey,” I touched her arm. “It’s OK. You don’t have to tell me. Not now. Not ever, if you don’t want to.”

  She relaxed a little.

  “Can I finish cleaning you up?” I asked.

  When she removed her hand from her eyes, they were bright red. Like she desperately wanted to cry, but couldn’t.

  “Drink some more water.” I looked up at her IV bag. It was still over half full.

  With a shaky hand, she tilted the water up to her mouth again.

  I reached for the top button on my shirt she was still wearing. “Can I undo a couple of buttons?”

  She nodded slightly, laying back against her pillow again.

  My fingers worked the top button, then the second, as my brain spun on what could be so terrible that it would drive the toughest woman I’d ever met to tears. I laid the towel on her chest for a moment, then gently began to clean the streaks away. Blood had spilled down her neck, over her collarbones, and into the crevice hidden beneath the Eden-fabric of my shirt.

  When I moved the towel lower, the third button fell open. The dizzying inner curves of her perfect breasts drew my eyes and my hand. I grazed the towel over the right swell, then sucked in a sharp breath.

  She could do that later herself. This was no time for distraction.

  Her eyes locked with mine as I closed the button again. “I’m tired.”

  I nodded. “Rest. We’ll stay here tonight and leave early in the morning.”

  “Where will we go?”

  “Our teams were searching for a hostage the last time we were here.”

  “You think she might be in Tuz Sehir?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “It’s my only guess. This is your nightmare, after all.”

  Fury was asleep again by the time Reuel returned with food. Bags of chips, packs of crackers, and granola bars were the bulk of what he’d found. I tore open a bag of Cheetos like my life depended on it.

  “What was it like out there?” I asked, popping a cheese curl into my mouth.

  “There was nothing beyond the chow hall, but the buildings and main roads that way”—he pointed toward the door—“seemed to all be intact. There isn’t much if you wander off the main road.”

  “If this illusion is somehow built on what she experienced here, then the stuff that exists must be along the route Fury used to visit me here.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  I stood and picked up my sword. “I’ll check the hooches and see if I can find her something to wear. There weren’t any females in my unit, but there were a few men on the smaller side.” I thought of Earp and Chavez, in particular. Two of my buddies from our tour here.

  “You think stuff will still be there?”

  “Most everything in here looks exactly as it did the time Fury was here, but who knows? You’ll stay with her?”

  “Of course.” He sat down on the other gurney and tore open a granola bar.

  I picked up my sword. “I’ll be back.”

  Camp Victory had an eerie hue, more green than gold with the setting sun. Beside what was once a busy street, I stopped and looked up. The “sun” was sinking in the east instead of the west. It was weird enough to send a chill straight to my bones.

  I listened carefully for any other signs of life. Nothing. But Iraq still smelled the same, like gasoline, sweat, and death. Somehow, it was oddly comforting.

  A Humvee was parked in front of the hospital. I tried my wings again. Nothing. So I walked over to it and checked for keys. They were dangling from the ignition. I threw my sword into the passenger’s seat and got inside.

  The engine fired right up, and it had a full tank of gas. Had that ever happened before?

  I drove to my old “neighborhood” between the hospital and the front gate. It was a small trailer park, a collection of “hooches” grouped in clusters of three or four behind concrete barrier walls. But the road was populated with buildings as far up ahead as I could see.

  Perhaps it would lead me to whereever Fury had stayed during her time here. I drove through the base, then beyond the gate. There were a few side roads lined with buildings, but none with as much detail as the main one in front of me. I followed it all the way to a gated compound. A Claymore compound, like others I’d stayed in during my time with them overseas.

  The gate was open, and I drove through it to the inside courtyard. The pre-fab barracks would be built in a large square around a common building at the center.

  High-ranking females, there never were many, were typically given solo rooms along the east side. I drove there, parked, and started checking rooms.

  In room three, pictures of me, taken with a long-range camera, were taped to the wall. “This must be it,” I said to no one, stepping inside.

  The twin bed was neatly made up with a standard-issue black comforter and white sheets. She’d had a private bathroom and a large wardrobe closet. I pulled open the door. Inside, Fury’s clothes hung neatly on hangers.

  Jackpot.

  On top of the wardrobe was a backpack. I pulled it down and started stuffing clothes and a pair of boots into it. Then I went to the bathroom and grabbed her toothbrush, toothpaste, and a box of tampons, just in case.

  In her room, I paused to study the recon work she’d done on me. There were pictures of my face from every angle, and handwritten details about the movements of my unit. Handwritten by Azrael. I hadn’t known it then, but he’d been present during my entire stay in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  Beside the bed, on the small nightstand, were two books. One of the Harry Potter books, which was a shock to my psyche, and a book called On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt, a professor at Princeton. Interesting choice, but understandable given whom she worked for.

  I should check Azrael’s room.

  Fifteen minutes and a hundred doors later, I found it. A nondescript room with nothing in it but a change of clothes (which I stuffed into the bag for myself) and a small safe bolted inside the wardrobe.

  I tapped in the combination, my mother’s birthdate. He used it for everything.

  Inside the box was the blood-stone necklace. The same necklace I was wearing. Thinking it might have been an illusion, I picked it up. It wasn’t.

  Wherever my father had been during this snapshot of Fury’s reality, he hadn’t been wearing the blood stone. Whatever he was doing, he didn’t want a record of it. I clenched the second stone in my hand.

  Interesting.

  I dropped the necklace in my pocket and walked out of the room. Before I left, I stopped by the supply cage and grabbed some extra toothbrushes, deodorant, and a few fresh pairs of socks. Then I drove back to the hospital on base.

  It was almost dark by the time I arrived. And a dark night it would be. There were zero lights. Not in the sky or on the ground. No stars. No moon. And no electricity.

  Fury was still asleep, but not so peacefully. Her eyelids fluttered, and her fists were clenched on top of the blankets. But her color had definitely improved, and her lips looked less like roadmaps than when I’d left. Almost the entire bag of saline had dripped through her IV.

  Reuel was sitting on the second gurney in a pile of snack wrappers. “Any luck?” he said around a mouthful of food.

  “Yeah. I found her stuff where they were staying when we were here before.” I put the bag on the foot of his bed
. “I found Azrael’s room too.” I pulled out the necklace. “How much do you know about this?”

  He shrugged. “Not much. Why aren’t you wearing it?”

  I pulled the other blood stone out from under my shirt. “I am.”

  “There are two?”

  “It’s the same one.” I held up the necklace in my hand. “This one was locked in the safe in Azrael’s room. Why do you think that is?”

  “Probably because Azrael didn’t want a record of what he was up to. Your dad has more secrets than anyone I’ve ever known. You should already know that.”

  The problem was, I did. But what had he done that I didn’t know about? I twirled the stone around my hand. “You know, I have very little memories of his time on Earth after I was born. I’ll bet he only wore the stone a handful of times.”

  “Once Azrael no longer had the threat of losing Eden, he made some questionable decisions. I believe he genuinely thought they were for the best, but I doubt he would want to be reminded of them.”

  “Like what?”

  Reuel gestured toward Fury.

  I studied her exhausted, peaceful face. “Do you think she really didn’t know her job was to get in my bed?”

  “I know she didn’t.”

  Fury’s shot up straight in the bed. I got up and went to her bed, covering her hand with my own. “It’s OK. You were having a nightmare.”

  It took a few blinks for the disorientation to clear from her eyes. “How long have I been asleep?”

  I looked at my bare wrist again. “Damn it. I don’t know.”

  “An hour, I’d guess,” Reuel answered.

  I squeezed her fingers. “I have some good news.”

  “You found Anya?” She looked around the room.

  I grimaced. “Not that good.”

  “Oh.”

  “I found some clothes and shoes that are actually yours.” I released her hand and pointed to the backpack. “Your room is completely intact over at the Claymore compound.”

  “Really?” She pushed herself up in the bed, wincing as she put pressure on her arms against the mattress.

  “Yeah. I even got your toothbrush.”

  “Thanks, Warren.”

  “No problem. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “That’s a good sign.” I glanced up at the bag on her IV pole again. It was empty. “I don’t think I want to unhook you just yet though. Another bag of—”