by Robin Huber
I push the door open and see a full-size bed made with white linens and draped with a mosquito net that hangs from the ceiling and spills onto the terracotta floor. It billows softly in the warm breeze blowing through an open window that’s overlooking the ocean and allowing light to spill into the room.
I walk into the adjacent bathroom, surprised to see a shower stall and porcelain that isn’t peeling. It’s definitely an improvement from the clinic. I place my toiletries next to the sink and look at my reflection in the clean mirror. I turn my head to the side to see the bruise on my jaw and press my fingers to it carefully.
“It’s fading,” Kellan says, watching me.
I drop my hand and stare at my new reflection. If I make it out of this, I’ll never be the same. The person I was before is already gone. I straighten my shoulders and accept that I’m forever changed.
“Have you eaten anything today?”
“I had some breakfast and coffee this morning.”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon. Come on, I’ll make you something.”
I follow Kellan to the kitchen, which to my surprise is relatively modern. The dark cabinets are topped with indigo tile counters and there’s a large wooden table in the center of the room that looks like it was made on the island. Maybe it was, I consider, thinking of the villagers he told me about.
A man walks into the kitchen, startling me, and I tense beside Kellan. The man is thick with round muscles and he has dark red hair and a matching beard.
“Makayla, this is Grant.”
“Hi,” he says in a deep voice, and his thin lips turn up into a strained smile.
“Hello.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Good.” He nods and opens the fridge.
Kellan takes me into a nearby room that’s stocked with dry goods and large water jugs. “Grant’s not much of a conversationalist. Don’t take it personally.”
“Okay.”
“What are you hungry for?”
I see a loaf of bread and say the first thing that comes to mind. “Grilled cheese?”
“I think I can manage that.”
I follow him back into the empty kitchen and watch him gather the ingredients and construct the sandwiches. He drops them into a hot frying pan and the smell of the buttery toasted bread makes my mouth water. He watches the pan intently, flipping the sandwiches over with a spatula. When they’re ready, he slides them onto a plate and carries it over to the table.
I sit down beside him and take a bite of the warm, cheesy sandwich, appreciating the simplicity of the unfailing American pastime. “This is perfect,” I say over my mouthful. “Where’d you learn to cook?”
“I’m not sure making a grilled cheese sandwich qualifies as cooking.” The corners of his mouth tip up, teasing me with the shadow of a smile I know is there, but have yet to fully see.
“Well, most of the guys I know can barely pour their Lucky Charms into a bowl, let alone turn on a stove. Your skills are impressive.”
He laughs and a smile lights up his whole face and shows off his straight white teeth. “One of my foster parents was a cook. I learned the basics when I lived with her.”
“You’re adopted?” I ask, thinking of Callie, whose parents adopted her when she was born. “Callie was adopted too.”
“Nope. Never was.”
“Oh,” I say, confused. “Were you in foster care for very long?”
“Pretty much my whole life, until I was eighteen.”
I feel an ache in my chest when I look up at him. Nobody wanted him? I swallow down a bite of my sandwich that suddenly feels too large. “Have you ever met your birth parents?”
“My mother, a long time ago. But I don’t really remember her. She was only sixteen when she had me, so...”
I’m quiet as I absorb the information he’s sharing. “What about your father?” I ask carefully.
“No. I think he was gone before I was born.”
I nod over the tight feeling in my chest. I lost my parents, but at least I had them in the first place. My childhood was wonderful. I had a safe, warm home and loving parents. I suddenly feel so lucky to have had them in my life for as long as I did. I can’t imagine what his childhood was like.
“Where did you grow up?”
“San Antonio...mostly.”
“Not far from Houston, where I grew up. Is that where you met Derek?”
“Yeah, we met in high school.” He shakes his head and grins, and I wonder what stories he has on Derek. I’ll be sure to find out. “You might be the only other Texan on the island.”
“Texas forever.”
He smiles. “You’re a Friday Night Lights fan.”
“I am from Texas.” I laugh. “I loved watching it when I was in college in New York. It reminded me of home. I still watch it sometimes.”
“Texas forever,” he says with a throaty twang, reminiscent of Taylor Kitsch’s Friday Night Lights character, Tim Riggins.
I smile. “I take it you’re a fan.”
“Yeah. It helped keep me rooted when I was in Afghanistan. I watched every episode on my laptop in my barracks.”
I smile at the thought of my beloved favorite show giving him reprieve in what must have been a very difficult situation. I have so many questions about what it was like for him in Afghanistan, but my father, who treated many veterans, once told me that you have to let a soldier decide when he’s ready to tell you his story.
“Where is everyone else from?” I ask.
“The med team is from Stanford. Grant is from Rhode Island. And Adam is from Phoenix, where we’re both currently living back in the states.”
“I’ve never been to Phoenix.”
“It’s nice. Hot, but nice.”
“Hotter than Texas?”
“It’s a different kind of heat. It’s dry, not much humidity.”
“What do you do there?”
“Contract work for the military.” He shakes his head. “I got out of the Marines, but I can’t seem to get out of the line of work.”
“What kind of work is it?”
“I help with product design for a ballistics firm that makes body armor for various branches of the military.”
“Body armor. Like bulletproof vests?”
“Vests, helmets, shields. It takes a lot to protect a soldier.”
“I’m sure.”
“I provide tactical design consultation. Let’s say a vest is designed to carry thirty or forty pounds of gear, including the carrier plates—what stops the bullets from penetrating the vest. That’s a lot of weight to carry, in addition to weapons and other gear. If you were to fall into a body of water with that much weight strapped onto you, you’d drown before getting it off.” His voice trails off a little, but I listen intently. “So recently, I helped design a quick release system that triggers multiple points of the vest to release at once with one quick pull.”
“Wow, that’s really amazing,” I say, fascinated by a body of work I’ve never even thought about until now. “Will you keep doing that when you get back?”
“I can do it from pretty much anywhere. So yeah, probably.”
“You don’t want to stay in Phoenix?”
“No, that was just temporary.” He looks down and I see something haunt his features, but I won’t ask until he’s ready to talk about it. He looks up at me again. “I don’t really know where I want to live, to be honest. Right now, I’m liking island life.” He smiles gently. “Maybe I’ll start a firm that works with other governments. Maybe Costa Rica’s government. They’re a peaceful country, but they’re constantly policing drug trafficking from South America. They could use all the help they could get when it comes to protective gear for their police force.”
I squirm a little in my chair. “You said the Latin American drug cartel is very active near here. Do they occupy this island often?”
“Who said they occupy it?”
“You
wouldn’t be here if they didn’t.”
He narrows his eyes. “Derek said you were smart.”
“Kellan, I just want to know what the danger is. I trust that you’ll protect me, but keeping it from me won’t do me any good.”
He nods. “We’ve been here a month and there hasn’t been any activity. But the locals say various cartel traffickers do frequent the island from time to time.”
I tense automatically.
“Mules aren’t as dangerous as cartel leaders—they’re usually lower-ranking members tasked with getting drugs over borders. They know this island isn’t policed, so they divert here sometimes.”
“Not as dangerous?”
“They don’t have the same protection or numbers as the higher ranking cartel members. And they certainly aren’t a match for three seasoned marines who are trained to fight armed soldiers. These guys are bottom feeders. If we were to encounter any of them, they’d run the other way, I assure you.”
I nod apprehensively, but can’t shake the disturbing thought of having another encounter with any cartel members, even if they are “bottom feeders.” They’re still savages. And I’ve seen what they will do.
I begin to feel the soreness in my stomach again. “I think I might need to go lie down for a little bit. I feel kind of tired. Apparently fatigue is a side effect of a healing stab wound.” I force a small smile.
“Okay.” He helps me stand up and leads me across the house, down the hallway to my room.
“Where’s your room?” I ask when he stops outside my door.
He puts his hand on the door directly across the hall and pushes it open. “Right here.”
I peek around him and notice the maps on the walls and the surfboard propped up in the corner of the room. There’s also an impressive stack of books on the dresser.
“You can go in,” he says, as though he can see the curiosity plastered across my face.
I look up at him as I enter his room. His white bed is made tightly behind the mosquito net and his room is tidy. I walk over to the stack of books and run my finger along them. “What are you reading?” I pick up the book on the top of the stack. The Odyssey. “Greek mythology?”
He shrugs. “I’ve liked it since I was a little kid. I don’t know why, I think I used to pretend Zeus was my real father or something and I guess it just kind of stuck with me.” He laughs softly, but it makes me sad for him.
“The Odyssey is great. From what I remember,” I admit. “I had to read it once for an assignment in college.”
“It’s not for everyone.” He smirks. “Anything else you want to see?”
I press my lips together and shake my head. “No.” I yawn. “Well, maybe just the back of my eyelids.”
The corners of his mouth tip up, but he doesn’t show me his smile.
I’m going to have to work on my jokes.
Chapter 5
Kellan
I lie in the dark and listen for the sound that just woke me from a light sleep. I thought I heard crying, but it’s quiet now. I roll over and look at the full moon shining on the wet leaves outside my bedroom window. I miss being able to sleep through the night. I miss being able to sleep through a light drizzle outside. It rains almost every night on the island and every fucking sound wakes me up. I’ve been like this since I left Afghanistan. I never had a problem sleeping over there, even with all the chaos and danger that constantly threatened—there wasn’t enough time to think about any of it. But now, that’s all I’ve got.
I hear a quiet moan, and whimpering. Then a muffled scream.
I jump out of bed and grab my gun off the dresser. I step into the hall, but all the doors are closed. I open Makayla’s and whisper her name, “Makayla.”
She’s asleep in her bed, but she cries out again and struggles beneath her sheet, gripping it tightly in her hands. She’s having a nightmare. I close the door, put my gun on the dresser, and kneel beside her bed.
“Makayla, are you okay?” I ask, trying to gently wake her, but it takes several seconds.
Finally, she opens her startled eyes and sits up quickly, wincing at the motion.
“Careful.”
“Kellan?”
“I think you were having a nightmare. I could hear you across the hall. Are you okay?” I reach for her shaking hand, but she pulls it away and scoots back on the bed. Fuck. “I’m sorry.” I drop my chin and run my hand through my hair. She’s traumatized, don’t touch her. Idiot. But it’s hard not to. She has no one here—I know what that feels like. I just want to help her.
She exhales a shaky breath. “It’s okay. It was a nightmare.”
I nod and look into her green eyes, lit by the moonlight shining through her bedroom window. She’s really beautiful. She runs her hand through her blonde hair, tossing it to one side of her face, and I feel it deep inside me—an attraction that I can’t deny. But one I can’t entertain either. I can barely touch her without causing her stress. I don’t know what those bastards did to her, but I have a pretty good idea. And the thought of it sends fire through my veins that makes my blood boil. I’ve seen some pretty horrible things in my life. War doesn’t come without casualties—nobody knows that better than me. But one thing I will never understand is how someone can inflict fear and pain on the innocent.
“Do you...do you want to talk about it?” I ask tentatively, knowing the only way she’ll get past what happened is by talking about it. “It can help,” I admit. I know from personal experience.
She pulls her knees up to her chest, folds her arms over them, and props her chin on her shoulder. “I don’t remember...what happened. So I don’t really know how to talk about it.”
“Well, what were you dreaming?”
Her shoulders begin to rise and fall a little faster and she drops her knees, putting her hands on the bed beside them. She looks down and her face is hidden behind a wall of wavy blonde hair. “There was a man...with dark eyes. He was shouting at me.” She shakes her head and the gold flecks in her hair shimmer in the moonlight. “I could feel his hot breath on my neck...and cheek. I could feel it on my mouth.”
I gently move her hair, like a curtain covering a window, and reveal her beautiful, tortured face. “Hey, it’s okay.”
She presses her fingers to her lips and shakes her head. “I can still feel it,” she says quietly, wiping her mouth. “I can still feel him.”
“He’s gone now. He’s gone,” I assure her.
“I couldn’t move. It felt like I was paralyzed... Have you ever had a dream like that, where you know you’re trapped? And you’re trying so hard to scream, but you can’t?”
“Yes,” I say hoarsely, remembering the feeling all too well.
She exhales a labored breath and looks at me. “It’s called sleep paralysis. When your mind regains consciousness before your REM sleep cycle is finished. Disturbing dreams can cause it.”
The corners of my mouth twitch at her insightfulness. She’s smart, I remind myself. “PTSD can cause it.”
“Yes.”
“I know what it feels like. It’s fucking terrifying,” I admit, shaking my head. “Sorry for the language,” I say quietly.
“You’re a true Texas gentlemen.”
I see her smile through the dark and it immediately lightens the weight on my shoulders. “How do you know so much about sleep paralysis?” I ask curiously.
“My father was a psychiatrist. He had a home office and I used to love to sit outside his door and listen to him shrink his patients. I wasn’t supposed to be eavesdropping, but I learned a lot.” She shrugs.
“He was a psychiatrist?”
“He passed away,” she explains, and I see a flash of pain on her face. “My mom, too. They were in a fatal car accident together.”
“Jesus,” I say quietly, “I’m sorry.” I’ve had a rough couple of years, but it sounds like she has too.
“It’s okay. It was several years ago,” she says, attempting to dilute the pain I can see on her tor
tured face. It’s different than before. It’s the pain of losing someone you care about. I’d recognize that look on anyone.
“When did it happen?”
“About seven years ago. The summer before college. I was eighteen.”
“That must have been really hard. Eighteen is a formative time in anyone’s life.”
“It was. It was supposed to be this amazing year, you know...I graduated and I was getting ready to move to New York with my best friend to go to college. I was supposed to be picking out stuff for my dorm room, but instead I was picking out caskets for my parents.”
I can’t pretend to relate to losing parents I never had, but I know what it’s like to lose someone close. Of course, I was twenty-nine, not eighteen. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.”
“Callie was my saving grace. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know how I would have made it through that summer.”
“Do you still have family in Houston?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m an only child and my grandparents passed away when I was young.”
“So, Derek and Callie are your family now.”
“Yes.” She closes her eyes and sighs heavily. “Which is why nothing can happen to them. If Marc finds out that Derek knows...if he does something to them...”
“Derek is smart. And he loves his wife. He won’t put Callie in harm’s way.”
“They’re all I have left, Kellan.” She looks at me with watery eyes that shimmer in the moonlight, and it takes everything in me not to touch her.
“I know.”
“I’m sorry I woke you,” she says, pulling her hands to her face.
“Don’t apologize. I’m a light sleeper these days. The rain wakes me.”
She gives me a knowing look, but doesn’t press me to explain, and strangely it makes me want to tell her the reason why. But I think she’s dealing with enough on her own right now.
“Will the nightmare come back?” she asks perceptively. She knows I’ve dealt with my share of issues.
I deliberate for a moment, but decide to answer honestly, because I know that’s what she wants. It’s what she needs. “Yes. It will keep coming back until you work through what’s causing it.”