by E. M. Smith
“Having someone killed in front of your face, then,” Whiskey said. “Even though it was a target, that kind of violence can leave serious psychological damage if you aren’t prepared for it.”
“I’m fine,” I said again.
“I need to know you’ll be fully functional by the next op,” Whiskey said.
“I will be. I am. I’m fine.”
“Ha!” Nurse Regina said.
“Nobody asked you,” I said.
“No, of course not. Why ask the trained professional?” She pulled the tube out of the vacutainer and put it in her basket with the others. Then she put a cotton ball on my vein, slipped the needle out of it, and flipped the sharps cap shut. “Keep pressure on that. Results in a week or two. Take the full run of antibiotics. Done. Out with the both of you.”
Whiskey held the door for me, then followed me out into the hall.
“Med staff,” she said.
“Try spending three months trapped with her,” I said, leading the way to the elevator. “She was my PT nurse, too. I got better fast so I could get the hell away.”
We went through all the scans and got in the elevator. I pushed the button for the lobby. Out of the corner of my eye, I could feel Whiskey watching me.
“What do you plan to do tonight, Juliet?”
“Sleep.”
“Most operatives feel like they need to blow off steam after a mission,” she said.
“I bet most operatives don’t have to sit around for two hours waiting for a doctor to look at him for five seconds, then get their blood drawn by a rip like Nurse Regina. I’m fixing to crash.”
Whiskey was still watching me, so I took the cotton ball off my arm and checked to see if I was done bleeding yet. Not even close.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened into the lobby.
“See you at oh-six-hundred,” I said, getting out.
“Maybe you should take tomorrow off,” she said.
I turned and headed for the door.
“Nope,” I said. “I don’t need it. Bright and early—forensics followed by some muay thai. I’ll remember my mouth guard this time. And don’t forget I’ve got to hit the showers by oh-eight to make it to Ms. Baker’s by nine.”
I heard Whiskey’s shoes on the lobby tile, so I picked up the pace. My heart was pounding way too hard.
Outside, the rain was coming down cold and heavy. Instead of taking the chance Whiskey might’ve been taking the train, I walked back to Brooklyn.
*****
Owen and I were on the back porch, drinking cokes and watching the bugs skim around the surface of the lake. Talia was upstairs putting the girls to bed because—according to Owen—it was her turn.
“What’re you doing, Jamie?” Owen asked.
I slapped at a mosquito. “What’s it look like?”
“I mean working for these people,” he said. “They let Delgado kill me and Talia so they could get to the girls.”
“That was the organization,” I said. “NOC-Unit. Not Whiskey’s team. They lied to her. She thought she was taking down a human trafficker.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty damn. And even if I wasn’t, how the hell else’m I supposed to help Della and Eva if I don’t play along for a while?”
“This isn’t one of your commando black ops video games,” Owen said. “This is real fucking life.”
“Don’t you think I figured that out already—like, maybe when Delgado offed his own fucking pilot? Or maybe when I was falling out of his helicopter? Or maybe when I was staring at your fucking crime scene photos wondering how long you were still alive after they smashed your head open.”
“The hand-swipe in the blood,” he said, nodding. “That was just leftover electrical impulses. The muscles can twitch for up to—”
“Don’t you fucking lecture me on forensics. I get that shit from all sides now, I don’t need it from you, too. What I need is to be a good little commando so NOC-Unit doesn’t make the girls or me disappear. And to somehow figure out why Delgado and some government shadow agency wanted them so damn bad in the first place.”
“You already know why,” Owen said.
Something moved behind him. My heart stalled out. I couldn’t breathe.
“Owen, get down,” I yelled, but no sound came out.
He looked me in the eyes. “Don’t fuck this up, Jamie.”
My muscles were so tight it felt like they’d rip off my bones, but I couldn’t move.
“It has a gun,” I tried to yell. The words wouldn’t come out.
“You’re all the girls have left,” Owen said.
The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of his head. I felt the bore dig into his scalp.
The shot didn’t make a sound. Owen’s head turned into a red mist. All over me—it was all over me—
*****
Slamming my wrist on the corner of my nightstand woke me up.
“Ouch! Son of a—fucking—” I squeezed my arm to my chest and gritted my teeth. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t want to wake up everybody else. NOC-Unit’s barracks might’ve been a four-bedroom apartment nicer than the trailer I’d grown up in, but the walls were still pretty damn thin.
I shut my eyes and took some deep breaths. That calmed down the shaking. After a while, the sweating would stop, too.
I was used to nightmares. I’d had at least one a night since Belize, usually more. Stuff like not being able to move while I watched Delgado’s helo lift off with Della and Eva inside. Or feeling like I was running through waist-deep mud trying to get to them. Or jumping and grabbing the runner just to have my fingers slip off. Anytime my dream self did make it into the helo, Delgado told me to pick which one got to live. I had to look the girls in the eyes while they begged me not to let him shoot them. I didn’t even want to think about how many times I’d made it to the end of that dream.
This was the first nightmare I’d had about Owen. Didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand, went to the Recent Calls list, and dialed.
One ring.
“Hey, this is Owen Kendrick. I’m not here right now and since we all know this is Talia anyway—sweetness, you need to embrace texting. No one uses voicemail anymore. Eva knows this and she’s two. Come on in, honey, the data’s fine.”
I hung up when the operator’s voice came on telling me how to record my message. Then I dialed it up again.
Then again.
*****
After a while I figured out I wasn’t going back to sleep, so I got up. Threw on shorts, a long-sleeved shirt, socks, and shoes. Dug the earbuds out of my jacket. Running usually helped wear off that antsy feeling in my back and leg.
I made it as far as the barracks’ kitchen. Romeo was at the island pouring herself a shot of vodka.
“I thought you were knocking off early,” she said.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said.
“Me either.” She pushed the shot glass across the counter to me. “Sleeping pill?”
I made a face. My last vodka-binge had ended with a year’s probation and six months’ mandatory ankle monitoring. Just the smell of the stuff made me a little uneasy.
Romeo shrugged and did the shot herself.
“Ugh, still wired,” she said. “Can you believe that bullshit? Bringing in a Kilo to do my job? And not just mine, but Fox’s, too. He’s probably just as pissed about this as I am. And if he’s not, he should be.”
I tried to think of something to say, but all I could see was Trent’s head exploding.
“So, what’re you going to do now?” Romeo asked, setting up another shot. “Go running?”
“Nah, I’m fixing to go clubbing. Like my outfit?”
She was taking a drink when I said it. She snorted, then started coughing and grabbed her nose with both hands.
“Oh, shit, that burns,” Romeo said, her voice choked and her eyes watering. She fanned her face with both hands. “Fuck.�
��
“Are you okay?”
She started laughing again. “It was hearing you say ‘outfit.’”
“So, you don’t like it?”
“Stop it.”
I posed like a pissed off model and plucked my Underarmor away from my chest. “This is chenille, dammit.”
“Seriously, Jamie—” Romeo stopped. She looked down at the countertop. “Juliet. I meant Juliet.”
“I should probably…” I pointed over my shoulder toward the door.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Ain’t no big deal,” I said.
“No, I know it is.” Romeo shook her head. She still wouldn’t look at me. “But I heard your nieces calling you ‘Uncle Jamie’ on the flight back from Belize and it was sweet and…well, I…I don’t exactly hate you…”
It was too weird seeing Romeo act all self-conscious.
“I don’t exactly hate you, either,” I said. “More like you give me the creeps.”
She grinned. “Fuck you, Juliet.”
“You’re so short and cute, but you can shoot a guy’s left nut off from a mile away?” I faked a shiver. “Freaks me the hell out.”
“Double fuck you,” Romeo said. She looked down at the vodka’s label, then back at me. “Let’s get out of here—and not to go running.”
*****
I stopped in the middle of the street when I realized where Romeo was headed. The sign was flashing “Jack’s” in bright orange and I could hear Travis Tritt blasting inside.
“It’s a bar,” I said.
“It’s a honkytonk,” Romeo said. Her smile got so big, her scars practically disappeared. “They even serve real moonshine.”
She didn’t know. How was it we’d been bunking in the same barracks for almost half a year and this had never come up?
“Come on.” Romeo tugged at my hand.
I opened my mouth. It was right on the tip of my tongue—I don’t drink. I haven’t in eight months. I’m sober.
But she looked so proud of herself for finding this place. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Anyway, where the hell had I thought we were going to in the middle of the night? Church?
I had turned down that vodka back at barracks no problem. I could just go in and not drink. It wasn’t like I could spend the rest of my life hiding from alcohol. I’d have to face it sooner or later.
A cab laid on the horn as it passed, even though we were standing in the opposite lane.
“Earth to Juliet,” Romeo said.
I told my feet to move. Turned out they didn’t need much encouragement.
“Let’s get out of the road,” I said.
*****
Inside, Jack’s was set up like some New Yorker’s guess at what a honkytonk might look like. Everybody had on cowboy boots and jeans and cowboys hats, trying way too hard, but the place still brought me back to the beginning of a lot of nights I can’t remember.
The music was what really got to me—which was weird because, growing up, I never was a big fan. But hearing Alan Jackson’s voice pumping through the speaker system made me feel like my mom was hugging me.
Romeo laughed when she saw my face.
“You love it,” she yelled over the music. “I knew you would.”
I shrugged. Wasn’t there some old saying about not realizing you missed something until you saw it again?
“Those guys’re leaving,” Romeo said. “Let’s steal their table. Then you can show me how to line dance.”
“I don’t know how to,” I said. “I don’t think I ever met anybody who did.”
“Let’s go sit at the bar, then, and get really drunk and stumble around the dance floor. Have you ever had a pineapple upside down shot?”
I tried to squeeze up to the bar with Romeo, but the place was pretty packed so I stood behind her.
“A what?” I asked.
Romeo stood up on the boot rail and leaned over the bar until she got the bartender’s attention.
“Pineapple upside down shots,” she told him. “And keep ‘em coming.”
“Hey, listen, Romeo, I don’t—” Somebody bumped me and I about knocked Romeo over. “Sorry. It’s crazy in here. What’s the deal?”
“They have a live band Friday nights,” Romeo said. “See? Setting up over there?”
I looked. A guy tuning a dobro, another one messing around on a harmonica, while a big chick and a tattooed guy lugged in black cases.
“Kind of late, ain’t it?” I said.
“The city that never sleeps—not just an exaggeration anymore. Hey, grab that chair before somebody takes it.”
I hopped onto the barstool next to Romeo’s. A few minutes later, the bartender set a wood plank with four shots on it in front of us. They started out bloody-pink at the bottom, the middle was orange, and the top was yellow.
“Pretty,” I said.
“Tastes even better than it looks.” Romeo handed me one. “What’s a good redneck toast?”
“‘Hold my beer and watch this’?”
“To that!” She killed her shot. “Mm, now that’s what alcohol should taste like.” She saw that I was still holding mine. “It ain’t gonna bite ya, partner.”
“Convincing accent,” I said.
“Drink before I start yelling ‘chug, chug, chug.’”
It was just one. If I drank it and it made me sick I’d see how gross the shit was and I’d never want to drink again.
I knocked it back. Sweeter than icing. I felt the burn, but couldn’t taste the alcohol. I did the other shot.
I should’ve had a buzz going pretty quick considering how long it’d been since the last time I’d drank, but the second shot barely touched me. Same with the third. The sugar was going to make me sick before the booze did.
Six shots later, I gave up on the sweet stuff and switched to beer with Everclear chasers. If you’re going to fall off the wagon anyway, you might as well cannonball.
“Sure you don’t want to dance?” Romeo asked. The band had started playing some old blues rock and she was moving around in her seat, holding onto my leg so she wouldn’t fall. “Just one song?”
“I don’t dance.” I finished off my beer and shot my Everclear. The bartender had been taking the empties as fast as I could drink them, but I was pretty sure this was only my third round. “Damn. I can’t get the sugar taste from those pineapple things out of my mouth.”
“I’ll get it for you,” Romeo said.
She stood up on the rungs of her barstool, stretched over, and kissed me.
Her tongue tasted sweet. Like pineapple and candy. It didn’t mix right with the beer, but I didn’t care. The last time somebody had kissed me like that, like they couldn’t get enough of me… Well, it’d been a long damn time, anyway.
She was so soft. Girl-soft. She sucked my bottom lip into her mouth. I sat my beer down or let it drop or maybe threw it across the room and slid my hand up the back of her neck.
After a couple more seconds, she cut off the kiss and sat down on her barstool.
“How’s that?” she asked.
“Better,” I said. “A whole hell of a lot better.”
“Dance with me—just a couple songs—then let’s get out of here.”
“A’ight.”
*****
No one was in the kitchen when we made it back to barracks.
“Clear,” I said.
“My room,” Romeo whispered way too loud.
“Why not mine?”
“You’re a boy. Boy’s rooms smell. Everybody knows it.”
She started to lead the way down the hall, then she tripped over something and dropped the vodka we’d bought on the way back.
“Shit,” she whisper-yelled, grabbing for the bottle.
We both tried to choke off our laughter, but that just made it louder.
“Here, I got you.” I picked her up. She wrapped her legs around my hips and started squirming. “Take it easy, girl. I’m trying to make this last at least ‘til we get o
ur clothes off.”
More laughing. I bumped sideways into the wall with her.
“Shut up,” Romeo said. “You’re going to wake everyone up.”
“How the hell far away is your room, anyhow?”
“Right there. Are you really that drunk?”
“Fuck you, I ain’t drunk. You’re drunk.”
“I am drunk.”
We bumped into her door.
“A’ight, I’m a little drunk. Will you open that? I don’t got any more free hands.”
“What happened to Mr. Chivalry?” Romeo asked. “Mr. Opens-Doors-and-Gives-Up-His-Seat-for-Women?”
“He’s carrying your hot little ass to your room. If you don’t want him to turn into Mr. Fucks-a-Chick-in-the-Hallway, open the damn door.”
She turned the knob. The door dropped out from behind us and we spilled into the bedroom. Somehow Romeo came up on top. When I got my bearings back, she had off her jacket and shirt.
There was a little metal heart charm in the middle of her bra.
“Damn, I love girl’s underwear,” I said. “Y’all got the sexiest shit.”
Romeo unscrewed the cap on the vodka, took a drink, then handed it to me.
“That’s romantic,” she said. “You should write a poem.”
I finished off the bottle. “Fuck you.”
“Please do.”
*****
Felt like a gallon of toxic waste was eating through my stomach lining. I pulled the little heat pack in bed with me closer and rubbed my face on her shoulder. When did she put on a shirt? I wished she’d take it off. There ought to be a law against wearing clothes to bed. I needed skin contact. That would make me feel better.
Fuck.
Don’t think about it. Go back to sleep so you never have to wake up and think about what a stupid fucking dipshit you are.
I closed my eyes and imagined I was dying in some ditch, bleeding out after wrecking my truck. That’s what I always used to imagine when the alcohol kept me awake.
It helped.
*****
Romeo groaned.
“Shut your alarm off,” she said.
Alarm?
“Shit!” I bolted up out of bed. Sunlight was flooding in around the corners of Romeo’s curtains. “What time is it?”
My alarm clock app started beeping again.
“Ugh, I hate that sound.” Romeo pulled a pillow over her head.