“Yes, ma’am,” I say as I drop down to my ass in front of Charlie’s kennel. He’s lying down now, his head on his paws.
After a few minutes, the noise starts to die down. Charlie hasn’t taken his eyes off of me.
“You’re kind of like me, aren’t you? A little broken.” As if he understands, he gives the door a little nudge with his nose. Glancing up at the laminated card tacked to his cage, I read his history, along with the date he was brought in.
Found wandering on a busy street. No chip or tags. Right ear missing and bloody. Charlie is a neutered two-year-old male (approximate age) with good teeth and no other health conditions. He has only shown aggression when playing tug-of-war. All other forms of play are allowed, and he can be exercised on or off leash.
“You’ve been here a year? No wonder you look so sad. Want to get out of there for a few minutes?”
As soon as I approach with a leash, Charlie sits up with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. My hand shakes as I reach for the latch, but once I get it open, some of the memories threatening fade away.
For the next half an hour, Charlie chases a ball around the exercise yard, always bringing it right back to me and dropping it at my feet, and I start to think maybe I can do this. Take care of these animals and find my way back to some sort of normalcy.
Until I have to take the dog inside. He follows without complaint, but locking him back in his kennel sends me over the edge, and I run from the building, unable to say a word to Melissa as I head for the bus stop a mile away. This was a mistake. One I don’t know how the hell I’ll ever get over.
Melissa calls as I code myself back in to my apartment. “I’m sorry,” I say before she can even get a word in. “I panicked. I didn’t mean to let you down.”
“Son, you didn’t let anyone down—except maybe yourself.” She sighs over the line. “Your therapist sent you here because Safe Haven has a bit of a reputation for helping vets find their way back from where you are right now. My son, Aaron, couldn’t, and when I lost him, Safe Haven was what kept me going.”
“Shit. I’m—”
“Don’t go saying you’re sorry. Not again. I don’t know your history, and I’m not asking. But I understand PTSD better than you might think. If you need to start out slow, you can take care of the dogs outside the kennels for a while. Or work with the horses. Or feed the goats. Come back tomorrow. Try again.”
Words won’t come as I stare out the large windows at the lake, shrouded in shadows.
“Rick?”
“Yeah. Okay. Tomorrow,” I force out, and end the call with a rough, “Thank you.”
I still have a couple of hours before dark, so I change into a pair of basketball shorts, grab a set of twenty-pound barbells from the closet, and push myself through a grueling workout. My shrink would say I’m punishing myself. Maybe I am. Or maybe this is all I have to keep me sane. I just don’t know anymore.
A light summer rain falls as I spread out my sleeping bag in the church doorway a little after ten. Times like this, I think maybe I should try to sleep at my apartment. With all of the windows open and the rain tapping on the metal overhangs, I might be able to handle being inside. But what if I can’t?
Every night, I expect someone from the church rectory to try to convince me to go to a shelter or to come inside so they can tell me how God will save me. And as I stretch out, my muscles still tight from my workout, it hits me. Ryker. The man’s done his damnedest to protect me since he pulled me out of that well.
And I’ve repeatedly told him to go the fuck away. “You’re a piece of work,” I mutter to myself, and a quick inhalation from the sidewalk causes me to jerk my head around. Brown eyes meet mine, and the woman from last night freezes. In one hand, she carries her set of kitty cat brass knuckles, and in the other, a grease-stained bag.
“I…uh…b-brought you something,” she stammers as she climbs the first step and then stops.
“Hoping to bribe me into not axe murdering you?” She flinches and squeezes her eyes shut for a brief moment. “Bad joke. Sorry. But Ripper…really is my name. Or what everyone calls me.” I push up to sitting and rest my back against the church door. “And I’m not a charity case.”
“Didn’t say you were.” She thrusts the bag at me, and when I don’t move, drops it next to my hip. “We had extra. It’s rainy and kind of cold tonight. I thought…a hot meal might…shit. Never mind. Take it or leave it.”
She turns, and the scents of cheese and salsa waft up from the bag. “Wait a minute, sunshine.” Digging into the paper, I find an aluminum foil pan covered with a healthy serving of enchiladas lightly covered in cheese and red sauce, a half pint of refried beans, and a bag of marinated carrots and jicama. “This smells great.”
A hint of pride straightens her shoulders, and the corners of her lips curve into a half-smile. “Thanks.”
“You made this?” I grabbed a granola bar and an apple at my apartment, but my stomach rumbles at the prospect of something so very different than my everyday diet. The first bite takes me back to my mama’s cooking, and I think I moan a little.
In the light of the street lamp, her cheeks glisten with the misty rain and turn a bright pink. “I work at a food truck. Today’s menu was Mexican comfort food.”
“My mama learned how to cook from my abuela, who grew up in Mexico. These are the best enchiladas I’ve had since I left Texas.”
She toys with a blue pendant hanging from a silver chain around her neck. Joy and sadness battle for control of her features, but joy seems to win in the end. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
A tendril of long brown hair plasters itself to her cheek as she stares down at her sensible black shoes. Her ankle’s wrapped in an ACE bandage, and as she fidgets, I can tell she isn’t putting all her weight on it. “You okay? After last night?”
“Oh. Yes. I should…go. Let you eat in peace.”
“Wait.” I don’t know why I’m stopping her. But the idea of her being hurt and that I caused it, doesn’t sit well with me. “What’s your name?”
“Cara,” she says quietly.
“You live…uh…close by?” Her eyes widen, and I kick myself. If she didn’t think I was a stalker or an axe murderer before, she does now. “I just mean…it’s wet out. And you weren’t the most graceful last night. I…be careful, okay?”
A scowl twists those heart-shaped lips, and she levels me with an acerbic stare. “I’m not the one sleeping on the streets with no defenses. And I’m very graceful. When I want to be. Good night, Ripper.” Her curtsey is a little lopsided since she isn’t putting her full weight on her right foot, but she turns on her left heel and starts limping away.
“‘Night, Cara.” As the rain intensifies and I dig back into the takeout container of enchiladas, I wonder why it’s easier for me to talk to a stranger than it is the men I consider my brothers.
Pulling out my phone, I thumb out a text message to Ry and Dax. “Coffee tomorrow? Broadcast at ten?”
Within thirty seconds, they’ve both confirmed, and as I fall asleep to the sounds of the rain on the sidewalk and the occasional light mist coating my cheeks, I decide to give Safe Haven another try. I might fail. But I have to find a way to get some semblance of my life back, even if I never touch a computer again.
Chapter Fifteen
Cara
The light seeps through the thin curtains in my bedroom, waking me long before I want to open my eyes. After I make myself a cup of tea and take my meds, I curl up on the second-hand couch with my tablet and check my email.
Still nothing from Leland. My stomach twists into knots, and every day I don’t hear from him is another day closer to breaking his rules—and mine—and calling him. I have an internet site I can use to mask my location, but it’ll only give me two minutes of time. And it’s expensive.
Please, Leland. Get back to me.
The man’s been a JSOC analyst for twenty-five years. He knows how to hide and how to protect himself. Taught
me everything I needed to know in a safehouse at the edge of Charleston before he sent me to Tulsa with two different fake IDs.
“This guy in Afghanistan is one of the worst on JSOC’s radar. Yet no one goes after him because he has contacts everywhere. Runs guns, missiles, drugs, and…people.”
“People?” I whisper as I change the bandages on the gunshot wound to my thigh. The bullet only grazed me, but it was enough I almost didn’t get away.
My tea goes cold before I rein in my racing thoughts. Grabbing my phone, I go right for my standard coping mechanism—puzzles. If I can distract my brain for ten minutes or so, I might be able to pull myself out of this panic cycle before a full-blown attack.
It’s an hour before I move from the couch, and as I stand, pain shoots up my calf from my turned ankle. Thank God I don’t have to work at the diner today.
The free morning and afternoon mean it’s time for me to plan out the next week. My light blue canvas box holds the only things more important to me than my lapis pendant and my fake ID: my notebook, a weekly organizer, a set of colored pens, and my bank ledger.
Survival on the run with ADHD, anxiety, and a potentially life-threatening heart condition requires me to plan my life down to the day—if not the hour. I can’t be caught without meds, and since the combination of drugs I need to keep myself sane and healthy are so unique, I have to buy them illegally. The local pharmacy is too risky.
Sitting at my little kitchen table, I count out my pills. Fourteen days left for my ADHD meds and the anxiety pills, but…shit. Only three days left for my beta-blockers. The small little pills keep my heart rate from skyrocketing and aggravating a genetic condition that leaves me prone to arrhythmia. Without them, I feel like I’m running a marathon—all the time.
To make it to the end of the month, I’ll need another $400 paid to my dealer. Which means dipping into my cash reserves. My anxiety kicks up a notch as I check the balance. When I left JSOC, I had $50,000. Now…I’m down to less than $22,000, and the balance shrinks every two weeks when I have to replenish my meds.
The notes I scribble on each day in the planner get harder to read as two words bounce around inside my head. My dealer. I have a dealer. If my mother saw me now, she’d call for her fainting couch. The last few years of her life—lung cancer stole her from me when I was only twenty-three—she never stopped talking about how beautiful I looked at my debutante ball back in Charleston. She was convinced I was going to be a doctor or a lawyer. Or at the very least, the wife of one.
Instead, I’m a former chef with people out to kill her, who’s working as a waitress with a side gig slinging comfort food out of a truck. Sitting back, I scan the various multi-colored notes strewn across the next two weeks. I don’t know how much longer I can go without something going my way, but I have to try.
Ripper
The morning rush at Broadcast Coffee is long over by the time I pull open the door a few minutes before 10:00 a.m. Good. Dax and Ry aren’t here yet. I don’t want a repeat of breakfast the other day. After I order a cappuccino and a piece of pound cake, I take a seat where I can watch the door.
With the tall windows in front of me and rock music blaring through the speakers, this is about as different from Faruk’s compound as it could be. There…it was quiet all the time. When he was pleased with me, I was allowed an hour or two after the morning prayers and breakfast to walk the courtyard and exercise, but the rest of my days…he insisted I stay inside, confined to my work room or my small prison with its cot, dresser, and bathroom.
I wash down my morning meds with a generous sip of coffee, watching each customer as they enter. Ry’s truck pulls up to the curb across the street, and as he and Dax head for the door, I worry this was a mistake. They’re going to try to get me to join Hidden Agenda again, and I can’t.
“Rip,” Ry says, directs Dax to the chair to my left. “I’ll get the coffee. You want anything else?”
“Pretty sure I can find my own damn seat,” he mutters in reply. “I’m not totally blind, you know. And yeah. Anything that won’t end up all down my shirt.”
As he folds up his cane and takes a seat, he sniffs. “Never thought I’d see you eating sweets.”
“See?”
Dax chuckles. “Yeah, dumbass. It’s an expression. You’re not going to piss me off by saying the word. Besides, ‘never thought I’d smell you eating sweets’ sounds like I’m Hannibal Lecter.”
I don’t know what to say, and I try not to flinch when he reaches out and rests his hand on my shoulder. “Rip, you can crack a joke once in a while. Or laugh.”
“Not sure I remember how.” Pulling away, I wrap my hands around my mug. All of a sudden, I’m freezing, which my shrink would say is evidence that I’m headed towards a panic attack if I don’t find a way to distract myself. “H-how’s Evianna?” Small talk. I remember small talk. Vaguely.
“Good.” His voice softens, the southern twang deepening. “She and Wren are dress shopping and cake tasting.”
“New Year’s Eve, yeah?” The rich cappuccino suddenly tastes like sludge. “Double wedding?”
Ryker kicks out a chair and folds his massive frame into the seat as he slides a coffee in front of Dax. “Yep. Up in the mountains,” he says. “I hate being in the city on New Year’s Eve. Too many fucking fireworks.”
Shit. The Fourth of July back in Boston was a nightmare. Only a few days after we flew back from Afghanistan, I didn’t know which way was up, and I spent the night huddled on the floor of my hospital room, Dax and Ry on either side of me. The assholes wouldn’t leave, and when the fireworks started, Ryker found the movie Bohemian Rhapsody on the small television, and the two of them sang every fucking song—badly—while I tried not to throw up.
“You’re coming, Rip. We’re not getting married without you there.” Dax carefully reaches for his mug and stops with it halfway to his mouth. “Don’t make me ask again.”
“I’ll be there.” Though the idea terrifies me, being somewhere new, somewhere I might not be able to escape, somewhere I’ll have to be social…these men are my family.
No one speaks for a few minutes, and Ryker looks more uncomfortable with each passing second. “You going to join us at Hidden Agenda?” he asks finally.
I choke on a sip of my cappuccino. “I already told you—”
He sets his cup on the table and stares me down. “That’s not why you wanted to meet?”
With a sigh, I run a hand through my hair. It still feels foreign to me—this shorter style I wore until we landed in Hell. “No. I’m trying something new. It’s called being a normal guy. One who has friends. And isn’t broken as fuck.”
Ryker jerks like I just slapped him, and Dax rubs the back of his neck. Their tells. I haven’t known them long—not the men they are now—but we were trained for years to observe, to read gestures and micro-expressions. And they’re both…hurting.
“Sorry,” I say quietly. “Brothers—”
“That’s not it.” Ry meets my gaze, and the greens, blues, and ambers of his eyes deepen as he stares at me. “You’re not broken, Rip. Not like you think. None of us are.”
I arch a brow. “You set me up in the sweetest apartment on the planet, and I sleep on the streets. I went to the animal shelter yesterday and bolted when I had to put a dog back in his kennel. His fucking kennel, Ry. He wasn’t even upset about it. But I couldn’t handle it. If that’s not broken, I don’t know what is.”
Ryker lays his arm on the table, exposing a fresh tattoo. Not the one we all got the other night, but a different one. The design looks like a stained-glass heart with words etched around the outside in a flowing script.
We’re all beautifully broken.
“Wren’s words. Before her, I never would have believed them. But she’s right. Doesn’t matter what shit we’ve been through. What shit we’re still going through.”
Dax clears his throat. “He’s right. Fuck, man. If we could erase what happened to you the past six years, we
would. You don’t think I wish I had my sight back? I do. Every damn day. I’ve never even seen the woman I’m going to marry. But I’ll tell you one thing… If I had the choice between seeing and having Evianna in my life? Between seeing and sitting here, right now, with my two brothers…there’s no choice. I don’t need my sight. I need my family.”
“I’m not you. Either of you.” Standing, I grab my cup and plate. “And this is about all the normalcy I can take for one day.” Sliding my dishes into the bus tub, I rush for the door, and thankfully, neither of them follow.
Chapter Sixteen
Ripper
By the time I get to Safe Haven, my body feels like one raw nerve. Admitting my brokenness to Dax and Ry…it opened up a box I don’t know how to close again. One full of shame and disgust and agony that swirls around me in a dark cloud I can’t escape.
As I reach the edge of the empty parking lot—the shelter closes early on Sundays—the door to the office opens, and Charlie comes bounding towards me, his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“Hey, buddy.” I drop down to one knee and try to keep him from licking all the way up my face as I wrap my arm around his neck and rub his side, his tail wagging so fast, it’s only a blur. “What are you doing off leash?” The German Shepherd yips and starts trying to herd me towards the office. “All right. I’m coming.”
Melissa waits at the door, a big smile on her face. “He saw you coming all the way from the road. Whined at me until I let him out.” I must look confused, because she pats Charlie’s head when he sits next to me. “He doesn’t get a lot of love,” she explains. “That missing ear…it means he gets passed over every time. So after we close for the day, I usually let him hang out up here with me.”
I reach down and stroke Charlie’s head. “You’re still handsome, buddy.” My fingers skim the edge of the mangled remnants of his ear, and he leans his whole body against my leg. “Why don’t you adopt him?” I ask Melissa.
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