Saving Axe

by Sabrina Paige

  "Yes," I said. "Have you been beating yourself up over this for all these years?"

  He didn't say anything.

  "Oh my God, Cade," I said. "We were kids. We didn't know any better." I leaned forward, kissed him lightly on the lips. He didn't push me away. So I kissed him again, gently, and his lips parted. Then he kissed me back. Wordlessly, I climbed on his lap, sat on his crossed legs, wrapped my legs around his back, held his head to my chest. I breathed in, feeling my heart rate settle and come down low as I held him tight against me. I kissed his forehead, breathed him in.

  And felt warmth spread throughout my body, in response to the smell of him.

  How wrong was it that I was thinking about how much I wanted him inside me? Cade was sitting here, feeling ashamed and horrible, and all I wanted to do was ride him.

  As if he could read my thoughts, Cade looked up. "Come here," he said, his hand at the base of my neck, pulling my hair, pulling me into him. He kissed me, roughly, and I felt my nipples harden to his touch, need washing over me.

  It wasn't slow and gentle, not like the way he'd made love to me this morning. This time, there was no time for foreplay; it was all I could do to rip myself away from him in order to grab a condom. I didn't want to talk anymore, and I didn't want to think about who Cade was or what he might be a part of. Hell, I didn't want to contemplate those questions myself.

  I guided him inside me, rocking against him, my movements intense from the very beginning. There was no build-up, no gentle rhythm. We were both consumed with need, too caught up in the moment to worry about anything else.

  But when we did explode together, not more than minutes later, just before I came, I thought, he's going to make me fall for him - and then he's going to leave.

  I woke with a start, fear gripping my chest like a vise, and it took me a moment to even register what had woken me. Beside me, Cade was thrashing in the bed, talking to himself.

  "No, no, no," he yelled, followed by a string of something that was unintelligible. From her bed on the floor in the room, Bailey whined.

  "Cade," I said. Then, louder again. "Cade!" He flailed wildly, and I had to move back to avoid being hit.

  He jerked awake, gasping for air, looking at me.

  "Are you ok?" I asked.

  He didn't say anything, didn't acknowledge me. I wasn't even sure if he heard me, and I wasn't quite sure whether he was awake or still asleep. He leaned forward, his head in his hands, his breath more and more shallow, choking.

  Panic attack.

  I definitely recognized those.

  I slid close to him, put my hand on his back. "Just breathe," I said. "Breathe."

  I kept my hand there, still, until his breathing began to slow, then got a cool washcloth from the bathroom and dabbed it on his forehead.

  "Here," I whispered, taking off his tee-shirt. "You're soaked."

  "June," he said. "I'm sorry."

  "It was a panic attack," I said. You have nothing to feel sorry for. "I get them too."

  He wrapped his arms around me, slid into bed behind me, his skin warm against mine. "The nightmares don't happen every night," he said.

  "It's okay, Cade." I closed my eyes. "You're safe."

  Before I drifted off to sleep, I thought, It's my heart that's in danger.

  Axe

  Safe.

  I lay there, holding June, not daring to move, listening to her breathing get deeper as she fell asleep in my arms. I wanted to avoid having to talk about what had just happened. I didn't need to play twenty questions with her about this shit.

  The fucking nightmares, the panic attacks...they were old hat for me now. I'd had them for years, and it wasn't like June could do anything about them. Right after I'd gotten out, I talked to someone at the VA, made it through a couple sessions before I decided dredging up my past was about the most useless shit ever.

  I didn't want to relieve that shit with June.

  She was in that convoy - the explosion. She'll understand.

  I squelched that fucking voice in my head. I'm sure June didn't think I knew, but I'd looked her up. I knew about what had happened, how she was in Afghanistan, attached to one of the medical battalions who'd gone out on an easy humanitarian mission. Teaching doctors from a local Afghani hospital. As soon as I started reading the article about her, I knew she would have loved that, volunteered for it. One of the vehicles in their convoy had hit an IED and the convoy had taken fire - a whole fucking group of doctors. June had dragged her wounded corpsman out of the line of fire, but he'd died anyway. The article had called her "the hero surgeon."

  If anyone would understand this shit, it would be June. She'd said she had panic attacks. I knew from experience that was probably the tip of the iceberg. But June, she dealt with things differently. Fuck, she channeled her shit into opening a bed and breakfast. Her big act of rebellion was quitting her job as a surgeon.

  I channeled all my shit into becoming better at being a murderer. There was a big difference between us.

  All the bullshit, the nightmares, the waking up in cold sweats...it was just easier to not talk about it. I'd learned that much. All the shit I'd seen - there was just too much of it to put into words anymore. It had become part of me, part of my soul. Killing for the club just confirmed what I already knew about myself - that I was too far gone to do anything else.

  I wasn't always like this, though. The Marines do a pretty good job of putting you through the ringer before you become a sniper - psych evaluations and all that bullshit. They have to be sure you're not a fucking psychopath before giving you a weapon and asking you to act like one. Most of the guys I knew were just like me - good guys, guys with families, guys from ranches or small towns who knew their way around rifles.

  And after what happened with June's family, the secret I had kept, I told myself that doing this was the only way. It was my path to redemption. I was part of something bigger than myself, something noble.

  So I deployed, five times in as many years. Volunteered for missions. I was shit hot, and it felt good to be good at something. But I was a sniper during the first five years of the war, when shit was bad. I pictured myself lying in a field, shooting targets from a half a mile away. Sometimes it was like that. But mostly, it wasn't. It was protecting a squad on foot in Baghdad or in Ramadi, taking out targets in buildings. It was always business, never personal. I never felt bad about any of the targets I killed - they were always armed, always the enemy.

  The guys I was protecting, the ones I lost...those were the ones I felt bad about. Those were the deaths I couldn't get out of my head. Those were the guys I would feel responsible for failing, until the day I died.

  And those were the scenes that replayed in my mind, over and over like a video stuck on a loop. Those were the images that haunted me during the day, popping up when I least expected it, when I caught a whiff of something in the air, or heard the sound of a car backfiring. Those were the nightmares that stole my sleep.

  At night, I would close my eyes, and see it in my mind's eye...the flash of light, clouds of dust and debris kicked up around me, the billowing dust cloud that colored the air. I'd hear the explosion, followed by a moment of dead silence, and then the ringing in my ears. I'd feel the shockwave from the blast wash over me before I was thrown to the ground.

  Every night, the same thing. And in my dreams, I'd see the men I failed to save.

  I was stirring cream into my coffee, trying to force myself to wake up, my head still groggy, when I heard June pad into the kitchen, her footsteps light on the tiled floor. She slid her arms around my waist, and I felt myself stiffen.

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  "Nothing."

  That wasn't true.

  June stepped back away from me, touched my arm. "Cade," she said. "Turn around and look at me."

  I turned, sighing. Exasperated. Not with her, but with myself. "What, June?"

  "What happened last night-" she began. I cut her off. I didn't want he
r pity.

  "What happened last night won't happen again," I said. I wouldn't let it. I told myself she would understand, but the truth was, we were different. She had so much shit in her life, and she'd risen above it. I would drag her down.

  "Cade, it's okay. I've had panic attacks, nightmares." Her hand was still on my arm. "It helps to talk about it."

  I drew my arm back from her, sat at the table with my coffee. "I don't need to talk about it."

  "I'm not saying you need to. I'm just telling you that it's fine if - "

  I cut her off. "Leave it alone, June. It's not your fucking problem."

  It was mean, what I said, and I immediately regretted it. The silence hung heavy in the air between us. I heard her clear her throat, and I didn't want to know what she was about to say. Probably kick me out. I wouldn't give her the chance.

  I stood up, not looking at her. "I need to get back to the house. My dad's going to be wondering where the hell I am. Crunch too."

  "I'm pretty sure they know where you are," June said.

  "Still, I should go."

  "Just like that," June said.

  Now I looked at her, standing, with her back to the kitchen counter, her arms crossed in front of her. I might not have been able to save some people, but I could save her from me.

  "What did you expect from me, June?" I asked, knowing I was being mean. I steeled myself. It was for the best. "Did you think I was going to hang out here and play house with you, just because we screwed a couple of times?"

  June's eyes narrowed. I knew I was hurting her, but she didn't need me around her. What did I think was going to happen here, anyway - June would ride off on the back of my bike, into the sunset? She didn't need to be involved in my life. I might be fucked up beyond redemption, but I wasn't an idiot. June was way too good for me, and I knew it.

  "No," she said. "I sure as hell didn't peg you for the marrying kind."

  I knew I wasn't that type, but hearing it from June, the girl I used to think I'd marry, still stung. "I was, once."

  "Yeah, well, you're right, you know. The Cade I knew back then is long gone. I thought I saw a glimpse of him over the past couple of days, but I was wrong."

  Part of me wanted to argue with her, tell her that Cade, the one from high school, was still there, that I wasn't completely lost. But that wasn't true. I was, and I'd been lost for a long time.

  "Nope. You're right," I said. "That Cade is long gone." I turned away from her. I didn't want her to see my face. She'd always had an uncanny knack for being able to tell when I was lying to her. I started to walk away, toward the hallway, but stopped. I couldn't help but get in a parting shot. "I guess you'll have to find a new fuck toy now."

  "Cade," she said, her voice cracking. For a moment, I thought about turning around, but I knew if I did I would be at her mercy. She already had too big a hold on me.

  It would be better for her if she hated me.

  It would be better for her if I were gone.

  "I wondered when you'd be back," my dad said. His back was turned to me, and he ran a brush along the flank of one of the mares.

  "You need some help with anything, Pop?" I lingered at the door of the barn.

  "Need some help mucking out the stalls," he said. "Pitchfork is over there."

  I worked silently, losing myself in the physical labor. Working the ranch had always helped me quiet my mind, no matter what the problem was. I was hoping it would work when it came to the thoughts about June. I just needed to silence what was going through my head.

  "So," he said, finally turning to me when I'd made my way to the stall right beside him. "You've been at June's place for the past two days."

  "Let it be, Pop." I didn't want to answer questions about her.

  He ignored me. "Are you going to do right by that girl?"

  "Pop." I turned toward him, set the pitchfork up against the side of the wall. "What are you talking about? Me and June, we're not anything."

  He looked at me, his gaze unyielding. "Son, you and June have always been something. You've been something since the day you met. Now, I stood by and watched you throw everything away, push away everyone who loved and cared about you, when you ran off to California with the biker gang."

  "Pop, I - "

  He held up a hand. "Son, you're going to let me finish. I've been wanting to say this for some time now, and I'm going to say it. Now, I was right proud of you when you became a Marine. I was bursting with pride when you got the Silver Star. And I thought about what you said, about not really wanting to know what you did, being a sniper."

  "I don't want to hear about how disappointed you are, dad. I've heard it enough."

  "Cade Austin," he said, his voice clipped. "Let me finish."

  I knew my dad meant business when he got that tone. But as much as I didn't want a lecture from him about how I was ruining my life, I also knew better than to just walk away. No matter how much I wanted to.

  "You were right about me not really knowing what you did. I didn't want to think about how those deployments affected you." He kicked the hay on the floor around absently, looking down at his dusty boot. "I liked having you be a Marine, someone I could be proud of. But that was selfish. I didn't see the wear on you, not back then."

  I swallowed hard. My dad was a man of few words. He never talked like this.

  "When you got out, when you came back home for a couple weeks, your mother saw it. She said you were hurting. But I refused to think that way. I just couldn't see it."

  "I was fine, dad." But I wasn't. I hadn't been fine in a long time.

  "I'm a stubborn old man," he said. "I was wrong. Your mother was right. When you left to go to California, to work at the warehouse, I thought it was for the best. I thought it would be a fresh start for you."

  I dropped my eyes to the floor. Here comes the guilt trip, the talk about the MC, I thought.

  "I was angry when you joined the MC, couldn't see how you didn't understand you were throwing your life away. Now, I know - "

  I laughed. "Now you see that I'm throwing everything away? Sorry to disappoint you, dad. I'm not the prodigal son you'd hoped for."

  "No, you're not a prodigal son," he said. "You're just my son. You always have been, and you always will be. That's true, whether you're in the biker gang or you're not."

  I hadn't cried in years, but I felt a lump in my throat. I cleared my throat, not able to look up and meet his gaze. "Okay."

  "I know I've not been the best father," he said. "And I'm no good with words. Expressing things has never been my strong suit. Your mother complained about that fact until the day she died. But I do hope you know that I love you, Cade."

  Jesus, I wasn't about to start crying here.

  I cleared my throat again. "I love you too, dad."

  My dad nodded, his eyes reddening. Then he coughed. "All this hay in here," he explained. "It's making my eyes water."

  "Yeah, mine too," I said.

  My dad was silent for a few minutes before he finally spoke again. "Now, I got one more thing to say, and I'm done saying my piece. And you're going to stand there and listen to me."

  Oh, hell. We were about to go back to talking about June again.

  "Now, that girl over there, I don't know what's going on with you -"

  "Nothing," I said. "Nothing, dad."

  "It's not 'nothing'. She loves you," he said.

  "Dad, June doesn't love - "