by Chris Bostic
“Like what?” Joe pulled his eyes away to stare across the hills at the distant flares. “There’s nothing special about me.”
“You have a family, right?”
“Yeah. Mom’s probably dead now from the…I don’t know what. Some weird disease that I can’t pronounce. And my dad is barely hanging on.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. That’s life in the Republic, right?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Leisa shifted position, gently brushing against Joe’s shoulder. “Maybe now I get why you’d run away.”
“It’s not really gonna happen.” He turned to her. “There’s my little brother, you know. And Pops. I mean I can’t leave them.”
“I didn’t think you would.” Leisa reached for her shirt pocket. “I probably never showed you this, did I?”
“The picture?” Joe asked, though he didn’t want to hear the story about how she was fighting to get home to the love of her life.
He slid away from her as she pulled out the picture and ran a finger tenderly over the bent and tattered edges.
“It’s okay,” he said, eager to change the subject. “We should rest.”
“What?” She looked at him and easily recognized what was behind his tight, squinty eyes. “Oh, no. You…you’re thinking…”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Joe, this is my brother.” She turned the picture to him. “I kinda volunteered for him. He’d just turned fourteen. Our folks are gone, so that meant they were only gonna take one of us. I knew they supposedly hadn’t been taking kids that young, but the way that recruiter was eyeballing him…it was only a matter of time.”
Joe fumbled for the words, too surprised—possibly elated—to offer more than a simple, “What?”
“And there I was gathering eggs when I saw the way they looked at him. And me. He’s a big kid, and I’m just a breeder to them. You know…a mother to my animals, and some day more soldiers for the lousy Republic.”
“Wow,” he said, still stuck on one word replies.
“The recruiter could’ve grabbed him up right then. My baby brother, barely old enough to know his way around our tiny corner of the world. I had to speak up. Joey’s great with the animals, too. He can keep the farm running while I do my time here.”
“Joey?”
“That’s funny, right?
“It’s sad,” Joe whispered. “Another bad luck Joe.” He realized what he was implying, and corrected himself. “I mean, uhm, bad luck for you and how you got into this mess.”
“I don’t regret it.”
“Not at all?”
Leisa shook her head emphatically.
He could see on her face that she was happy to make the sacrifice for her brother’s sake. “You’re too good for me.”
“I don’t think so.” She smiled demurely. “I did what anyone would do for their family. Just like you going back home someday to help your dad and little brother.”
“Not that I want to. And I sure didn’t volunteer. That’s a couple big differences.” He exhaled his frustration. “I’m nothing like you.”
“I’m completely like you.”
Right then, Joe desperately wanted to tell her that she completed him. He needed someone like her. Even if he had been finally willing to get close to someone, he remained convinced that he wasn’t on the same level as Leisa—and never would be. Her actions had elevated herself onto a pedestal so much higher than he could ever reach. He would never be that selfless, or that certain.
He muddled unhappily through life in the Regulators while she was worried about something so much bigger than herself, and had turned nice thoughts into positive action. He only thought of running away.
“Forget it,” he mumbled to himself, positive that he’d never be good enough for her. He needed to move on, get back to safety, and get out of the Regulators for good. Maybe then he could be a better son, a better brother.
“Joe?”
He turned a furrowed brow her direction.
She tucked the picture back into her pocket and stared at him a moment before saying, “C’mon, grumpy. I thought you’d be happy.”
“Happy?”
“I’ve seen the way you look at me. But this,” she pointed at his ugly frown, “really isn’t it.”
“Oh.” Joe blushed so hard he thought his cheeks might shine through the nighttime blackness like a reindeer’s nose.
“It just can’t work, you know?”
He was unsure why exactly, and asked, “It won’t work out?”
“Not that.” Leisa slugged him on the shoulder. “You’re so infuriating sometimes.”
“What?”
“I meant about the rules.” She shot a look over to where their sergeant rested. “There’s no fraternization allowed, remember? I can’t believe Connie hasn’t crawled up your butt about that already.”
Joe finally read between the lines, and a broad smile curled his lips. “So…you’re saying you like me too?”
“Duh.”
“But we can’t do anything about that until we get out of the service?”
It seemed like a decent compromise to him, and possibly wouldn’t let him get too attached. Then again, he knew it was already too late for that.
A mischievous grin and a muffled chuckle from Leisa followed. “Not unless you’re still thinking about deserting.”
“It’d be worth it.” He snuck a hand across the divide and found hers. Their fingers linked together instantly. “Or we could forget about the rules.”
“You’re telling me.” She took another nervous look at Connie and smiled. “Why’d we have to find him?”
“I know, right?” Joe’s gaze settled back on her. He couldn’t keep the stupid grin off his face. “But maybe we need to get away…do some, uhm…”
“Scouting?”
“Yeah, that.” Joe’s pulse quickened to the point he was nearly panting.
“Those guys are both sleeping. Someone needs to keep watch.”
“Maybe from over there?” Joe pointed to the other side of the ridge out of sight of their companions, but he wasn’t completely serious.
“You wish.”
“I do, but that’s about all I can do about it for now.” His hormonal hunger was strong in the moment, but not so much to forget where he was at. Deep behind enemy lines wasn’t the place to be losing concentration, and whatever he felt about Leisa could stay spoken but definitely not acted upon.
He settled his gaze back on the distant hills, still alight with the flashes of explosions. His chest ached with explosions of joy, each rapid beat of his heart pulsing out all-consuming warmth.
Unable to keep his eyes off Leisa, he looked back over to find she’d inched even closer. Their shoulders brushed together, and he let out a contented sigh. Next thing he knew, she took the rest of his breath away by leaning over for a kiss.
CHAPTER 25
“Ahem,” Connie growled from the darkness. Joe and Leisa pulled apart like a grenade had landed between them.
Connie rose and strode toward them. Leisa wiped her mouth with the back of her hand while Joe choked trying to swallow down a massive lump of anxiety. He knew the kind of trouble their reckless display of affection could mean for him—and Leisa.
Their sergeant remained deathly quiet as he stepped right between the two of them and sank to the ground. He stared at the explosions crackling on the distant hills while Joe quivered, sure to get a biting speech and likely much worse. Most likely some sort of punishment, Joe assumed, or even a trip to the military prison of Old Stony Lonesome when they got back.
“Looks like things are getting a little, uhm, hot and heavy, eh? Maybe we’d better keep moving. Wouldn’t want to get too comfortable here, would we?” Joe would have sworn that Connie winked at him as he turned, saying, “I’ll wake up Pete.”
Joe exhaled so strongly he could have blown out a campfire. He pulled Leisa to her feet, and she leaned her head
on his shoulder. He watched Connie’s retreating form, hoping the sergeant wouldn’t turn around.
“What are you doing?” he whispered. Against his better judgment, he didn’t consider pushing Leisa away. Instead, he found his arms wrapping around her waist.
She lifted her head to whisper in his ear, “Save this moment for later. We make it home, and then we set everything right.” She released him with a quick hug. “Until then, it’s all business.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a crisp salute and a goofy grin.
He knew he wouldn’t ever forget that night. It was the first decent memory he’d had from his entire time with the Regulators. It also happened to be about his biggest flouting of the rules to date—besides thinking about deserting, he supposed.
A new motivation built up to a raging inferno. They had to get home. More than anything, they had to get back to their side of the lines. Then everything would finally work out.
A groggy Pete joined them a few minutes later, none the wiser. Connie looked at the two of them, but made no mention of anything other than the business of getting back to friendly territory.
“I’m not thrilled that the fog is gone, but we might as well keep pushing through these hills.” The faintest hint of pink glowed on the eastern horizon over the mountain range. “Pull on your helmets and let’s get down in that valley before daybreak.”
“Yeesh. We’ve really been up all night…again,” Joe said as he screwed his helmet down tight.
“Yeah, you need to stop keeping me awake,” Leisa whispered before pulling on her own helmet.
“Let’s do this, ladies,” Connie said, still sprightly.
He hopped over the spine of the ridge and kept the lead. Weaving around boulders, the squad soon ended up deep in the forested hillside. Pete brought up the rear like normal, though Joe paid him no mind.
As hard as Joe tried to concentrate on the surrounding woods, he kept going back to Leisa’s soft lips. The curves of her body that even the armor couldn’t hide. The way her cheeks rounded when she smiled. And mostly the way she had basically given up her own life for her brother.
He wasn’t sure he could match that kind of sacrifice, but decided he needed to be a better person. If everything was going to work out with her the way he wanted, then she deserved that much.
“What are you grinning at?” Leisa covered her microphone as he handed a low-hanging branch back to her.
“You.”
“Shh.” She shook her head but couldn’t conceal a smile.
“I know.” His eyes trailed up the hill to where their hapless rear guard fumbled along behind them. “Hurry up, Pete.”
“Whatever,” he groused.
“We need to keep up,” Joe said, still holding the branch. “Connie’s on a mission.”
“I’m about done with the mission,” Pete said, not bothering to keep the words to only Joe’s ears. Lucky for Pete, Connie was helmetless and too far ahead to hear.
“We’re gonna get out of this mess,” Joe said. “Just hang in there.”
“Who knows where we’re even going? Brainwashed Connie might be leading us straight to the savages.”
“I doubt that,” Leisa said. “He’s acting perfectly normal.”
“Not for someone who should be dead.”
Joe couldn’t argue with that, nor would he. Dropping the branch, he hustled on ahead until he was shoulder to shoulder with Leisa. They didn’t speak. Being together was comfort enough.
The hillside tapered off from a steep decline to a gentler slope about halfway down. Joe’s feet appreciated the change, though he continued having a difficult time keeping up with Connie. Whatever the shaman had done was miraculous, as was the reason why the man had done it. There was no possible explanation that made sense.
They kept hiking without pause, gradually closing on the base of the hill. Without Connie to bellow orders in his ear, Joe found his eyelids growing heavy. He kept his gaze locked on his sergeant’s back, and plodded along like a pack mule over the rough terrain. A pack mule without a pack, he thought wryly.
He sank back into a dark place as he thought about having left Laura’s doll behind. Now that he was feeling better about making it home, he really wished he had that to give to her parents. He’d already decided to try to find them, if she had parents still living. Or maybe a sibling. But he had no idea.
Or maybe I need to forget about all that, Joe thought. One thing at a time, just like one step at a time, and eventually he would get somewhere.
The sun threatened to peek over a distant slope by the time they were barely short of the valley. The underside of the puffy clouds took on dark purple tones like bruises from the streaming pink light.
“They’ll be calling off the attacks,” Connie announced, showing the first hint of weakness in his voice in a while. “We should be extra careful.”
As soon as he said that, Connie slipped on a rock. He fell to his butt and rolled, tumbling the rest of the way down the slope. At the base of the hill, his back slammed into a tree.
Joe and Leisa ran after him. Joe nearly lost his footing, and skidded next to the prostrate Connie.
“You okay, Sarge?” he asked.
Connie blinked numbly and forced out a groan. He struggled to roll onto his side.
Leisa knelt beside him. “Easy, Sarge.”
“I’m fine,” Connie croaked. He sat up with another grunt and a wince of pain.
“What hurts?” Joe asked.
“Everything.” The sergeant’s forehead had been cut open. Blood dripped into the deep furrows of his wrinkled brow. “So much for being careful.”
Joe fished around to find something to stop the bleeding, but there was little he could do without his pack. So he settled for ripping off part of Connie’s already torn short. “Hold this tight,” he commanded.
Connie accepted the scrap with thanks and mashed it to his head.
“You should rest,” Leisa suggested.
“Maybe, but not yet.” Connie grimaced. “Help me up.”
“Are you-”
“Yes, I’m sure,” he interrupted Leisa.
Joe turned around to find Pete finally joining them. He still had his backpack, which would’ve come in handy seconds earlier.
“Help me get him up,” Joe told Pete without bothering to explain anything else. With a shrug, Pete jumped in to hoist Connie back to his unsteady feet. He wavered, but the two guys managed to keep him upright.
“Let’s move,” Connie said. He motioned with his head for them to sidestep a patch of thick vines. “We’ll rest in a bit.”
“If you say so,” Joe replied, not entirely opposed to stopping right then.
“I do.” Connie took a couple dozen steps under a little more of his own power, and suddenly paused. “I don’t suppose any of you have any food?”
“Pete?” Joe said, turning to the only person who still had a backpack.
“Not much.” He shed his pack quicker than a bullet and dug inside. “Let’s see…a jacket. Socks. Undies.”
“Ewww,” Leisa said, though Joe figured she was most likely jealous. He would’ve killed for a change of clothes, and especially a dry base layer to help with the chafing.
“Give me that undershirt,” Joe said. “Connie needs a better bandage.”
Pete tossed it to him. Joe rolled it up into a quick bandana. He tied it tightly around Connie’s forehead while Pete littered the ground around him with clothes, a blanket they would never need in that climate, and some mess gear. Utensils bounced on the ground as he tossed them aside.
“Why have I been carrying all this crap around?” Pete said to no one in particular, and unceremoniously dropped his copy of the Regulator Field Manual on the ground.
Joe could have flipped to the exact page that addressed acceptable male-female interaction in mixed units. Even a hint of intimacy was practically a capital crime.
Casting the thought away, Joe focused in on the still growing pile wondering whe
re all the food was at. Both he and Leisa had carried packets of dried food. Everyone was supposed to. But what surprised him more than anything was how Pete had actually been carrying his pack that long, especially after noting most of the useless Republic-issued gear inside.
“Wait a minute. Here.” Pete pulled out the corner of something coated in shiny vinyl, but shoved it quickly back into the pack. “Not that.”
“What?” Leisa said, leaning in.
“It’s nothing.”
“Is not,” Leisa said. “That’s not a personal item, is it?”
That piqued Joe’s attention, but Connie wasn’t having anything to do with it. The man must have been starving, Joe assumed.
“What’s it matter?” Connie interjected. “I’m hungry.”
Pete gave Leisa a nasty look, and turned back to his bag. “I know I’ve got something in here.”
“You’ve got a lot of somethings in there,” Connie snorted, “but none of it qualifies as food.”
“This might not either,” Pete joked as he pulled out sealed plastic packets. “But here it is.”
“Ooh, more of that granola.” Connie grimaced as he hobbled over to take them from Pete. “I’ve missed this stuff.”
“Yeah, right.” Joe ripped into a packet, and his nose was assailed by the odor of dirt. There was something about soy mixed with shredded nuts and grains that reminded him of chicken feed. “Your baby chicks might like this,” he told Leisa.
“They’d be the only ones.”
“Mmmm.” Connie settled onto a fallen log. He looked to the sky and seemingly struggled to swallow a mouthful. “It’s pretty tasty.”
“Grit, my favorite,” Pete deadpanned.
“Thought I’d died and gone to ever-after,” Connie replied, which drew curious looks from the rest of the squad. “Seriously. I’ve always liked this stuff.”
“You’re sick, Sarge,” Joe replied. “No one likes that crap.”
“No one but me.” He forced a smile. “I’m okay with that. More for me.”
“You can have it.” Pete passed his half-empty packet over to Connie. “Never eating this stuff again is as close as I’m gonna get to ever-after.”
Joe ordinarily would’ve agreed with his friend, but everything had changed for him in the last couple hours. He was going to be a new man—an optimistic man.