by Myke Cole
It was quiet after that, until Steve’s voice finally broke the silence, reminding her that she’d been staring at the can in her hands for . . . she didn’t know how long. “Anyway, that’s what there is. I’m sorry there isn’t more, Sarah. I guess we can . . . well, we can have a funeral now.”
“How did you get them to stop stonewalling?”
“Good old-fashioned pain-in-the-assery. I begged, I pleaded, I made accusations. I went to the chief and made an impassioned speech. I played on her sense of obligation to you. I shamelessly portrayed you as a wailing woman on the brink of suicide, which, I should add, is perhaps the biggest lie I’ve ever told.”
“But none of that worked, did it?”
He looked at the floor, rubbed the back of his neck. “No. None of it did.”
“So, how?”
“I threatened to go to the press. I said I’d tell any paper that would listen about how the navy treats the families of fallen warriors. It won’t do my security clearance any favors but . . . ah, hell. I’m not so sure I want to do this anymore, anyway. Not after . . .” He trailed off.
Jim would never have even considered that, she thought, not for an instant. No tragedy, no injury could have ever stopped him from being a SEAL. She looked at the fear in Steve’s face, knew it would never leave. He was a fighter, to be sure, but every fighter had their limit. He’d found his, and coming up against it would haunt him the rest of his life. For the first time in their long friendship, she pitied him.
But the pity was overcome by the wave of comfort and gratitude that followed as he helped her put Patrick to bed, ordered Chinese delivery, sat in the living room, and ate with her in silence, watching images of a world they’d both left behind flash across the flat-screen TV mounted to the wall.
Sarah came to, her head on his shoulder, a tiny strand of drool trailing from the corner of her mouth to anchor on his shirt. She’d dozed off. She snorted, swallowed, swatted groggily at the air. She thought briefly of sitting up, but the solidity of his shoulder felt so good, the warmth radiating through his shirt against her neck lulled her back down, and she found herself nestling against him contentedly.
“You went out there for a little while. You must be exhausted.” His voice sent tiny vibrations through his shoulder that buzzed her soothingly along her neck. She sighed.
“I haven’t slept more than a couple hours at a stretch for God knows how long. Having you around helps.”
“Well”—his voice was thick—“that’s good. I’m glad to know I’m helping.”
They sat like that in silence, and after a moment, he rested his head against hers. The move shocked her at first, but it was more warmth and more not-aloneness. He smelled faintly of the ready room, of gun oil and ripstop fabric seasoned with sweat. They were familiar smells, and she let herself sink in them.
“So,” he said, “I guess we’ll have to plan a funeral.”
“Not yet, Steve. I’m just . . . I just can’t face it right now.”
When he answered, his voice was pinched. “I think it would be for the best. You need . . . closure here. You can’t just hide out in this apartment forever. You have to get on with things.”
The words stung, even as she acknowledged the truth of them. She thought of the boy crying in her dream. This felt like that. The necessary horror she dreaded facing, knew she had to.
“I know,” she forced herself to say, “and I will, just . . . not soon.”
She felt him tense. “You said you needed to get closure. I fought like a mad dog to get these ashes for you, so you could have it.”
She sat up, hating him for pulling her out of her precious brief moment of warm contentment. Her tiny spot where everything was, just for a short time, okay. “That’s why you got them? So I could have closure? Jesus, Steve. He was your best friend. He was your . . . ‘battle buddy,’ or whatever the hell you call it.”
His eyes narrowed, some of the warrior coming into his face. He couldn’t have been more different-looking from her husband, but that expression nearly choked her with nostalgia. “It’s different for us,” he said. “You accept it from the time you graduate. You train for it. You know it’s coming. You can’t do what we do and not lose people.”
Anger became hot in her throat. “Oh, really? Was this the same Steve Chang who cried like a baby next to my hospital bed? Maybe you need more training, tough guy.”
His expression changed, the anger and determination morphing to something else. You’re hurting him. But she couldn’t stop herself. Because anger wasn’t grief. Anger wasn’t fear. And anything that wasn’t those things was something.
“That’s not fair,” he said.
“Life isn’t fair, or hadn’t you noticed? It’s not fair that I lost my husband. It’s not fair that Patrick lost his father. It’s not fair that your fucked-up little excuse for a brotherhood won’t or can’t figure out who the hell did it or why. The sea doesn’t care about you, Steve. Or did you forget your favorite quote?”
“This is the first time I’ve heard you mention Patrick,” he said. “What about him, Sarah? He’s young, but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid. He knows his father is gone. He knows that the people who killed Jim hurt his mommy and hurt him, too. You think you’re scared? What about him? Maybe you don’t need closure, Sarah, but he does. He needs some kind of thing that will tell him that this makes sense.”
“This doesn’t make sense!” she almost yelled, and turned it into a snarl that she prayed wouldn’t wake her son.
“You’re right, it doesn’t, but Patrick isn’t an adult. He’s not ready for that kind of revelation. He needs a world that’s safe and ordered. He needs to believe that his father is in heaven surrounded by puppies and baby ducks and that he’s watching him always. He needs the bullshit religion you hate so much. He needs to feel safe.”
The words fell like hammerblows. Sarah knew he was right. She’d been so caught up in her own grief that she’d forgotten that Patrick was grieving, too. She’d focused on playing with him, trying to restore some sense of normalcy. But Patrick’s mind was clear enough to understand that nothing would ever be normal again. It was up to her to define a new normal for him. She’d failed to do that.
The anger leaked out of her, leaving her only the grief and terror. She clung to its departing threads, unwilling to admit she was wrong just yet, to give way to the sobbing she knew bulled up against the dam of this stupid argument.
“Patrick’s not your problem. You’re not his father. This isn’t your job.”
“Fuck you,” he said, the warrior pushing the hurt aside, taking full possession of his expression. Here was Steve Chang the SEAL, her husband’s strong right hand, the fighter who kept the monsters at bay. God, he was beautiful.
“Fuck you if you think this isn’t my job. You’re not the only one who lost your family, Sarah. Jim was a brother to me, and the teams were brothers to both of us. I lost both when he died. This medical leave is purgatory. I can’t go back when it’s over. You know that. You’re all I have, Sarah. You and Patrick are all that I have.”
She stared, saw his expression shift, knew what he was about to do. Oh God, Steve. Don’t. Please don’t.
“I love you,” he said. “I’ve always loved you, Sarah. I promised Jim a hundred times that I’d take care of you and Patrick if anything happened to him, and I mean to keep that promise. You were always the woman I thought I could never have, that I’d have to go on loving you from a distance for the rest of my life. Maybe this is the one good thing that comes out of this whole disaster.”
A hundred retorts rose to her mind, that this was grief talking, that he didn’t know her well enough to love her, that the fact he thought she needed taking care of was proof that he didn’t know her at all. But she stood frozen to the spot, unable to work her mouth, dumbly realizing that this was the first time since Jim had died that someone
had told her they loved her.
She felt the first tears fall, cursed herself, unable to stop them.
“Oh, Sarah,” he said. “Oh, baby.” He went to her, pulled her into his arms.
Don’t call me “baby.” Only Jim called me that. But she said nothing. Because as her hands came up to push him away, they found the taut solidity of his arms.
The spike of arousal hit her out of nowhere. Whoever Steve was, he was a man, and she had forgotten that she wanted a man, thought that she’d never want one again. She realized now that she had been wrong, that the hunger had crouched hidden, waiting to spring the moment the right touch triggered it. And was it wrong? Jim was dead. There was no manual that spelled out how long a widow had to wait before finding someone else. There was no rule that said it couldn’t be his friend. There might be some who’d turn up their nose at the prospect, but fuck them; Sarah Schweitzer had always lived life on her own terms.
She slid her hands across his broad back, the thin fabric of his shirt gliding over sturdy muscles, heat bleeding into her hands. No, it still felt wrong. She wasn’t sure she was ready.
She pushed against the lust, fought it down, but it was tangled now, wrapped up in the grief and rage and despair. And love. Yes, love. She loved Steve, she knew that. It was a different love than what she and Jim had shared, and she realized that she’d been trying to figure out what that love was, what it meant. She hadn’t had time, she hadn’t had energy. This was a different love. It wasn’t the kind of love that should make her feel a hot pulse between her legs, that should make her open her mouth, let the tip of her tongue graze his neck, drinking in his smell.
But it was love. And in the hell of the last month, it was what she needed more than anything.
And so she surrendered to it, giving herself over to the simple pulsing word in her mind—good good good—grasping at the sensations of pleasure that she’d thought lost to her forever, letting him push her down on the couch, taking his tongue into her mouth. Her body fell into familiar rhythms, stripping off his shirt, running her hands over the hardness of him, softer now with his time convalescing, but still a SEAL’s body in its roots.
She let her body work, it knew how to make love. She retreated into the tangled knot of emotion boiling within her, crawled into the heart of the love and lay inside it, luxuriating as the wanting drove her limbs, stripping off her pants, so hurried that it barely could be bothered to pull her panties aside before guiding him into her.
And then her body claimed what was left of her senses and all there was were stars and warmth and someone moaning from a long, long way away.
CHAPTER X
COLD STORAGE
They put him back in cold storage.
Schweitzer didn’t remember much about the extraction. Sated, Ninip retreated into the darkness of their shared inner world, resting in his fashion, sluggish from the blood that soaked their armor to the knees, covered the walls like the effort of an art student whose ambition exceeded his abilities.
Death was Schweitzer’s job, and he’d seen plenty of it. His second op after joining his team had been taking down a safe house used by narcoterrorists in a godforsaken stretch of South American jungle. It had been hot like a bad dream of hell, and as the fresh meat on the team, Schweitzer had the lucky job of breaching the door. His finger trembled along his carbine’s receiver, ready to show his brothers that breaching and tac-pro wasn’t the only thing he was good at.
So, of course the place was empty.
Of the living.
The bad guys had been questioning some members of the gang who they suspected of informing on them. Their remains were strung along the ceiling like Christmas lights, razor wire looped around their throats. They’d been splayed open with machetes, slit down the middle and stuffed with what looked like rotting fruit. Insects were nesting inside them, the heat swelling what was left of the gray flesh to balloon-sized, malignant cauliflower.
It was Schweitzer’s first test, and he’d passed, but just barely.
“Six-pack of Coronas says the FNG blows chunks.” Martin had laughed. He’d bet the Fucking New Guy would lose it, and Schweitzer had been proud when Martin had been forced to pay up later. But the image of those corpses stayed with him, as much a reminder that he was a SEAL as the pin on his uniform. Because if he could look at that and find a way to go on, then he was hard enough for anything.
But Schweitzer had looked at the red slurry Ninip had made of the people in that warehouse and realized he was wrong.
The fear he had always been able to look in the eye was staring him down. It had become huge beyond imagining, a freezing blackness filled with the tangle of endless limbs, a chaos of screaming voices, bullying anything but raw terror into submission. Sarah and Patrick were somewhere in there, condemned to that horror. He never believed he would hesitate to go after them, be cowed by the thought of that spinning endlessness, of not only losing them but the last shreds of himself. But he was frightened, truly and deeply.
He felt Ninip’s presence stretching itself luxuriously, and Schweitzer realized the root of his horror. Standing in that corrugated metal shed, watching the heat of the jungle do its work on those bloated flesh-flowers, Schweitzer realized what he was. It was in the killing that the SEAL distinguished himself from the enemy. Schweitzer killed with a professional’s precision, a cold calculation made holy by its service to his country’s cause. It was what made him an artist instead of a thug.
He’d fought against Ninip’s insensate rage, but a part of him had reveled in it, drunk on the power of an apex predator, a video game played on the easiest setting, his enemies powerless grist for the mill of his might. He hadn’t fought hard enough. He hadn’t dug deep enough. He’d stood knee-deep in the gore the jinn had created and realized that maybe he wasn’t so different from the men who’d strung those people up. Worse than a thug.
A monster.
Ninip’s voice was smug, I told you I would teach you valor.
That wasn’t valor. That was slaughter.
You think because you are . . . what do you call it, a “professional,” that you are not a killer? We are no different.
We are. I’m interested in justice. You’re interested in your appetite.
Justice? Would you have arrested that man, like one of your police? Do you think justice would have held him? He would have been free in moments.
We’d be stronger if we did it by the numbers. That’s what my training is for. You can only go so far fighting like a wild animal. True warriors are professionals.
Footmen, Ninip scoffed.
Schweitzer didn’t answer. Eldredge stood outside the reinforced glass, arms folded, chin in one hand. Jawid was saying something to him, shaking his head.
Schweitzer thought of Sarah and Patrick again, lost in that maelstrom. His hand went instinctively to the dog tags, pulled them out from behind his blood-spattered armor. Ninip didn’t even bother trying to control their shared arm, only watched smugly as Schweitzer traced the lines of his family’s faces with a gray fingernail. The rust seemed thicker, their likenesses fading into the pitted metal. It had only been a day or two, was it possible for metal to oxidize that fast? Was there something in the touch of the armor or his dead flesh that destroyed it? He felt a spike of grief. This was the last he had of them. Would he forget their faces? He reached out for the smell of Sarah’s perfume, the phantom limb of their connection that he’d sworn he sensed before. Nothing.
Ninip had lived in that maelstrom, had spent countless years in that spinning hell.
What was it like? Schweitzer asked.
Ninip stirred, shrugged. I told you. It was blind panic. A storm unending.
No, I meant what’d you do all day? You just . . . floated around?
Ninip sighed contentedly, ignored him. He felt the presence turn a shoulder.
If Ninip could read his
memories, then maybe the process worked in reverse. Schweitzer tried to center himself, imagined himself in a lotus position, legs folded, hands on his knees. He visualized sending his mind out to Ninip’s. Nothing happened. It was ridiculous to even try. Ninip was a being of magic. What could Schweitzer do?
But he felt Ninip stir. What are you doing?
Look, I have no idea how long we’re going to be stuck here before they run us again. Talk to me. I’ll go crazy just . . . sitting.
That is what it was like. That is what I did.
What?
Went crazy. Schweitzer felt the jinn reach out to him, and his vision went white, a blank canvas that the jinn began to decorate with images from his life. It was the storm of souls as Ninip had seen it when he was imprisoned there, the screaming was louder, the clamor of voices running together into a hum. The crush of bodies closer, an ocean of faces rushing past, all genders, races, and ages, all wearing the same openmouthed expression of horror.
You catch glimpses of their thoughts, Ninip said. You pass through them, you share them, but only for an instant.
Schweitzer could see it now, the moment upon moment of recognition, of shared experience, each as quick as a camera’s shutter click, before whirling to the next. For years, for millennia.
Ninip. Churning, spinning, snatching at the brief shreds of contact. On. Off. On. Off, until his own voice joined the chorus, and the screaming was all, seeping into his soul and rooting there. The scream becoming the animal howl that Schweitzer heard him utter in the warehouse corridor.
And then, blue flashes in the mass, lines reaching out, strings of words, voices not screaming. The magic. Sorcerers like Jawid reaching into the storm to draw the jinn out. All of the souls surging toward the shred of humanity, the splinter of the life they’d known. They crawled over one another, clawing aimlessly as the gale churned them over and over and away. Ninip, snarling, pushing with everything he had, reaching out to clasp the hand that was extended along that blue path, to talk back. To let them know he heard them.