by A. m Madden
“Gunner, all clear?” I asked into my mic, as the abandoned buildings came closer and closer to the convoy.
“Clear at twenty meters out.”
The whirl of the turret above our vehicle as Gunner, aka Williams, panned the terrain in his scope made it hard to hear the familiar chatter coming over the dashboard speaker—coordinates, convoy position instructions, all routine and necessary when approaching the hot box.
The tank in front gained ground, leaving an unacceptable gap between our Humvee and their tail. My eyes studied from left to right, watching, waiting for any movement from the dust-riddled façades that were barely standing. Everything was beige, the ground, the buildings, the air. Fucking blah…no color, no life.
I faintly heard the metal ping just as my eyes cut over to Randall.
“Randall, drive.”
Our Humvee continued to slow just as his head lolled back at an odd angle…and I knew. I knew why, yet I still barked, “Randall, stop fucking around.”
Maybe he was fucking around?
Maybe the prick thought it’d be funny to pretend he’d been hit?
Maybe the next bullet was coming for me?
In slow motion, a blood-red serpent traveled from under his helmet and slinked over the curve of his face, slowed over the terrain of his stubble, and then continued to roll until it disappeared into the collar of his fatigues.
“Randall!”
—
“David…David, wake up!”
A hand squeezed my arm in the most annoying manner. Cold fingers gripped my arm, shaking it over and over until rage quickly replaced the irritation I felt.
“Get the fuck off me!” I shoved at whoever was touching me, hearing a gasp and then sobs.
I blinked against the darkness as my eyes tried to focus, but all I could see was my best friend’s lifeless body beside me. Whether my eyes were opened or closed, that was all I could see. Day or night, conscious or not, the image of his lifeless body as it sat three feet away from me consumed my thoughts like an old 35-mm movie stuck on one frame.
You know the kind that your grandparents made you watch of their happier times when you were a kid? Grainy images flashing on a projector screen, no sound except for the noise that the film made as it circled the reel.
Flick…flick…flick…flick…
It should have been me.
The sobs beside me increased in the most annoying manner.
Louder and louder, over and over.
Make it stop!
In a terrifyingly calm voice, I said, “You need to leave.”
She looked at me dumbstruck. “What?”
“You need to go, now.”
“But it’s the middle of the night…” Her words halted the moment my eyes focused on hers. Her half-naked torso distorted each time I blinked. She modestly clutched the sheet to her frame and it molded over the outline of her tits, the same ones I’d sucked on a few hours ago. They shook beneath the fabric from those annoying sobs that continued to roll through her.
I could kill her, that would make her stop. Just reach over with my callused hand on the smooth pale skin of her neck…snap…silence.
I needed silence, no noise, just fucking quiet.
But she had no clue that’s what I needed. They never did. No one knew that so many times as they droned on and on all I could think of as I stared at them were methods to silence them.
She gawked at me while panting and sobbing dramatically. Why the fuck wasn’t she leaving?
“Now!” I prompted, to leave no doubt and to stop the noise.
Through the veil I created with my fingers over my face, I watched her scurry about the room, her long blond hair flying around her head while she grabbed her things off the floor. The crying was what drove me the most nuts. I couldn’t take it.
Distance myself, or risk killing her.
Wordlessly, I stood and walked naked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. Turning the water to cold, I immediately stepped under its punishing stream, waiting for the icy pins of pain to wash away everything I knew, both past and present. While under that shower, I could cancel out the pain that took hold of my insides like a cancer and revel in the pain that pounded on my skin until I went numb.
Transferring pain was my drug of choice.
Fuck the therapists. Fuck the prescriptions they peddled.
I controlled my pain, no one else but me.
How?
Distancing myself.
I, David G. Cavello, Private First Class, U.S. Army, who successfully completed three deployments in four years in Baghdad, Iraq—the closest place to hell on Earth—was an American Hero, a model citizen.
What a joke.
If I was such a hero why was I hiding in the shower to avoid the tempting thoughts of strangling a hot blonde I just fucked because she wouldn’t stop crying?
Not until I heard my apartment door slam shut did I finally turn off the punishing water.
I draped a towel around my waist and stepped out of the shower to stare at myself in the mirror. I barely recognized the man who stared back.
There had to be something out there to bring me back to normal. When I said normal, I meant a person fit to interact with others in society without constantly thinking one minute here, the next gone…with no warning, just gone. It happened that quick, that pointlessly…so what was the fucking point of it all?
That was what it all came down to.
One moment that changed everything.
Every soul on this planet had no idea they balanced on that one moment, like a circus flea on the head of a pin. Was it luck, coincidence that kept them from falling off? Yet, during that one brief moment someone else, somewhere else, just lost their battle and plummeted to their death.
Randall’s moment could have easily been mine.
For some reason, I was spared that day, and every day I was in Iraq. I felt like I was playing with borrowed time. It made me take risks normal men didn’t take.
It made me dangerous.
Love stories you’ll never forget
By authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
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