Digitalis

by Ronie Kendig

  Just means you’ll die cold. Immediately, Colton sighted the target. Took note of the elements. “Target acquired.”

  “We’ve got inbound chopper,” Max hissed through the coms. “And it ain’t ours.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Too low and too slow. Commercial grade.”

  Colton tuned out the chatter and dialed the gun. He wasn’t going to lose this guy. And it seems he’d been waiting for his ride home. Which was just fine with Colton. He’d send him home all right. He eased the trigger back.

  The tiny sonic boom signaled the firing. Colton chambered another round and stared through the thermals again. The figure lay slumped to the side. “Tango down.”

  Yet he found no satisfaction. None. Just a thirst for more.

  “Oh sh—”

  Booom!

  White shattered the night. The heady roar of an explosion rumbled, bringing a shockwave that rattled the house and boards beneath Colton’s belly.

  He rolled onto his side, as if he could see through the rafters to the barn. The garage. “What happened?”

  “They took out the gazebo—RPG.” Max said. “I’m in the pond but okay.”

  Of course he was. Max the Navy SEAL.

  “Midas, get out of the barn,” Max ordered. “They’re going to bring it down.”

  The barn. Firefox. Hershey. The others. Colton scrambled from the attic and headed for the stairs. If they took out the barn with the horses stabled, then—BOOOOM!

  The impact sent Colton sprawling. He caught himself two steps down and waited, steadying his breath. Then pushed himself to the hall. He squinted through the sheer curtains. A hole gaped in the side of the barn.

  Horses darted out in wild panic. But … he didn’t see Hershey. Or Firefox. He keyed his mic. “Midas, report.”

  Static.

  “Midas, report!”

  Static.

  Colton sprinted for the back door.

  Bloodied hands.

  Piper couldn’t drag her gaze from Mrs. Neeley’s bloodied hands. Stained trying to save her husband. The husband that Piper’s presence had killed.

  She darted a glance around the small, dimly lit room. A roll of paper towels sat on a tall, thin refrigerator in the corner. A shelf supported the weight of several dozen bottles of water. Piper moved from her spot, lifted the paper towels and a jug of water.

  Bereft, she knelt before Mrs. Neeley. Terrified she’d shove her away, fully expecting the woman’s full wrath, Piper slowly unwound a sheet and tore it off. Then she dumped some water over it … and with a steadying breath, she reached for Mrs. Neeley’s hands.

  The woman pulled her arm away.

  Rejection stabbed Piper.

  Then, slowly, a hand returned, extended toward her.

  The gesture lured Piper’s gaze to Mrs. Neeley’s. But the woman’s gaze was fixed on some indeterminate spot by the door. Eyes glossed.

  With all the care and gentleness she could muster, Piper wiped the wet towel across the woman’s veiny, bony hands. So small, so delicate—yet so strong. Now, Mrs. Neeley would have to be stronger. She didn’t have a husband. Though Piper had tried to keep her own tears at bay over the last half hour, she couldn’t anymore. Not holding the woman’s hand. Not cleaning the blood from her hands.

  Soon, McKenna came and sat on the cot next to her grandmother, watching the ministrations.

  What bugged Piper was the dark spots crusted beneath Mrs. Neeley’s fingernails. She couldn’t get it cleaned. Maybe … maybe if she balled up some towels. Piper did that and then poured the water straight from the jug over Mrs. Neeley’s fingers.

  Still didn’t work.

  She searched for a solution.

  “Some stains you can’t remove.”

  Her gaze shot to the woman’s. And then she slumped and pressed her cheek against the semi-cleaned hand. She cried. And cried. Sobbed.

  And Colton’s mother sat in the silence.

  At some point—Piper had no idea how long it’d been that she cried—a rumble snaked around the shelter. Her gaze shot to the ceiling, the four corners. The door. Though the steel and concrete room vibrated, she detected no structural damage.

  “Was that thunder, Nana?”

  When she looked back, Piper found McKenna curled up against Mrs. Neeley.

  “Of course it is, sweetie. Remember, it was storming when you went to bed.”

  Nodding as if in agreement, McKenna’s shell-shocked eyes told a different story. She was scared. She didn’t believe the noise was thunder. Of course, being down in this shelter probably didn’t help the story.

  Piper herself didn’t believe the noise was thunder. She’d heard bombings from shelters before. And that’s exactly what this sounded like.

  “Why don’t you lie down, McKenna, and rest?”

  “But I’m not tired.”

  “Well, I am.” Mrs. Neeley stretched along the cot and pulled the little one against her. She tugged a wool blanket over them and let out a ragged sigh.

  Somehow, seeing the two of them cuddling made Piper feel more left out and alone than she’d been in many months. The move told her what Mrs. Neeley thought of her. “Some stains you can’t remove.” Was she saying she’d never forgive her?

  And what about Colton? Oh, she had no grand delusion that he’d forgive her. But was he safe out there? Was he still alive? How she despised and hated herself, to the very core of her being. Like a rank, poisoned well. That’s what she was.

  She wanted to tell Mrs. Neeley everything, but the thought of sharing such a violent story in front of McKenna kept Piper quiet.

  Slumping into one of the two chairs at the folding table, Piper—

  A sudden, intense terror seized her. She shoved to her feet. Stared at the door.

  “What is it?”

  She glanced back, surprised to find Mrs. Neeley standing beside the cot.

  This was it. She had to tell her. “I have something in my pack that those men want. If they get it, they’ll have no reason to keep me alive—or any of us.”

  The woman stared at her, eyes blank, without comprehension.

  “I have to go up there.”

  A pained expression rippled through the older woman’s face. “No, we stay here until Colton returns.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t do this.” Her eyes flamed, and her thin, wrinkled lips pulled taut. “I might be small, but I’m not weak. You’re not going out there.”

  Piper rushed to her. “Listen to me, please.” She clasped Mrs. Neeley’s hands.

  Wary eyes waited.

  “I’ll tell you what’s happening, but you have to promise me one thing.”

  “No,” Mrs. Neeley said vehemently. “No, I don’t have to make any promises. Not on a night like this.”

  She deserved that. Piper knew she did. But it tore at her. Deep and painful. “You’re right. You don’t.” Letting go of the woman’s hands felt like letting go of hope and belief that somehow this wretched night might end without more damage or loss of life. She shuffled back to the table and slumped in the chair again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …” She snorted at the words that seemed to be the fare for the night. I’d be better off dead.

  Metal dug into her back as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

  A scraping noise drew her eyes open. Mrs. Neeley sat across from her, hands folded on the table. A steely resolve sparkled in her bluegray irises. “Tell me.”

  “I’m here. I’m here,” came Midas’s coughed reply just as Colton stepped into the night. “Barn’s blown.”

  “What about the horses?” Colton asked, a metallic taste squirting over his tongue.

  “I don’t know, man. I can’t see nothing ‘cept smoke and fire.”

  That’s exactly what greeted Colton. His barn cracking and splintering, collapsing like a wounded elephant. The front went down first.

  A spark to the right jerked his gaze to the sky.

  His heart rapid-fired as he spotted the c
hopper hovering at the back of the manicured property and just over the wild tree line. A whistle screamed through the night.

  Boom!

  The concussion shoved Colton off his feet. He flipped and landed with a thud. Scrambling back to his feet, he stared at the house. His loft. His loft was burning. Fury coursed through him. At least his mother and McKenna were safe in the shelter. They could survive even under a nuke attack. He’d made sure.

  “Tango in the south border trees.” Max didn’t sound happy. “How many are there?”

  Another screaming shot through the dark. Colton plunged into the dirt. The boom ricocheted through the night, a latent echo of the thunder of the storm.

  But just as fast, he saw another burst of light. Again?

  The sky lit up like a July Fourth fireworks show. The chopper that had attacked spun. Flames shot out from the belly. It careened toward the corral in a blaze.

  “What the heck did that?” Midas shouted as the helo tumbled and came to rest just feet from the huddled mass of a barn.

  The sky seemed to shift. And only then did Colton see and hear the Black Hawk charging toward them.

  ‘Bout time. But a little late. His panic subsided a morsel knowing Legend and the Kid would join the fight. Still, it was too late. His father was dead. His home, barn—everything obliterated.

  He gripped his Remington and headed toward the front of the house. He saw a blur of movement in the house.

  His blood ran cold. How’d they get in the house? He slung his Remington over his shoulder.

  Who covered the front?

  Colton leaped up the stairs, MEU.45 in hand. He gripped the door handle and tried to negotiate the shapes and shadows amid the hungry flames engulfing his home. Although he could make out two shapes, far apart, he couldn’t decipher who was friend or foe.

  Foe. Definitely foe. The girls were in the shelter.

  Adrenaline spiked, he stepped into the house. Working to reduce the amount of smoke-filled air he breathed, Colton side-stepped toward the living room, where he’d seen someone.

  The main beam that had stretched from one end of the living room and across the dining room, lay on the floor, in three pieces. The furniture decimated.

  Crunch. Crack.

  Colton whipped to the right.

  A figure whirled toward him. Wide eyes.

  “Mom, what’re you—” His question choked off as he noticed she darted her gaze to the hall. Where his father had died. Where they’d left him.

  And that’s where he saw Piper.

  Fury had no ally so strong as Colton at this moment. He raised his weapon. Sighted between her shoulders, the weapon blurred but her form clear and distinct. “Piper!”

  She yanked toward him, panic etched into her tawny features.

  He pulled his focus to the sights, her form now blurred. “I warned you.”

  “No, please. I—”

  His mother lunged. “Colton, no!”

  CHAPTER 16

  If he killed her, could he live with himself?

  Frozen amid that question and the downpour that forced him to blink, Colton stared at Piper. Her wide eyes. The way she kept glancing into the hall, her body partially angled that way.

  “Colton, no!”

  Like a distant echo, he heard his mother’s shout. Heard the thunder, the steady thwump of the Black Hawk’s rotors. The south wall had been all but blown out. Home destroyed. Father killed …

  “Cowboy.” Max’s voice hissed through the coms. “What’re you doing?”

  What did he think he was doing? Ending this. Stopping Piper from hurting his family anymore.

  This isn’t about your family.

  Sure it was. His father lay dead just a few feet from Piper.

  It’s about you and her.

  There was no him and her. Not now. Not ever. He walled off his heart.

  “Colton,” his mother’s voice, soothing and calmer—calmer than it should be—came at him. “Are you with us, son? You here?”

  He blinked. Stretched his jaw. She thought he was having another flashback. But he wasn’t. That was the point. He was here, in his home, decimated by grenades, gunfire, and murder.

  “Stay back, Mom.” He pierced Piper with a glare. “If you move, so help me God, I’ll shoot.” And he wouldn’t miss. He’d been ingrained with the concept that if he fired, it was to exert deadly force. And with the maelstrom of fury surging within him, it’d be very deadly.

  Piper propped her head against the wall, crying, as she looked at

  him. Palms flat on the plaster, she remained still.

  But … then he noticed … she was reaching for something with her left hand.

  Colton tensed. Jerked his weapon firmer. “I mean it!” He moved forward several quick paces.

  She clenched her eyes shut.

  Hurried footsteps came from behind. “Cowboy!” Max shouted. In seconds, he sidled up next to him. A hand on the shoulder. “Cowboy,” he said, this time much softer. He reached toward the MEU.45 and rested a hand on it.

  Colton refused to lower it.

  “The team’s here. Let them take her in to Lambert.”

  “She killed my father.”

  Max squeezed his shoulder. “Let it go, man.” Then, with a slow, fluid move, Max stepped in front of the weapon, barrel to his chest. “Not like this.”

  He met his friend’s dark eyes. A knot tightened in his chest.

  “You’d never forgive yourself.”

  It’d only been a fraction of a move, but Colton’s tension relaxed.

  And in that instant, Max flipped the MEU out of his hands.

  Stunned, Colton glanced at his weapon. Then at his friend. Then to the scene unfolding behind them. A half-dozen men swarmed into the house, slithering across the open area with tactical precision.

  Piper leaned down and lifted something … McKenna, from the floor.

  Colton’s heart crashed into his stomach. Mickey. She was trying to get Mickey? His mother rushed over the broken beam and gathered her granddaughter into her arms as the team secured Piper.

  Crying, his mother buried her face in Mickey’s shoulder as his daughter cried, too.

  Flanked by two Marines, Piper picked her way over the debris of his home as they led her toward the gaping hole, no doubt heading to the helo.

  Hands cuffed, head down, Piper looked broken and shattered.

  Just like me.

  Two-hundred forty-three days of reconnaissance told him she was worth getting to know. One date and one kiss told him he wanted to marry her. One disaster, and he realized he never knew her.

  “Let’s load up, man.”

  “I’m not leaving my father—”

  “Don’t have to. The authorities arrived.” Max nodded toward the front where a gurney now bore a sheet-covered body. His father’s body. In numb silence, he watched as the gurney jockeyed around the furniture, out the door, and out of sight.

  Emptiness devoured Colton.

  Boarding the chopper, the vibration of the helo that left his legs numb, the unloading at the warehouse … blurred in his memory. He’d brought her to his home to watch over her. It’d been an order, one he probably could’ve refused. But if he dug deep, if he considered his motivations in the light of honest-to-God truth, he had to admit he wanted to protect her.

  He never thought he was the one who needed protection.

  It didn’t matter anymore. It was over.

  Bang!

  The sharp noise snapped his gaze to the right. He stared, adjusting his eyes to the dim lighting in the warehouse. Oh yeah. Warehouse.

  A warm presence settled near him. He glanced to the side ….

  “Hi, Cowboy.”

  His heart started to find Dr. Avery next to him. Where had she come from? He glanced back down the hall. The door. Is that what he’d heard seconds earlier? If she’d come through there, then she must’ve walked down the hall. But her movement had never registered.

  Aw, man. He wasn’t up to th
is. He shook his head. “Look, Doc, I’m not in the mood.”

  “Is there ever a mood that makes a man want to talk to a shrink?”

  Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, Colton determined to brick up this chasm in his heart. “Don’t reckon.”

  She placed a cup in his hands, and as the warmth bled through the Styrofoam, only then did he feel the chill that wrapped around him. “You’ve had a brutal night.”

  He stared at the goose bumps pimpling his flesh. “You could say that.”

  “They’re worried about you.”

  “Who?”

  Dr. Avery nodded toward the conference room.

  The forms that had been but mere shadows in his awareness took solid form. The team—Griffin stood like a drill sergeant, arms folded and feet apart as he stared back at him. Midas and Max sat at the table, sipping something from Styrofoam cups. The Kid paced.

  “Thought you weren’t supposed to see us together or know who we were.”

  “All I know is that the man I’m sitting in front of now is a very different man than the one who sat with me in the park last month.”

  Colton ground his teeth. She wanted him to talk. Tell him what he was thinking. Feeling. He wouldn’t. This nightmare didn’t need a voice. It needed to be buried, burned, deep-sixed. Whatever it took.

  “I keep losing you.”

  He held his peace.

  “Does reality seem tenuous?”

  He eyed her.

  “You’ve been in combat many, many times. What’s different?” She shrugged. “I mean, shots were fired, you did your sniper duty. What was so different?”

  A demon rose within him. “My father died!” He pulled himself straight. “And the woman I thought I loved is responsible!” Colton shoved to his feet. Gathered his anger, his voice, his screaming desire to pelt this whole stupid building with a million bullets. Rigid, he gave a curt nod. “Good-bye, Dr. Avery.”

  He spun on his boots and stalked down the hall, flinging the cup in the trash.

  “Your men want to know if they can count on you.”

  Just as he opened his mouth to answer, Colton saw into one of the many offices. Through one, and in a darkened corner, Piper sat in a chair. Four heavily armed soldiers guarded her. She looked up as he passed—and dropped her gaze twice as fast. The brokenness he saw in her was only a hollow echo of what had cratered his heart.