But I do. In the months leading up to deployment, Ryan barely stayed on base. He spent his time with Finlay, and it made me so fucking happy. They were starting to heal, and they were doing it together, until Fin was accepted into a research program with the Climate Change Research Centre in Sydney. For four years.
She planned to turn it down, wanting to stay close to Ryan. He didn’t take the idea well. He doesn’t want to hold her back from her dreams. I know, because I nursed his drunken ass at pool while he told me all about it. I get it, but he can’t see past his warped sense of duty. He thinks he’s doing the right thing, but the right thing is to let Fin choose, and when she chose him, he broke off their burgeoning relationship. He’s been like an angry grizzly ever since.
“Hey!” I call out.
He turns around.
“I wasn’t here to stalk your ass. Monty called a briefing at 1700 hours.”
“Good,” he mutters, cracking his knuckles as he walks off.
Two days later finds us scoping the back of the mountains behind a suspect village for evidence of enemy presence. Our task is not to engage fire but gather intelligence.
Ryan crouches ahead, examining what looks like a weapons pit. The ground has been flattened and an etching in the rocks gives a pretty good indication the Taliban are occupying the area. He signals for me and Nathan to join him.
Just as I’m climbing the rocky outcrop, a bullet zings past our heads, slamming into the tree behind us.
“Sonofabitch,” Ryan growls and folds himself behind the thick barrier of rock, assuming a firing position.
I crouch, rushing forward when another shot rings out. My arm explodes in a ball of blistering fire. “Fuck,” I curse through clenched teeth, sweat breaking out over my entire body. “I’m fucking hit.”
Galloway runs over, ducking low, as Ryan reaches me, his face hard and pale.
“Where?”
“Right arm,” I pant, already smelling the thick metallic stench of blood. A quick glance shows exposed bone and muscle tissue. Sonofabitch. “It’s my goddamn elbow.”
Ryan inspects the injury, relief lightening his worried expression. “Suck it up, Brooks,” he ribs as he reaches for gauze and bandages. “It’s just a scratch.”
I try to laugh but it comes out choked, my eyes scrunched against the pain. “Fuck you, Kendall.”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t.” He chuckles as if the whole damn incident is amusing, but I can read what’s going on behind his dark eyes. For a moment, it was Jake all over again. A few inches to the left and a little higher and I could have been gone too. The fact that I’m not is enough to leave me weak with relief. “Your firing arm is gonna be out of action for a little while.”
We lock eyes, a silent acknowledgement of what this means. It causes another sharp burst of pain, this one inside my heart. This type of injury requires delicate surgery to piece muscle and bone back together. I’ll have months of physiotherapy ahead of me to get back to the standard of fitness the regiment requires. It means I’m going home.
“Fucking hell, Kendall,” I mutter with quiet frustration.
I close my eyes, tilting my head to the sky. After several deep breaths, I open them again, the pain and disappointment shuttered, tucked away for another day. “I’m gonna have to learn how to use my left hand to jack off now.”
Ryan tries to smile at the joke and gives up, handing me a green whistle for the pain instead.
Monty inches towards the both of us while Tex sets up a satellite communication, sending a request for a medevac. “We don’t know what the fuck we’re dealing with out there. Could be one or two rogues, but from the intelligence we’ve gathered so far, which isn’t much, it could be fucking hundreds. Let’s retreat to a pick-up position for Brooks, and then we can formulate a plan.”
“Fuck this shit,” I growl, hating to leave them in the middle of an operation. We train hard for this, living and breathing it every day. Being rendered useless to my team is a slap in the goddamn face.
Bear: Change of plans.
Little Warrior: What do you mean?
Bear: I’m in Germany.
And trying to type from my hospital bed with my left hand is its own special kind of hell. My bed is on a vertical incline, my back propped up with pillows, my giant thumb hitting all the wrong keys and deleting every second letter.
Her reply is immediate.
Little Warrior: How bad is it?
Of course she would know why I’m here. She’s a combat medic. My injury required a specialist orthopaedic surgeon. I’ve been patched up good as new. Well, almost. It’s going to take a while for the bone and tissue to knit back together, and after that, physiotherapy will be my new best friend.
Bear: Just a scratch.
Little Warrior: They don’t send you to Germany for a scratch. Tell me what happened or so help me God, I will go AWOL and hunt you the fuck down.
Bear: I got shot.
My phone starts ringing. Jamie is requesting a video call. I answer and she appears on the screen. It’s late at night where she is and her lights are off, save for a dim glow from the lamp beside her bed. It sets a warm halo around her head, making her eyes appear darker. “Kyle?”
“I’m okay. I promise.”
She puts a shaky hand to her forehead, expelling a sob.
“Don’t cry, Jamie.” Not with me stuck here unable to do a damn thing about it. My chest squeezes into a tight knot of misery. “Don’t. I’m fine.”
“I’m not crying,” she chokes out, tears falling thick and fast down her cheeks. “You’re an asshole.”
“Hey, what did I do?”
“You got shot!” Jamie shouts, swiping at her face.
“Just a little bit.”
The pink cotton tee shirt she’s wearing stretches tight as she reaches across her bed for a tissue. There’s a hole in the neckline and the armpit, and combined with her tousled hair she somehow still manages to look like ice cream on a hot day. I avert my eyes from the exposed tan skin of her belly as she plucks a tissue free. “What happened?”
I scratch at my beard. “It was just a rogue shot. Some asshole got lucky.”
Jamie blows her nose and tosses the tissue aside. “Tell me everything.”
So I do, not allowed to leave anything out, and promising to show her copies of the X-ray as soon as I can. “Kyle, it’s your right arm,” she says as if I somehow forgot.
I tip my head back on the pillow. “I know that.” She sniggers a little and I know exactly what she’s thinking because everyone’s been thinking it. “Laugh away, chuckles, but this does not affect my ability to jack off. I could load and fire a rifle with my left hand while blindfolded and hit a moving target in the time it took my team to find their own dicks.”
Jamie laughs outright and it’s so much better than the tears. It dies off slowly and she sighs. “I won’t get to see you.”
“Not until you’re back home for our road trip.”
Her expression is dubious. “Will you be healed enough by then for that?”
“Wild horses, Jamie.”
“I can do most of the driving.”
My lips curl into a slow grin. Oh yeah. This is happening. “Because driver picks the music, right?”
“Yup.”
Jamie’s into the eighties, mostly bands like Cold Chisel and The Eagles because they were her dad’s favourites, though she cracks out a few Madonna tunes when she thinks no one is listening. I’m pretty sure “Material Girl” is her favourite, but I can deal with it because it gives me something to tease her about. “So we’re actually going to do this? Because now that I’m out of action, I’ve got a shitload of time to plan it.”
She slowly nods her head. “I think we’re actually going to do this.”
26
JAMIE
Two months later…
Tarin Kowt
I wake slowly, rolling over with a moan. My body is wiped. Every part of me aches, including my heart. I
’ve been up for seventy-two hours straight—dealing with the aftermath of a suicide bombing.
With time I’ve learnt there’s only one way to cope: push it all deep down inside. I know it sounds heartless, but I can’t think of them as people with lives and families and feelings. I would choke, otherwise. The only way I can do my job in this kind of scenario is to focus on treating the injury and nothing else.
Sometimes they slip through the way Arash did, and they haunt me at night when I’m trying to sleep. I’m still showing his photo to everyone I can, in every village, on every patrol, in the hopes of finding him. But it’s a needle in a haystack. Those hopes sink a little lower with every ‘no’ I get. My comrades think I’m crazy. It’s just one kid in a sea of thousands. But I can’t shake the responsibility I feel for him. For the situation I helped put him in. I couldn’t save his father the same way I couldn’t save mine, and he’s all alone.
I should let him go, but I’ve tried and I can’t seem to do it. How could I ever have a family of my own knowing all the while Arash is growing up with no one?
My phone dings. I reach out a hand, grabbing for it with my eyes closed. It slips from my fingers and thumps to the floor.
“Shit,” I mutter and roll back over in bed, peeking over the mattress with slitted eyes. It’s fallen faceup, a message notification from Kyle on the screen. Too tired to physically pick the device up, I reach an arm down and open it from the floor.
Bear: Guess what?
Little Warrior: You’re mad and I’m not?
Kyle has been home for just over seven weeks now. He’s on light duties while he recovers, which is getting to him. I can’t blame him, but swimming with saltwater crocodiles would be more fun than his bitching lately. He’s been keeping himself busy by pissing everyone off. The good news is that they have recruits due in soon. Sprinkling his crabby attitude all over the new soldiers will keep him occupied while he heals.
Bear: You’re so childish.
Little Warrior: That’s rich coming from you.
Bear: Fine if you don’t want my news …
I roll my eyes.
Little Warrior: Please tell me before I expire from anticipation.
Bear: Ryan and Fin are having a baby.
My stomach dips in shock. I collect my phone off the floor and roll onto my back, my eyes stuck on the words for a long moment while they sink in.
Little Warrior: For real?
Bear: Yes for real. Apparently she was already pregnant when we left on deployment, three months along already. I think it was part of the reason why she turned down the research program, but she never got a chance to tell Ryan before he left. She’s over six months along now. Time goes so fast!
Jake is going to be an uncle. It makes me ache horribly, my nose fizzing and eyes burning with loss all over again. Not for me this time but for him. For what he’s missing out on. What this place took from him.
Little Warrior: I hadn’t realised they’d patched things up, but I’m happy for them, Kyle.
Bear: Does it sound stupid if I say I’m jealous?
My brows knit together, confused. Kyle is jealous of Ryan? Does he have feelings for Finlay? I brush my fingers across the screen, suddenly unsure what to do with this information. I don’t know what to say.
Bear: Jamie?
There’s a buzzing in my ears, the kind that makes me lightheaded for a moment. It passes when I take a breath.
Little Warrior: I’m here. It doesn’t sound stupid. I’m just not sure it’s a good idea.
Bear: What’s not a good idea?
Little Warrior: Fin and Ryan have deep feelings for each other. They’re having a baby together.
Bear: Yes, and?
I shake my head, thoroughly confused.
Little Warrior: Nothing. Never mind. I should get up.
Bear: It’s Sunday. Aren’t you off today?
Little Warrior: It’s been a big few days here. I’ve got to go clean my rifle.
Bear: Can you do me a favour and check in on Ryan for me?
Little Warrior: Sure thing.
I run into Ryan a few days later. He’s walking out of the briefing building as I’m walking past on my way to the small gym on base.
“Hey, Murph,” he says. He’s looking a little rough around the edges, but there’s a hint of a smile on his lips. He steps in alongside me, and we walk together.
“Kendall. You’re looking … happy?” He immediately frowns. “Or not.”
“No, I am. I think.” He glances at me, a wry expression on his face. “I don’t know how to feel some days. I’m all over the place.”
“Well that makes sense.”
His brows rise. “It does?”
“Of course it does. You’re going to be a dad. Congrats by the way.”
His chest expands. “Thanks. Let me guess, Brooks has been flapping his gums harder than an old woman at bingo on a Sunday afternoon.”
I laugh. “He might have mentioned it.”
Ryan rubs at the back of his head as we walk. “It was unexpected, but I’m starting to get excited. I never thought I’d have this.”
“Have what?”
“A family. I just wish …” He swallows and heaves a dejected sigh. “Jake is missing out is all.”
I come to a stop outside the building that houses our gym equipment. He stops with me, and I reach up, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“There are days I find myself happy, and then I get pissed at myself because how can I be happy when he’s gone? I guess that’s why I’m all over the place.”
“He would want you to be happy, Kendall,” I say softly. “Don’t take that from him.”
“Yeah.” Ryan nods. “I know. He would want the same for you too, Murph.”
I wave a hand around at the bland, dusty compound. “This is my happy.”
“Geez.” He winces and then grins at me, clapping me on the back as he starts to walk off. “You need to get a life!” he calls out as I push open the door.
“The army is my life,” I mutter to myself as I make my way towards the treadmill for a five-minute warm-up, and somehow saying the words aloud sounds a little sad. Everyone is moving on around me and it feels a little like I’m getting left behind.
I shake the feeling off and blast the incline button. The machine tilts slowly and my thigh muscles begin to burn. This is where I’m meant to be.
Time passes slowly here, days turning into weeks and weeks into months at the pace of tortoise. I fill it with hospital shifts, patrols, emails and messages. Wood checks in regularly, as does Erin. And I speak to Kyle almost every day I’m able to. Sometimes I have to use the communications room, depending on where I’m stationed. Sometimes I get to use my phone.
I’m spending my last few weeks with a platoon who rented an Afghan house. It’s the highlight of my second deployment, spending time with the locals. It’s hard finding privacy as the only female here; I’ve been heating up water for makeshift showers, taking them early before the men wake. I check my emails every few days. Most are general updates, like the one from Wood I find in my inbox late this afternoon.
Murphy,
I’ve sent you some links to the houses we’re going to look at next week. There are five. Have a look and let me know what you think. I’m still trying to talk Erin into buying so I need you on my side with this!
I have to run so this isn’t long, but I miss you. I kinda hate being over here while you’re over there. I won’t lie, it’s hard getting used to life outside the army again. I wake up reaching for my rifle and it’s not there. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to go back. But I feel naked. As if I’ve been stripped of my identity. I’m trying to just take each day as it comes.
How is it going over there? Are you coming to visit when you get back?
Wood
There’s no other word to describe the internet service over here except absolute shit. It takes forever for the links to load. I check all the house
s, cursing every time the screen freezes. Most are pretty run-down. The kind that need new kitchens and flooring and a good coat of paint.
Wood,
They’re all the same as each other except for the third one. It would have a decent view of the water if you added a little front porch. Also, not cool asking me to take sides! You’re on your own.
It’s same old here. Nothing has changed.
You only want me to visit so I can help work on your new house. I’m coming to WA when I’m done here, but Kyle and I are doing a road trip, so there goes your cheap labour. Sorry not sorry.
Jamie
I’m in my last week when good news comes in from Kyle. He’s emailed an image of him holding Fin and Ryan’s baby with the message, Isn’t he cute?
It’s a boy. He’s the image of Ryan with his dark cap of hair and wide brown eyes, but it’s the man holding him who’s captured my attention. Kyle is looking down at the little blanket-wrapped burrito with an expression of pure adoration on his face, and the puzzle piece falls into place. It’s not Finlay he wants. It’s the baby. He wants what they have. I should have realised.
My heart gives a little tug. He looks good with a baby in his arms. His big hands hold tight to the precious bundle, cradling him snug to his chest.
I type back a quick response and hit send, unable to help myself. Not sure who’s cuter.
He must be near his computer because he responds a bare minute later. Careful. You just said something nice. And you totally think I’m cute. I knew it.
A smile tugs at my lips. You caught me in a rare moment. What’s his name?
Jacob, he replies.
A familiar ache rises up inside me. Jake would love that.
His response takes a long while to load. He really would.
I type another reply. How are Fin and Ryan doing?
They’re doing really good. How are you doing?
Lonely. I miss Kyle. I miss Wood. And Erin. My little family. I miss them all so much I go to bed feeling hollow at night.
Fighting Absolution Page 26