There. Under a piece of propeller, I found him.
His broken body. His blue eyes staring up at me, as his chest rattled. His K-9 partner, Daisy, whimpering at his side, blood soaking into her fur. Danny.
“I got you. I got you. Come on, Danny.” I grabbed him, pulling as hard as I could to get him out of the flames. Away from the gunfire. Away from reality.
His mouth moved when I started to drag him, but no words came out. So much blood. There was so much blood. Danny smiled at me, his hand clutching mine, until it dropped.
“Please look at me. Danny. Please.”
He stared back, his eyes dull and lifeless, and I knew.
“No, Danny. No.”
Remy was there, grabbing Danny’s feet, and we lifted him from the carnage without saying a word. Danny’s lifeless body hung between us, blood pouring from a cut on the side of his neck.
We got him out and laid out on the ground, using the charred remains of the chopper as shelter from any attack.
Danny didn’t move.
He didn’t breathe.
He didn’t blink.
“Danny,” I cried out in grief, my voice nothing more than a broken whisper, a prayer of his name.
The medic shoved at me, trying to get to him, but I refused to let go. I refused to leave his side. I couldn’t leave him. I’d never leave him behind.
The unmistakable sound of incoming combatants filled the air. Screams, gunfire in the distance, and bombs exploding caused everyone to move.
Danny was gone, taken by a war he’d followed me into.
With the taste of death and metal in my mouth, I grabbed the rifle I didn’t remember slinging over my shoulder. Ringing in my ears was the only indication that I’d pulled the trigger. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t feel anything anymore. And as the bodies of our enemies dropped, all I saw was the smile on my brother’s face as he died in my arms.
I screamed, ready to go to war with my rage, but I wasn’t in the desert anymore. The white walls of my living room surrounded me, and I stared at the ceiling, wondering how I’d gotten out of the desert. Wanting to know why I wasn’t covered in my brother’s blood. Trying to figure out how I could still feel the sand under my nails if I was sitting in Maine.
“You’re home,” I told myself. “You’re home, and you’re alive.”
Saying it didn’t make it real, though, and I forced my eyes to stay open until they were so dry I thought they’d fall out of my skull. If I closed my eyes, I’d be back in the desert again. I’d be there, with Danny’s body behind me. I’d be there, trying to die so I didn’t have to tell my mother that Danny died. I clutched the dog tag I still wore around my neck, but it was the small ring on the chain next to it that I needed. The one Kennedy sent, during my first week overseas, the promise she gave me that we’d have forever to figure us out. The reason I made it home.
Kennedy.
Sweat dotted my brow, and tears streaked down my cheeks when I finally came back to myself. When reality finally beat back the terror and trauma from being overseas. Rolling to the side, I clambered for the bathroom and barely made it before I threw up everything I’d eaten and then continued to retch until there was nothing left. Once I finished, I flushed the toilet and leaned my head against the wall behind me.
“Fuck my life.”
I would rather die a thousand deaths than drag Kennedy into the hell that had become my life. No matter how much I craved her touch, or the fact that my heart stuttered every single time I saw her smile. I came back from overseas beyond damaged. Broken.
I might love her more than my next breath, but Kennedy should never be mine.
3
Kennedy
“I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” Double-checking to make sure that the 911 caller had already hung up, I stared over one of the five computer monitors at Maya, my boss and director of Birch County RCC.
Maya smiled brightly in response, despite the fact that we’d been working for a solid twelve hours together, answering emergency calls and handling everything else that dispatching involved. “Sometimes I forget what it’s like to sit in dispatch,” she said. “I miss it.”
“I don’t.” I was already thinking about tacos, in fact. Three days one week and four the next, I got off shift and immediately went to Lucy’s, where there would already be a taco platter waiting for me.
The digital clock on my computer said I only had about five minutes before my replacement clocked in, and I literally started counting the seconds until I would see Nikki’s truck pull into the parking lot on the security cameras.
“I just wish I could find a dispatcher that wouldn’t wash out in training,” Maya said bluntly. “I know it takes a special breed of person to dispatch, but we’ve gone through four since Teri left for BPD.” She huffed, and then glared at me over her screen. “You better not abandon me for them.”
I would have given her some sort of snarky answer, but Nikki’s truck pulled into the parking lot just then.
“At least you’ve got Nikki now,” I told her. “She started as a deputy’s wife, right?”
Maya’s face shuttered, her eyes flashing with a darkness that I hadn’t quite expected. “Yep.” She coughed. “Dustin. Before he died.” She sniffed. “She’s a good one.” Her smile returned. “Nikki definitely understands the stuff that a dispatcher needs to be made of.”
While I waited for Nikki to come into the building and relieve me, I grabbed all my stuff and made sure that my trash was disposed of. Twelve hours in one place was a lot, especially since our desks were our home away from home.
Nikki walked in with a smile on her face and a bag full of food that smelled delicious. My stomach growled in response.
Yep. Time for tacos. Tacos, and maybe a stiff drink that would help me forget the fact that I was miserable in my life.
“I’m outta here,” I said while waving on my way out.
In the parking lot, I saw a familiar truck, with the man of my dreams sitting in the driver’s seat. Linc stared down at his phone with a grimace, and curiosity almost killed the cat. Instead of walking over and tapping the glass on his window like I wanted, I got in my car and left.
Even if my chest ached as I went. Absently, I rubbed the scars on my left wrist while I clutched the steering wheel.
The ridges served as a reminder of everything I’d already lost in my life. All the things I’d done, and suffered, that led to my current life.
“Breathe. Just breathe.” My heart kept beating, even though the anxiety in my veins said that I was having a heart attack. “You’re fine.”
Lucy’s, thankfully, was only down the road from the sheriff’s office, and I made it into the parking lot before the onslaught of memories hit me like a wrecking ball.
Cheap cologne and bad music filled my senses, blinding me to reality, and leaving me lost in the past.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I opened my eyes, expecting to be stuck in a living nightmare, and saw Parker standing next to my car with Nox at her side.
“Come on, Auntie,” he called out loudly. “It’s taco time. Mom said I’m going to your house after you’re done and that we’re gonna spend the weekend together.” His face was pressed right up to the window, and he blew his lips on the glass, letting his cheeks swell out and it sounded like he was farting.