Between Here and the Horizon(38)

“You’re delusional if you think I’m interested in you, Sully James Fletcher. I’d rather become a Carmelite nun and never speak to another soul again for as long as I live than tangle myself up in any of your crap.”

Sully’s smile evaporated so quickly it almost happened between heartbeats. “Don’t do that. Do not call me that.”

“Call you what?”

“By my full name. You might have read Magda’s journal, you might know all of my personal shit, but you don’t get to talk to me like you know me. Like you’re f*cking scolding me.” He made a guttural, angry sound low in his throat. He went to put his beer bottle down, then changed his mind, gripping onto it tighter. He lifted his free hand and pointed his index finger in my face. “The sooner you leave The Causeway, Lang, the better. For you. For me. For those kids. And when you go, make sure you take that damn journal with you, too. Toss it overboard and let the sea have it. I never want to see it again.”

The crowd of people behind Sully parted as if they were used to his stormy exits from conversations and they’d learned a long time ago to get out of the way as quickly as possible. He charged toward the door, shoulders locked and tense, and I caught sight of Rose on the other side of the room, a deflated expression etched into her face. Sully didn’t say goodbye to her, or to anyone else for that matter. He disappeared out of the front door, leaving it yawning wide open, and he vanished into the night.

I felt like rushing to the door and screaming after him, telling him I hadn’t read Magda’s journal, had no interest in reading it, but even the thought of expending that much energy on him exhausted me.

“Wow. He’s so…tormented,” a voice next to me sighed. Holly, in her Slipknot t-shirt, looked like she’d just fallen in love, and fallen hard at that. “He’s just like Heathcliffe. So romantic.”

I gave a sidelong look, shaking my head. “Have you read Wuthering Heights, Holly? Heathcliffe was a cold, controlling, miserable bastard. There was nothing romantic about him at all.”





CHAPTER THIRTEEN





Afghanistan





2009





Sully





“Eight days. We’ve lost eight of our guys in eight days. That’s a guy a day. A guy with a family and loved ones back home. What the f*ck are we doing here, man? Why the f*ck are we fighting this war? It’s none of our damned business, anyway. We should be back at home, taking care of our own. We ain’t accomplishin’ nothin’. Dirt in our eyes. Dirt in our boots, under our damned fingernails. Nothing but dirt and mayhem all damned day long. Tell me…when is it gonna be done? When will it be enough? When the f*ck can we go home, that’s what I want to know.” Rogers stabbed the sharp end of his throwing knife into the sole of his boot, squinting at the point where steel met rubber. No one said anything.

It was dark. The night out here in the desert was a lot like it was back on the island—very little light pollution meant stars for days. Stars, thick and clustered, brilliant and white for as far as the eye could see. The black mantle of the sky was different, too. Richer. Deeper somehow, like you could reach your hand into it, feel the texture of it against your fingertips, encompassing you.

Three clicks to the west, or there about, an orange flash popped against the shadow of the horizon, briefly throwing a ragged, broken skyline into view.

Kandahar.

Over there, in the torn out heart of the city, three of the units from our base were locked in a skirmish with local Taliban fighters. The insurgents had pinned them inside a building and were doggedly trying to get inside, to kill whoever they could find through the sights of the M4s they’d stolen from one of our envoys a little over a month ago.

Sound carried so well out here. A rattle of gunfire echoed over the scrubby plain between the hollow at the base of the hill where we were sitting, awaiting orders, and the outskirts of the city, reminding me of the Chinese firecrackers Ronan and I used to play with when we were kids. He was out there somewhere, on the other side of the city, waiting with his men just like I was, looking up at the same stars, probably bored out of his head. No doubt one of his guys was pissing and moaning, too. There was one in every unit these days, it seemed. Someone who finally wasn’t afraid to say what everyone else was thinking: why the f*ck were we out here, playing cat and mouse games, theoretically protecting a country of people who didn’t even f*cking want us here?

“Oil. It’s all about the oil,” Rogers hissed under his breath.

“Dumbass, it ain’t about the oil,” Daniels snapped back. “They ain’t got no oil in Afghanistan.”

“Then why? Why the f*ck would the government of the United States of America waste billions of dollars coming out here? Huh? You tell me that, ’cause seems to me like this don’t make a lick of sense.”

“They sent us out here ’cause these motherf*ckers attacked us, you f*cking reject. What were they supposed to do? Isn’t that why you joined up in the first place?”

Rogers chose not to answer that. We should all have been waiting in silence for our orders to come in over the radio, but there was no point trying to kill this kind of talk once it got started. “S’why I joined up,” Daniels continued. “Collins and the captain, too. Ain’t that right, Captain?”