Love Survives (Love's Suicide #2)(35)

Day after day I watched soldiers come and go, some in body bags. I wondered when my time would come, and who would be there when it did happen. I started running in my spare time, using it as therapy. I’d run until my legs got weak, or I couldn’t breathe.

Nothing helped alleviate the pain.

Easter morning I awoke to the sound of a siren. Like everyone in my bunk, I jumped out of bed and began putting on my fatigues. This could have been a drill, but I wasn’t taking any chances. By the time we were all dressed our orders were delivered. Another street had been ambushed by terrorists. It was an hour helicopter ride to the location, which was enough time to get my adrenaline pumping. Who knew if this would be the last moments of my life? This could have been the plan all along. They’d attack another area and then shoot the helicopter down with all of us in it. I held my gun tightly against my body, closing my eyes and leaning back against the hard metal shell of the transporter.

Silently I prayed for a safe return, hoping that this wasn’t a suicide mission. I refused to look around at the other soldiers because I knew that it would force me to think about their lives. Were they all running from something, or did they have something to live for? Were the women mothers? Were the men husbands, father’s even? Could their families survive without them?

We landed safely about a mile outside of the target location. We all took a second to fill up with water since we didn’t know when we’d be able to stop again. One by one we got into position and began our blind venture into danger.

It was obvious when we reached the city limits that there wouldn’t be much to salvage. The buildings that weren’t still burning were nothing but rubble, but that wasn’t the worst part. Randomly, positioned to where they couldn’t be missed, were posts with beheaded victims placed at the tops. Pools of blood covered the ground beneath them. I watched a female ranger get out of line and begin puking. It wasn’t the visual of it that disturbed me. It was the silence. Something was wrong. I could feel it in every bone of my body. All of a sudden before I was able to speak my concerns I felt the ground shaking.

I woke up in a haze of sand. The familiar smell of fire filled my lungs. People were yelling, but the sounds were muffled. As I opened my eyes I saw someone standing over me. It was obvious they were yelling though it appeared like they were calling me through a long tunnel. My ears rang as I sat up and looked around me. We’d obviously either hit a landmine, or been fired at. The explosion had put everyone on the ground, and some of us weren’t getting back up.

Without being able to hear properly, I started checking the soldiers around me. The third person I came to had half of his face blown off. He was gasping for air while blood trickled out of the corners of his mouth. I lifted his head, watching as his eyes rolled in the back of his head. “Hang in there, ranger. Help is on the way.” It was the reassuring thing to say. “You’ll be okay.” After checking for a pulse I knew there was nothing we could do. His internal organs had shut down, probably because he’d had severe trauma. I sat his head back down and headed over to the next body as if he’d been just a shell of a man. I had to treat these people like objects because the moment I thought of them as my equals I knew I’d care too much.

That day we lost two people from our unit. The ride back to base was even quieter because it included the dead. This time I kept my eyes open, watching as the people around me cried to themselves, as if their pain would bring the soldiers back to life. Crying didn’t solve anything, and it certainly didn’t contain magical healing powers. It was a human reaction; one I’d taught myself to avoid.

Our mission had been a failure. We hadn’t been able to finish what we’d set out to do. The same helicopter had turned back around to retrieve us, or what was left of our group.

I helped others carry one of the bodies out of the helicopter. The ranger’s name had been Carter. He’d always been cordial to me when necessary, so I owed him this type of respect. I could only hope that when my time came my peers would do the same for me. Then I began to think about my family, and who would carry my casket to my burial spot. Would my brother be there? Would he even care if I was gone?

Then there was Kat. I wondered if she’d be there, sitting in the front row with my parents. Would she stick around after everyone was gone, and talk to what was left of me? Would she have put something inside of my casket to be buried with me? The idea of her hurting crushed me. I wanted there to be another way out of this hell, but knew there wasn’t. This was what my life was worth. I was a soldier, with nothing to look forward to. If I died, I’d become a memory. It was as simple as that. I’d trained for this, taken the oath, and known what it meant.

A statement was required for each case. We took turns explaining the entire situation from start to finish. I noticed a few people wiping their faces; the ones that had personal connections to the deceased. I wanted to reach out to them to tell them that it was easier to get through if they stayed to themselves. They were just bodies to me. I didn’t know the people. Sure, we slept in the same room. We showered in the same open area, ate our meals, and risked our lives together, but I didn’t know any of them, and I had no intentions of changing that. I was safer this way.

Later that night we stood out by a fire and paid our respects. Nothing would bring those people back, and I was thankful I hadn’t gotten to know them. It was less I had to feel. While I watched everyone else reminiscing I sat down and stayed to myself, thinking about loss in general. Everywhere I turned was tragedy. I was beginning to wonder if I was the problem. Maybe I was doomed from the start. Maybe nothing good was ever meant to happen to me.