No Perfect Hero(84)
Jenna keeps running, her eyes wide, her face determined, her fists clenched as she pumps her arms and races over the sand with no fear.
My Jenna, my sister, wouldn’t have died sobbing and afraid. She'd be brave to her last breath.
But there’s someone else there.
A familiar broad, heavy-set figure, familiar ash-blond hair, and the rifle in his hand is quick. He sees his chance to do something he's planned for too fucking long.
That rifle barks bullets after Jenna, masked by the hellish confusion and shrapnel the insurgents keep raining down.
A well-aimed hellfire strike from a drone in thirty seconds will take care of the assholes in the hills.
She doesn't last that long.
Jenna’s a moving target. I don't know if she ever realizes her betrayal until the very end, she just knows someone is shooting at her.
She's ducking, weaving, handling this the smart way, but suddenly there’s a thock of a bullet piercing fabric, Kevlar, flesh, and a bloom of red.
She windmills forward, her eyes huge with surprise.
The bright light leaves her eyes.
She’s gone.
All because she trusted the wrong man, saw the wrong things, knew too much.
He pretended to love her to get fucking rid of her.
The worst part? She didn't even understand.
She knew she'd seen wrong, got in the middle of something. Maybe that 'drama' she told me about the last time we met was some asshole from their unit who'd mouthed off too much about the side gig shipping heroin back to the States. And maybe – fuck maybe, of course – he answered to Dennis Bress.
I want to wake up.
Every night I want to wake the hell up, but the dream won’t let me. It's always relentless, forcing me to watch.
I'm the same helpless damn bystander who can’t move, can’t shout her name, can’t do anything to save her. I just watch as she goes tumbling forward, slumping to the sand.
She’s twitching, her mouth moving soundlessly, but I know the name she’s saying.
I know because Bress thinks they’re alone, but they’re not.
Stew is there, watching horrified from behind one edge of the sweeper, too paralyzed to act and pinned down by enemy fire while Bress strides forward boldly and stands over my sister’s gasping body.
Then I see what Stewart implied years later, the night we were drunk.
There’s just a moment where her eyes roll back toward him before Bress puts the rifle to her forehead. And even though this is a dream, across the field of battle, Stew catches my eye, stares at me wretchedly, mouthing I’m sorry, War.
Then the sound of a single gunshot rings out over the battlefield as the drones sweep in, dropping a halo of hellfire.
It reverberates louder than a nuclear warhead, shattering my sleep and shoving me awake with all the violence of my own flesh and blood lost too soon.
*
“Jenna, fuck!”
I snap awake with my heart pounding and wild, my body drenched in the cold sweat of fear and loss. It’s like every inch of me is crying to make up for my dry eyes, my parched throat.
It’s not real, I tell myself. It’s not real, goddammit.
What is real, though, is the woman lying in my bed, her soft fingers tracing my brow, bringing me back down to Earth.
Haley.
For a second, I'm confused. Then guilt swamps me.
I was a complete and utter shit to her tonight, so what's she doing here?
Why's she looking at me like she actually gives a damn, worry knitting her brow, instead of spitting at me for being a hulking jackass?
I just stare at her blankly, struggling to catch my ragged breath, that gentle touch of her fingertips seeming to mark rhythm and time until I can pace myself to her speed.
One breath at a time before I'm finally ready to speak.
“Hay? Shouldn’t you be at work?”
She smiles faintly, sadly. “Really? That’s the first thing you ask me?” Her touch stops, lingering at my temple. “I was worried about you. So I lied and said my car was still tanked and got someone to cover my shift.”
“You didn’t have to do that for me. Not after the way I lashed out.”
“Well, I'll admit I thought about punching you in the mouth.” Her smile strengthens, her fingers weaving into my hair. “But this time I understood what you were so upset about. Everyone gets a Mulligan in situations like this. Just don’t take advantage.”
Somehow, even with the awful chill of the nightmare still gripping me, she manages to make me smile anyway.
“Yes, ma’am,” I murmur, curling my hand against her wrist.
I have this nightmare so often you’d think I’d be used to coming down from it, but no. It still leaves me raw and torched. Only this time, it doesn’t hurt so much. I'm not so desolate, so alone.
Because for some unholy reason, this woman was willing to give me a little faith, and knew what I needed better than I knew myself.
Goddamn, I wish I’d met her in better circumstances. Without this obsession driving me, taking me over until I’m less of a man and more of a passion.
Not enough to make a woman like Hay happy forever.
I’m too broken. Too cold inside and out. Too many demons chasing for me to ever slow down.
There's no happy ending. Whoever leaves Heart’s Edge first pulls the plug on this messy, beautiful thing we've got.