Rough Edge (The Edge #1)(45)

“Just? You fuck.” I punched his shoulders with both fists. He didn’t fall. He needed to fall so hard he’d break time. Then we could go back ten minutes, before I knew. Back a day, before the letter existed. A decade, before the war. “You fucking fuck. How could you do this?”

He held up both hands. “Just take it easy.”

I snatched the letter from him and tore it up. “I do not accept this.” I threw the pieces at him. “I love you. You are my life, you fucking shit.” I punched his chest and he did not defend himself. “I break for you. Do you understand? I break every damned day and you do this? Why? You think getting away from me is going to cure you?”

“It’s not that.” He grabbed my arms before I could punch him again.

“What then?” I tried to yank away, but he wouldn’t let me.

“The treatment. The experimental protocol. I need to be in the system or I don’t qualify.”

I buckled. I couldn’t hold myself up. The floor was despair and I needed to melt into it, flatten myself against it like spilled water, spread and evaporate. Only his hands kept me upright, saving me and killing me with equal force.

“It’s IRR. I don’t have to do anything. They’ll keep me off active duty. Please. Listen—”

“You’re going to get called. Do you understand, you stupid, stupid man? They’re going to call you back.”

I tried to get away, but he held me harder. “They’re not. Greyson. Listen to me. They’re not calling me.”

“You’re going to get stop-lossed. They’re going to deploy you, send you away, and I swear, Caden, you’re not a soldier. You’re not meant for it. They’re going to send you back broken.” My anger melted in its own heat, dripping away in thick tears.

That time he’d gone off-base with a medevac. He’d been so brave and strong inside the hospital walls, and it all fell apart on the front lines. He returned covered in blood, unable to function or process what he’d seen. He wasn’t the same after that. His arrogance lost its edge after one time on the front lines. What if he was sent out again? How could he so blithely assume he’d survive it? “Why? Why did you do this?”

“I have to. I can’t let you keep taking the brunt of my sickness. It’s hurting you. I’m hurting you. Grey, I’m…” His face tightened as if he held back his own tears. “I’m afraid I’m going to kill you.”

He barely got the last word out before breaking. He let my arms go, and I held him. We bent together, falling as if we’d been detonated, limbs wrapped together like a smoking pile of twisted metal beams, weeping for the end of the life we’d tried to live.





Chapter Twenty





GREYSON





I sat on the stone wall on Central Park South and picked the pickles off my sandwich, eating them one by one. They got less and less shockingly sour with every bite.

The sidewalk was packed with the lunch crowd, and more than once, I had to chase someone away from the spot next to me. A jackhammer pounded the street somewhere. No matter what street I was on, there was always a jackhammer going in New York, as if the city had to remind you not to get too comfortable.

Ronin appeared with a cup of coffee, and I moved my bag so he could sit next to me.

“Afternoon, Major One More.”

“Afternoon, Lieutenant Shithead.”

“I had the feeling this was the kind of conversation I was in for.”

“What you did was fucked up.”

I watched a gaggle of tourists wrestle with a map. A businesswoman dug in her bag to pay for a knish. Two guys in suits walked as if they were racing somewhere and talking as if they were on the verge of ending poverty.

“I assume you’re talking about Caden going into the reserves,” he said.

“I can’t even look at you.”

“He’s a grown man.”

“He thinks you can keep him from getting called.”

“How do you know I can’t?”

I let out a derisive laugh. He’d always had a high opinion of his position.

“This war’s messy,” I said. “It’s never going to end. Every week, it’s clearer we’re in a quagmire. You know it because your company is invested in keeping it going. War ends, money dries up.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Maybe not for you. For the suits on the top floor? For the lobbyists? That’s how it works. And now my husband is on the army’s radar. If there’s pressure to send him back, you’ll buckle. Your company will buckle. And if he goes back…” I took a deep breath and finally looked at Ronin. “If he goes back and he doesn’t die, he’ll be dead anyway. In his mind, he’ll be someone else. I’m not ready to lose him. I’m not ready for my mind to die.”

“Okay, let’s do this.” He put his coffee on the seat and pivoted to face me. “I’m going to tell you things you should have seen already.”

“Don’t try to tell me how much pull you have.”

“I don’t have the pull to keep your husband safe because he wants it. I have pull because he’s valuable. He has the complete table of criteria for this treatment. He’s educated, verbal, aware. If we nail this, it’s going to treat PTSD on the field in real time.”