Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(77)

Holy, holy, holy shit. What was he doing? Before he could come with an answer, the door swung open.

Instead of a yoga outfit, she wore cutoff shorts and a flannel shirt. She was freaking barefoot, and he forced himself not to stare at her legs.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey.”

Her makeup was smudged and her eyes looked pink from crying, and that right there should have been his first cue to leave, but his feet stayed planted.

“You want to come in?”

She pulled the door back, and his feet unplanted themselves and stepped into her room.

“I’m surprised you came,” she said, closing the door.

“Me, too.”

She looked up at him, and his heart did a little tap dance. Even with her eyes puffy and her makeup smeared, she was beautiful. “Want something to drink?”

“What do you have?”

“I think everything.”

She turned and led him across the room, and he glanced around. The suite was deep and spacious, and he could have parked about three of his closet-sized apartment right there in the living room. He followed her past an overstuffed sofa to a tall wooden cabinet that held the minibar.

Great. Just what he needed. He’d sobered up some on the way over, so why the hell not?

“Let’s see.” She opened the fridge. “Heineken, Guinness, Corona—”

“I’ll take a Corona.”

She handed it to him. “No limes, sorry.”

“I’m good.”

He glanced around, suddenly noticing the blanket piled at the end of the sofa. He caught a glimpse of a huge-ass bed in the adjacent room.

“Nice balcony,” he said, stepping over to take a look. The slider was already open, and he stepped outside, as far away as he could get from that unmade bed.

The balcony had an ocean view, and a full moon shone down on the Silver Strand. A pair of lounge chairs faced out, and on the table between them was a room-service tray and one of those insulated coffee pots. Hailey reached down and poured a cup.

Luke stepped to the railing and squinted in the direction of the base. No nighttime PT happening, but it was still early.

She came to stand beside him and rested her cup on the railing.

“No wonder you can’t sleep,” he said.

“It’s decaffeinated.” She smiled slightly. “I was never much of a coffee drinker, but it was the first thing they gave me back at Bagram. It tasted like heaven.”

He shifted his gaze out over the water, the exact location where he’d spent countless hours doing boat drills and night swims. Down the beach was the pile of rocks that had nearly knocked him unconscious during BUD/S.

He turned to look at her and forced himself to man up.

“So you can’t get to sleep?”

“I get to sleep okay,” she said. “It’s the staying asleep that’s hard.” Ignoring the lounge chairs, she sat down on the concrete and leaned back against the wall. “You ever get that?”

He didn’t want to tower over her, so he sat down beside her and rested his beer on the concrete. “It’s been a while.”

The breeze picked up, and she wrapped her hands around the coffee cup. “I keep having these dreams.” She paused. “Or maybe flashbacks would be a better word.”

He watched her profile. The yellow glow from inside spilled onto the balcony, and he realized every light in the suite was blazing.

“It’s always the same.” She looked at him, maybe giving him a chance to change the subject. “A burst of gunfire. The SUV skids to a stop.” She looked down at her coffee. “I never knew, before that moment, that fear has a taste. And all I can think is that this can’t be happening, but it is.”

He watched her, feeling sicker by the moment.

“Then they throw a hood over my head and stuff me into a truck. All around me, I can hear them shouting and cursing. And then we’re moving again, and I can’t see anything, but the fear is suffocating, and I realize my whole life—all of it—has been reduced to two things: I’m American and I’m female. And the terror’s so thick it’s like I’m drowning in it.”

He took her hand and held it. His touch seemed to steady her, and she took a deep breath.

“That’s the flashback I keep having. The moment it started. I think the worst of it’s still blotted out. I don’t know.” She pulled her hand away and curled her fingers around her coffee mug. “New pieces are coming back, though. Voices. Faces.”

He cleared his throat. “Any names?”

She looked away and seemed to think about it. “Rasasa. I remember Khalid saying it. I don’t know if it’s a person or a thing.” She put her coffee aside and pulled her knees to her chest. “I don’t know anything, really. It’s all so fuzzy. Maybe the opium was a good thing.”

He watched her, wanting her to keep going and also wanting her to stop.

She turned to look at him. “Do you know what happened to him? Khalid?”

The question surprised him. “There’s a lot of people looking for him, last I heard.”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t think I’d care, but . . . he was the only one who showed any spark of humanity. It’s ironic, really. The whole reason I went there was to help children. Kids not much younger than him. Looking at it now, it seems so naive. So much has changed. I feel . . . warped, in a way. Because of fear. And I hate that. I don’t want to be a slave to fear the whole rest of my life.”