Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fienvillers, France
THE HOUSE ASSIGNED AS their living quarters and base of operations was utterly silent save the odd creak in the chill fall wind.
Elliot ought to be sleeping. He was finding that difficult at the moment, so he stared up at the unblemished ceiling.
Moonlight filtered through the dirt-streaked window and lent the atmosphere an ethereal glow.
He could almost imagine he was somewhere else instead of in a foreign country on the eve of his first true test of leadership.
He was obsessively occupied with their mission objectives and the plan they would be setting in motion.
After a month of training with Sergent Michel Charbonneau and Caporal Léon Remonet, two French Army soldiers assigned to Elliot’s team, they were a cohesive unit. Tomorrow their hard work would culminate in their first assignment together.
Two days previous, during the latest offensive campaign in the area around Passchendaele they’d received reports of German soldiers getting back up and continuing to fight after receiving mortal wounds.
Officially, it was written off as the fevered imaginings of soldiers in the chaotic cesspool of porridge-thick mud and death and shelling, confused as they fought for their lives and failed to gain ground.
Unofficially, they suspected a German necromancer had been at work.
Rapidly gathered intelligence suggested the suspicions were correct and offered a possible location to infiltrate for more information.
Planning for the mission was rushed, but solid.
What they could prepare for was done. All that was left was to do it.
They were due to commence after dusk, and Elliot regretted the promise of an entire day ahead with nothing to do aside from second guess all of his decisions.
The only thing guaranteed to cause their failure was if he lay there awake all night worrying himself into nervous exhaustion.
Blowing out a deep frustrated breath, he flung his arm over his face and attempted to turn his thoughts in a more pleasant direction. Which inevitably led him in a single direction.
A sly smirk and flashing hazel eyes filled his mind.
He let his mind play over a memory so vivid that he was very nearly standing on that Chicago sidewalk once more, an urging hand in his hair, Warren’s soft mouth closing hard on his.
His heart stumbled in its rhythm, precisely as it had then, a swell of dazed emotion rising in his chest. Elliot drifted to the last time he’d seen Warren in person, the briefest press of their lips.
How sweet it had felt right before the guilt at not getting to the point faster slammed into him.
Now it was too late to tell Warren. He’d missed his chance.
“You’re not helping yourself here,” he whispered into the darkness.
Rolling over onto his stomach, Elliot made himself comfortable. At least he had a real bed here, his own room. Some peace and quiet. Many had it far worse.
Warren probably has it worse.
Elliot’s chest tightened and he swallowed, hating that thought.
Hating even more that it was true. He would move mountains to have Warren somewhere safe if there was any way he could.
There wasn’t. What if he never got the chance to speak to Warren in real life again?
What if one night Elliot went to sleep and Warren just wasn’t there anymore? Didn’t exist anymore?
The morose turn his thoughts had taken was less helpful even than the memories. He sighed and turned onto his back again, restless and frustrated and afraid. So damned tired of being afraid.
Eventually, his lashes drifted shut. When he opened his eyes, he was inside a ship, only it was all wrong. The porthole was on the roof—or, no, the room was on its side. Frigid water lapped at his waist, all the more uncomfortable in contrast to the stifling hot air suffocating him.
Warren stood in the far corner, trembling.
A girl no more than thirteen with long brown hair the same shade as Warren’s clung to him, arms wrapped tightly around his neck, her face tucked up against his shoulder, muffling her terrified cries.
Warren whispered something to her, protectively cradling her slight form, his words reassuring despite the slight waver in his voice.
The water rose in a sudden gurgle, waves jolting up to Warren’s shoulders. The girl screamed, the sound cutting through Elliot, reminding him to act.
He lifted a hand and made it all disappear, furious with himself for letting it go on so long. He should’ve stopped the nightmare as soon as he arrived, but it hadn’t been the typical scene he walked in on in Warren’s dreams. He’d been distracted.
A memory or something his mind conjured to torture him with? Perhaps a combination?
“Anne!” Warren shouted, tear-filled eyes flying open as the dream shifted and the girl disappeared.
His gaze focused on Elliot and he sucked in an agonized breath, a dire plea for help on his face.
Closing the distance between them, Elliot reached out and Warren collapsed into his arms, gasping for air.
Elliot held him tightly as if he could fix this if he only gripped hard enough.
“Sorry,” Warren mumbled, hands curling in the back of Elliot’s shirt, pulling the material.
“Shh,” Elliot rubbed his palm over Warren’s spine in firm, broad strokes. Something lodged in his throat and ached in his chest at the broken sound of Warren’s apology. “Catch your breath. It’s over.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t—can’t stop sh-sha—” Warren squeezed him harder, and Elliot felt wet lashes brush the side of his neck, damp breaths warming his skin.
The dull ache behind his ribs sharpened.
He wished he could ensure Warren never dreamt anything so awful ever again, wished he could make that promise, but their sleep could hardly be counted on to align when they were in training, let alone when they were at war.
All he could offer was a temporary reprieve now and then.
Never as long as he’d like. Never as long as Warren needed him. But Christ, he wanted to promise.
For a week, when Elliot had been at sea and Warren had still been waiting to deploy, they’d hardly crossed paths.
Being unable to offer solace had been sheer torture for Elliot.
Here he was, once again limited in his ability to provide assistance.
It was a minor miracle of late they’d been meeting more frequently and for longer periods.
It struck him then, how odd it was that no matter when he dragged himself off to sleep, he discovered himself in Warren’s dreams. That wasn’t usual. But was it cause for concern?
“Warren,” Elliot started, a suspicion he didn’t like nagging at him.
“Hmm?”
Running his hand absently up Warren’s back, worn thin material slipping beneath his palm, Elliot asked, “When did you last wake?”
“Dunno. ’S all a blur,” he said, voice thick and muffled, clearly struggling for control of his emotions.
“Were you hurt? Sick?”
“No.”
Frustration bubbled up in his chest and he fought it down. Warren wasn’t being evasive on purpose, he simply didn’t grasp the importance of the conversation. His mind remained on whatever scene Elliot had interrupted. Perhaps if we address that first, he’ll be more forthcoming. “Was this real?”
“Sort of,” Warren mumbled. For a moment, Elliot feared he would pull away and change the subject, but he pressed himself closer instead. The vulnerability of the act made Elliot’s throat tighten. “Did you hear about what happened to the Eastland?”
Everyone had. Even without the letters from his sisters during his visit with a friend the summer of 1915, he would have seen the headlines.
The SS Eastland had rolled over onto her side while tied up at dock in the Chicago River.
Loaded down with over two-thousand passengers, the disaster had been monumental.
By his recollection, the death toll had been over eight hundred—the horror inflicted upon the survivors unimaginable.
Elliot’s stomach rolled sickly. “I did, yes. Is that where we were?”
“Yeah. We were there. My Aunt Maggie and Uncle Thomas had gone below to see friends. Anne and I were out on the upper deck. I was trying to decipher the anxious tension in the air when the boat started listing. At first, they all assumed it was a joke, but I could tell something was wrong. Just didn’t know how wrong until it all went straight to hell.
The panic and fear and grief was overwhelming.
Thought I was gonna pass out, but I couldn’t. I had to save Anne.”
“Christ.” Elliot rested his cheek against Warren’s hair, wanting to lend him comfort, lacking the words.
What could he possibly offer to provide even a modicum of relief?
The thought of all those bodies in the water, all those people drowning, and among them Warren, feeling everything, it nearly ground Elliot’s heart to bloody pulp.
“People said we were lucky, after we were dragged out of the river.” Warren’s matter-of-fact tone no doubt masked heavily shielded pain.
People uttered such inadvertently cruel things when they offered sympathy.
“We hit the water intact, somehow hadn’t got clocked in the head by debris or struck by other people.
Hadn’t been crushed or drowned, trapped inside, like the people on the main deck. ”
Like his aunt and uncle? “Did they—”
“No one ever told us how they died. If I hadn’t been so busy trying to figure out the whys and I just trusted what I felt, I could’ve saved them too. But I…” He shuddered. “I barely kept Anne from drowning, and I try not to think about how much worse it could’ve been if she hadn’t stayed with me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Elliot said softly, inadequately.
They were quiet for a while, Elliot trying not to consider all the ways Warren’s life could’ve been snuffed out before they’d ever met, all the ways it still could be.
The odds that in all likelihood, it would be.
Elliot felt like he couldn’t breathe. He instinctively tightened his hold on Warren and had to make himself relax his grip.
With a parting sigh, Warren stepped away, a false smile pasted on though his eyes remained haunted. “So where are you taking me tonight?”
“Where would you like to go?”
Warren’s lips pushed out in thought, his head tilting slightly. Then he gave a genuine grin. “How about the place we met?”
Elliot’s heart tripped over itself. Biting down on a smile, he lifted his palm and concentrated, changing the world around them. He’d give anything for it to be this easy to make things better for Warren all the time.