Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A SOLDIER TANGLED IN barb wire was bleeding and screaming, feet away from Sully.
The earth shook with the brutal force of shells pounding into dirt, great plumes of the stuff blasting high in the air, raining down like a hailstorm.
Lightning streaked the sky and lit puddles and rivers of scarlet pouring over the ground.
A threatening yellowish cloud rolled toward him, wisps rising up, skimming over the ground, reaching for him.
Sully’s breaths came in fast gasps, but he couldn’t get enough air. Blinking, he tried to clear his eyes. His fingers fumbled for his gas mask.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Shite. I’m not—
I can’t—
Oh God.
The world around him froze in an instant, and Sully sucked in a ragged breath of air, his hands flying to cover his mouth as he slammed shut his eyes and shook his head. Trembling muscles suddenly weak.
A dream.
Thank God, thank fucking hell. I could kiss him.
Sully let out a shaky laugh and opened his eyes.
Looked around to find Elliot. He was sitting cross-legged on the grass several feet away, silent, gazing away at something far off.
Sully’s gut twisted. Something was wrong.
Something happened. Mouth dry, Sully cleared his throat and swallowed tightly. “Elliot?”
“Mmm.” It wasn’t even a word, and in here Sully couldn’t sense emotion, but that hum was agony. It reached beneath his ribs and crushed his heart in a punishing fist.
“You all right?” Sully asked, pushing up to his feet. He cautiously approached.
“Peachy,” Elliot muttered, but he didn’t move. Didn’t sound peachy either. He sounded like all the light and good had been sucked out of the world and the only remains were pitch black ruins.
Sully lowered himself onto the ground in front of Elliot.
He tried to think of something to say, the right question to ask, but for all his ability to read emotions, he was never any good at managing them.
No matter how hard he tried, he always said the wrong thing.
He asked too many questions, or not enough, and the consequences could be dire.
The image of his mother’s weary face at the train station when he was eight years old swam to the surface of his mind. There was the churning sadness he’d written off as grief, the way her green eyes glistened as she pulled away from kissing his forehead, her thumbs brushing softly over his cheeks.
Jaw clenching, Sully watched Elliot tug up tufts of green grass, the warm orange sun behind him setting his pale hair aglow, every strained line of his body screaming that he was in a fragile state. He needed to know what was wrong. He wanted to—needed to—make sure this time.
“Elliot, look at me.” There must have been something sufficiently commanding in his voice because Elliot complied, blue eyes full of anguish so deep Sully’s stomach lurched. “Talk to me. What happened?”
Elliot’s lips parted, and his eyes went glossy.
He shook his head and lowered his gaze again as his tears fell, inhaling a raspy gasp as his face flushed dark.
That was the last straw. Sully reached out and grabbed Elliot’s shoulder, jerking him forward.
Elliot leaned into the momentum, let himself be drawn into Sully’s lap.
He burrowed his face against Sully’s neck, breaths heaving hot and damp against the bare skin there.
Wetness soaked into Sully’s collar. He held Elliot crushed to him as he sobbed.
His own heart pounded out of control with fear, sick with worry.
Sliding his hand into the back of Elliot’s hair, Sully massaged the nape of his neck. Tried his best to soothe him.
He wished he could feel what Elliot was going through, wished he could make sense of it. A million horrible thoughts flitted through his mind. Sully didn’t want to give voice to any of them.
Instead, he ran his panicked fingers through Elliot’s soft hair. Tried to calm himself as much as he was calming Elliot. Sully wouldn’t be any good to either of them if he couldn’t focus and help. “Elliot, talk to me. Please. Tell me what happened.”
Elliot made a choking sound and tightened his arms around Sully’s torso. “I… I… He…”
He who? God help the poor fucking bastard if someone hurt him. Sully would kill him. “Elliot, you got to concentrate. I need to know you’re okay. Please. Who hurt you?”
“Not me.” Elliot shuddered, words thick and painful. “It wasn’t me. Should’ve been me.”
Guilty relief trickled through Sully. If he wasn’t sitting, his knees would’ve given out.
It was awful he felt relieved at someone else’s misfortune, but the tension in his shoulders released.
He exhaled slowly, deliberately quiet, and pressed his lips to Elliot’s flaxen hair and made soothing sounds when Elliot couldn’t add anything else.
Sully’s pulse slowed from frantic rushed beats into a slow steady cadence.
After his tears ran dry, Elliot still didn’t release Sully.
He remained slumped as he was, clutching at the back of Sully’s jacket, breaths evening out.
Which was fine. Sully would’ve been reluctant to let him go anyway.
He wanted the solid warm weight of Elliot against him, a glowing, inescapable reminder that he wasn’t hurt. Not physically. “Tell me when you can.”
He felt Elliot’s nod, his hair brushing silk against Sully’s cheek.
Several slow inhales passed, then he mumbled, “It was Swift. Ollie. He was so young, Warren. He was invulnerable, for Christ’s sake.
He should have been fine. He would have been fine—” Elliot’s voice cracked.
“It should have been me. I should have bled out, not him. I was in charge. It should have been me.”
Sully ached, frozen all over at the thought of Elliot dead.
No, it for damn sure shouldn’t have been you.
He kept his voice soft and comforting. “I’m sure you did everything you could.”
“Well it wasn’t enough,” Elliot said in clipped tones, though he didn’t move away. “I was never qualified for this. I oughtn’t be making these decisions. I was supposed to protect them. And I failed. Like I fail everyone.”
That’s bunk. It’s bull.
Sully drew back to stare defiantly into Elliot’s eyes. “And how much worse could it have been if the person in charge didn’t give a goddamn shite about them? If they were under someone who didn’t cry at their loss? Wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep if the lot of you were snuffed out of existence?”
“Warren—”
“No,” Sully growled, on a roll now, unable to bite back the words shredding him up.
“I’m sorry about your friend, I am. But I won’t tell you I’m sorry it wasn’t you.
And it could’ve been if you had to follow someone else’s orders.
It could’ve been you, and I’ll never be okay with that.
I told you you’re not allowed to die, and I damn well meant it, Elliot.
I love you, you sapskull! I never did that before, and I’m not gonna lose you now that I went and did it.
So don’t talk like you should be dead because you shouldn’t. ”
Sully’s heart pounded, pulse roaring in his ears. Had he really said that? Out loud? Elliot sure as hell wasn’t kidding about feelings spilling out easier in dreams.
Blinking a couple times fast Elliot’s mouth opened slightly, his cut glass blue eyes glistened. Ah, shite. Sully made him cry again. He should’ve kept his big stupid mouth shut.
“I…Warren…” Elliot seemed to struggle for words. Sully’s heart beat faster, a thread of fear and worry seeping in. What if Elliot didn’t feel it too?
Silence stretched on, blue eyes studying Sully’s, flicking from one to the other, as if Elliot was trying to see into the core of him. Then something despairing flashed in Elliot’s expression. He leaned forward, chin tilting in a clear invitation . Yes.
“Sullivan! Wake up!”
Sully jerked to awareness as a boot jostled him. “Hmm?”
“Time to get your arse out of bed and into boots.”
Groaning, he levered himself into a sitting position on the cot he’d managed to find. “’M up,” he mumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
His lips tingled with the vaguest sense he dreamed of Elliot again. Something bittersweet and longing stirred in him. He wished he could sink back into sleep. Instead he squared his shoulders, determination settling in his bones as he rose.
* * *
ELLIOT WAS NURSING A headache at the kitchen table where he’d apparently fallen asleep last night.
Resting his elbows on the table and hanging his head in his hands, he stared at the bleached wood as the sun rose in the sky, stretching orange and shadows over it.
Outside, a crow cried out a mournful sound.
Elliot sighed tiredly, the memory of Warren’s mouth so close to brushing his faded into stark reality.
The gin he’d consumed last night as they grieved Swift’s loss soured his stomach.
Swift knew the danger when they went on an assignment, they all did. Perhaps Elliot had been foolish, na?ve, to assume their skills and planning would keep them safe, but it had thus far, and it wasn’t bloody fair for it to fail now.
Life’s not bloody fair either, is it?
His muscles ached, his chest scraped raw, and his throat scratchy. He didn’t know how long he sat there, fighting back tears he couldn’t afford to let fall. If he started crying again for Ollie, he might not ever stop.
So he wrote instead, words pouring from his heart like warm blood onto dirty paper in pencil scratches.
Sunlight wreathed in golden hair, a spill of sun-kissed freckles.
They matched your boyish smile, contradicted your tested mettle.
You laughed when we couldn’t. Fought like you’d never be stopped.
And so we thought you never would—until fate proved us wrong .
You traded your life for mine, and it was no bargain. Life, and love, and time—all things that should have been yours, not mine.