Walker
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
“I’m sorry.”
Words I’ve used millions of times, but they weren’t my voice.
“Stop!”
Another word that I’ve screamed, but it wasn’t my—
Snapping awake, I felt heat pour through me, frenetic and crazed, but under control, as if I was under fire.
My breath caught, and without thinking, I got it under control and looked around.
I realized I was in a room, Cade’s room, and its low mood lighting was casting heavy shadows.
That wasn’t what had woken me up on high alert, however.
No, it was the man next to me, a bundle of nerves and—
“Grk,” I managed as Cade covered me suddenly, his hands wrapping around my throat.
Panic scrabbled at my chest, but even then I could see it in his eyes; open as they were, they were blank and unseeing. He was lost, maybe in a dream, maybe in a memory, or maybe in some combination of the two that didn’t differentiate.
“Cade,” I rasped out, but it didn’t make a difference; his distant stare didn’t matter.
He was going to kill me.
Like hell he was.
It was instinct. God forgive me, it was.
My hands came up, swiveling to grip his wrists from beneath and shove pressure onto them.
His grip eased enough with a grunt of pain, and blindly, I thrust my face forward, my forehead meeting the bridge of his nose.
He cried out, but I didn’t stop as he reeled back, using my legs and my hip to roll him onto his side, curling my legs up between us and thrusting, jettisoning him away from me with a startled cry from him.
Even with him away from me, I curled up on the bed and shoved back, crouching as he hit the ground and sprang up with a swiftness that would have startled anyone who saw him as a crippled, broken man.
Except he wasn’t; no leg or not, he was a soldier, one forged by war and battle in a way that thankfully too few people understood.
He was up, ready to launch at the threat that had hurt him, by the time I recovered.
I knew already that a proper fight between us would be one-sided; I wasn’t small or weak, or less trained, but he was bigger, stronger, and he wasn’t in his right mind, unlike me.
I had one choice.
“Cade,” I barked at him. When that did nothing, I realized and said, “Sergeant Wilcom, you will cease and desist! Atten-hut!”
It took every inch of my being, drawing on an authority I had never possessed, and yet—
He stiffened, and I recognized he had frozen reaching for a knife that was no longer on his person. His eyes, which had been so perfect in their distant gaze, were now clouded in confusion as he went rigid.
“Cade,” I said again, gentler now that I had his attention. “Cade, please, baby, it’s me.”
More confusion. “Baby? I…Walker?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to be too energetic or forceful, but damned if I wasn’t at least going to try. “Where are you?”
“I…where am I?”
“Look around, tell me.”
He did, his eyes wide and his brow low as he looked around. “Arete. It’s…it’s Arete.”
“Yessir,” I said quickly, still not moving.
“You’re…okay?”
“I am.”
“Our team—”
“Oh…oh, Cade, I—”
“They’re gone,” he said, and the cloudiness in his eyes disappeared. “They’ve been gone. Long gone. They ain’t—”
“Cade,” I said cautiously as the aggression in his body disappeared.
“Gone,” he whispered, slumping to the floor.
“Cade,” I groaned as I approached him, knowing it was safe as I put an arm around his shoulders. “Cade, c’mon.”
“Alone,” he said, and it was the dazed way he spoke that alarmed me. “We’re alone, aren’t we? Alone and I just…oh God, I’m so—”
“No, don’t,” I began, and I remembered how he had described how he’d been before I’d come along. How he got ‘confused’ and others had to help drag him out. Except I wasn’t any of those people; I wasn’t—
“Phone,” I said, gritting my teeth and searching until I found his phone in a drawer. “What’s your…never mind, give me your hand.”
“No, don’t,” he grumbled as I pressed his thumb to the screen. Only to remember that people set up that sort of protection in a certain way and had to change the phone around so I could get his thumb to it and scroll.
“Cade, what’s wrong?” came a sleepy voice I didn’t recognize.
“Isaac,” I barked into the phone. “You might not know who I am, but—”
“Walker?” said the same voice, sharper and more attentive, worried. “Is it Cade?”
“Yes,” I hissed. “Please tell me Clay isn’t still locked up and can—”
“I can merge the calls; he’s out but not here with me,” he said in a calm voice that I envied as the call noise sounded, and—
“Hey, what the fuck?” Clay asked.
“Clay,” I hissed. “Talk to Cade, center him, be there for him, please. I know you’ve been going through your own shit, and—”
“Give him the phone, now,” Clay said, his rough voice growing urgent, and I handed the phone over.
I did so without thought, and Cade accepted it, pressing the phone to his ear.
“Hello?” he asked in a low voice, and then blinked. “Clay?”
God, the desperation in his voice, the way he clung to the phone when he heard Clay’s voice hurt…but it was tied to a sense of elation and hope. I didn’t give one flying fuck if he was getting his source of comfort and reality from someone who wasn’t me. What mattered was that he was—
My phone was ringing?
“Hello?” I answered in confusion.
“I’m sorry,” the voice said, and I realized it must have been Isaac. “I know you’re fighting like hell to keep on top of things over there and I’m equally worried, so it seemed only right to call you while they talk.”
“I…” Cade was retreating to a corner of the room opposite, and I tucked myself back onto the bed and tried to regain control. “How did you get my number?”
“Cade has spoken to me before, and he’s…well, there’s no other way to put this; he gave me your number in case of, well…”
“In case of something like this.”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I said, looking at Cade, hunched in the kitchenette, speaking in a low voice. “That’s okay, that’s…good.”
“Good,” Isaac said, and then shocked me. “How long have you two been fucking?”
“I’m sorry, what?” I snapped back. “What the fuck?”
His laugh surprised me further. “Well?”
“Is that important?”
“Mmm, no. Well, sort of, because Clay hasn’t figured it out yet, but I have, so he’ll have a whole freak-out when he does. But really, it was just to see how in control you are.”
“Did I pass?”
“There is no passing or failing, Walker. I just wanted to see where you’re at. And you’re thinking clearly and worried about him, that’s enough for me.”
I blinked, feeling a little of my tension fade. “You’re kind of a manipulative dick, you know that?”
“It happens,” he said with a low chuckle, and his voice dropped in concern. “One of his dreams?”
“Yeah,” I said with a sigh, covering my face. “And…I’m sorry.”
“Sleep isn’t all that important to me, not compared to his well-being,” Isaac said, and the smoothness of his voice was both pleasing and irritating because right now, I didn’t want to be comforted.
“I meant,” I bit out, and then took a deep breath. “I know from what Cade has told me that Clay hasn’t been out of his…visit for very long.”
“Don’t,” he said sharply, and I drew back at the tone. “If there is anything that could benefit Clay right now, it’s the idea that someone needs him, especially his best friend. I think calling him for help is the best thing you could have done…for both of them.”
I could see the way Cade was easing up as he talked to Clay, even though I couldn’t hear the conversation, and I smiled. “They’re kind of gay together, aren’t they?”
Isaac let out another laugh. “A little. Though I think before you, Cade would have said it as a joke, and Clay would have too, but in a way he didn’t think was serious.”
“Is this your way of saying you knew about Cade?” I wondered, remembering how Cade had told him how insightful Isaac could be, even to the point of seeing things that person couldn’t see themselves until the last minute.
“No,” Isaac said quickly, and then made a soft noise. “Well…no, but there was something that was…I don’t want to say unexplored, because that’s giving me more credit than I deserve.”
“He said your instincts were sharp,” I said with a snort. “I suppose I should believe him more often.”
“I suppose it would help now and then,” he said, and I liked his laugh. He was clearly comfortable in his own skin. “I can’t see anything, obviously, but, uh, how is he doing now? I assume better.”
“Much,” I said as I watched him half slumped over the counter and talking quietly into the phone. “You three must be quite close if my call was all it took for you to understand what was happening. He’s usually reserved about sharing that he struggles with his dreams and memories.”
“I don’t know much about it, and from what I’ve heard, Clay is only in the know because he was witness to one of Cade’s…
bad moments. I suppose even someone like Cade can’t bury what’s going on when the evidence is front and center to an observer,” Isaac said with a sigh.
“And perhaps Cade found in Clay a kindred spirit, because the Clay I’ve known has always been stubborn about accepting help, let alone asking for it.
That has changed a little, but well, they also share a great deal of pain in their past.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, closing my eyes and shaking my head. “I’m not sure what I would have done if it wasn’t possible to call you.”
“I’m sure you would have found a way,” he said softly, speaking with a confidence in me I envied. “And before you protest, he clearly trusts you enough to sleep beside you despite knowing that now and then, he’ll have one of these moments. Or at least, I assume you were sleeping with him.”
“Literally,” I said with a smile.
“Then I think it’s safe to assume he trusts you.”
“Or he just expects that I’m in the same boat as him and would understand.”
“That more or less amounts to the same thing, don’t you think?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”