20. Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
‘Lias
The desert doesn’t forgive hesitation.
Heat warps the horizon, turning shapes into ghosts and men into something harder to recognize. Out here, you don’t wait for certainty. You act, or you don’t make it back. Orders crackle through my comm, clipped and final, but they barely register.
I’m already watching him through the scope.
His movements lag as he advances. Something’s off. His eyes scan the area too slow, unfocused, hesitant.
“Possible threat,” Dom says low from beside me.
I don’t need the confirmation. I already know.
We’ve been at this for years, him spotting me while I pull the trigger and add another kill to my count.
Adjusting the rifle on my shoulder, I let out a slow, steady breath as I lock the crosshairs on him and ready my finger. As if he can sense me, his empty gaze snaps to mine through the scope. The hairs raise on the back of my neck, and I squeeze the trigger.
One shot. Clean. Efficient. He drops.
The shot echoes across the sand, followed by silence. Heavy and suffocating. The kind that presses in until all I can hear is my own breathing and the ghost of a completed OP.
A moment passes before Dom’s footsteps move in the man's direction. Standing, I follow him, alert and weary of our surroundings. My sixth sense never betrays me—keeping us both whole.
When we reach the body, I nudge it with the toe of my boot. Satisfied he’s down, Dom checks him for hidden weapons and spare ammunition. Instead, he pulls out a worn photograph. A woman and child smile at the camera, happy and carefree.
Their eyes feel like weights on me, pinning me to the sand, anchoring me in place as bullets whiz past and rip at the fabric of my uniform.
Escaping their stare is futile. Behind me, boots sink into unstable terrain and pull my attention away from the dead soldier bleeding beneath me.
Trapped in this hellhole, the only way out is through the bodies that stand in my way and right now, they’re trying to keep me from going home—to no one.
With my rifle lifted, aimed at the shade beneath a tree, heat manipulates my sights, causing watery ripples to form across the hardened desert.
Sweat drips down my brow, sinking into my eyes where the salt burns and blurs my vision.
I refuse to blink them away; not when I know something’s watching me and every second matters.
Another soft thdwuff from behind swings me around, my enemy's always at my back.
A blast takes me by surprise, sending me flying backward—free falling through the air.
Lurching, my eyes snap open. Disoriented from the sudden awareness, my pulse pummels the inside of my ears and at the sides of my neck.
The pounding of my head competes with the open window and city noises beyond the threshold.
Car horns blow at each other in the dead of night.
First responder vehicles join the disorder with wailing sirens that fade as they round corners and dive behind buildings.
It’s the slight breeze and chill settling into the room that calms me enough to slow my speeding pulse.
One eye at a time, they blink to clear away a sleep induced glaze. From the curtain shrouded window, moonlight spills within with a silvery glow. I’ve been out for a while—a few hours or a few days—who knows.
The earlier weight of confrontation has lifted. The air’s lighter, allowing for my guard to stay down while my hands shift and feel for bedding under me versus the hard floor I knelt on before KO’d me.
Stretching my legs, I tilt my head to ease the pressure building in my neck, which cracks gently. I groan. A shadowy shift snaps my attention to the left where I come face to face with someone perched, watching. My hand snaps for my sidearm only to come up empty, as I don’t have the fucking thing.
“Jesus Christ!” The sheets draped over me rustle and constrict around my legs, protesting from my sudden attempt at escape as they tighten.
Just what I need, Kate—er, Sadie?—sitting inches away. Wouldn’t put it past her to have a fucking knife in her fist; ready to jam it into my gut and watch my blood spill on her fancy ass blankets.
There she sits, however. Motionless with her hands resting in her lap and her head tilted to the side with more curiosity than should be allowed.
I don’t know what scares me more: her watching me as I sleep and unsure of what I’m doing, or knowing I have to face her.
Being anywhere near this woman after getting my head smashed puts me on high alert.
At my sides, my hands clench to keep me from rolling off this bed and putting thousands of miles between us. Instead, I wait for her to say something instead of looking at me like she’s discovered aliens.
Draped over her shoulders, her hair captures the glowing moon light—the only way in hell she could ever appear ethereal now that I’ve dealt with the demon living inside of her.
Smooth legs remain folded under her so she doesn’t take up too much space which ticks me off. Sadie can take all the space she wants, and then some. Peeking from under her bent knees are perfectly polished toes that absentmindedly attempt to grip the sheet I’ve mummified myself inside.
Unnervingly, she doesn’t blink while still watching me.
“Wh… what’re you doing?” I ask with gravel rolling in my throat.
Her voice oozes sweetness. Dripping with venom-laced honey. Makes me think someone else is at the wheel.
Please lord, not right now. I need a damn break.
“Counting the seconds between your breaths. You exhale slower than you inhale, did you know that?”
Yeah, I can’t tell if this is Sadie.
It’s best if I don’t provoke her at the moment, so let me just…sit up and put space between us. After today, I need the additional reaction time.
My back presses to her headboard when I rise. Thankfully my clothes are still on. Kate must like her sacrifices with the husk intact—let me add that to my list of notes on how to deal with feral ghosts.
Sadie scoots a fraction closer and I tense.
Blue eyes follow me as if she’s waiting for me to do something equally drastic, to yank the rug from under her—or in this case, a blanket.
Something’s changed, I know it, she knows it.
I almost can’t look at her, my avoidance has hurt passing over her pretty face and my own self-loathing.
Sadie.
“How much do you remember?” I ask, turning to give her my attention. Quickly, I visually sweep the room and anticipate today as the day she finally kills me.
Nervous hands wring together when she looks down at them with shame.
“Enough,” she whispers.
Right, because ‘enough’ sums up everything swimming in her restless mind. Not us tussling and breaking things throughout her apartment. Not the fact she knocked me out cold or that threats were made. Just…enough.
I take a moment to reign in the annoyance—not at her, never at her—and push.
“I need you to be more specific. I don’t quite believe that ‘enough’ is adequate for what’s going on.”
Her previous curiosity drains instantaneously, shoulders sagging with a defeated sigh. She’s embarrassed, uncomfortable with what bits and pieces she recalls. Hell, so am I.
“I know she hurt you and I couldn’t stop her.”
The pain in her voice when it trails off has me ready to carve my heart out. I know she can’t help it. She can’t stop her riders from controlling her.
I know, I’m being a dick, but can you blame me? This woman, who’s half my size and age, put me on my ass with one swing. If she had hit me any harder, I’d be looking at God himself, trying to barter my way through the pearly gates, instead of the devastation on her face.
Sadie continues rather than giving me the floor and I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from assuring her that everything is alright—because it’s not.
“I could hear you, but she…she had me trapped. I was locked away without light and there…there were spiders and I…”
Goosebumps explode along her arms with every word—recounting memories that never happened. To her, they did, I get that. She was mentally cast into a dark hole when in reality she was here, destroying our life.
I’ve always believed her, don’t think I haven’t, but when you’re at the receiving end of her violence it makes everything painfully real. When she loses control, she becomes that wild thing I saved years ago. Only this time, she's aware and it’s terrifying.
“You what, Sadie? Have you taken your meds?”
“Yes.” She answers without missing a beat, almost rehearsed.
An automatic reply versus facing the fallout.
I don’t want her half-truths. She’s good at lying and hiding behind a mask, convincing everyone she’s in good health and in charge.
I know better. Warning bells sound every time, but I understand why she’s hiding now—she’s scared.
Lying isn’t good enough. I need everything or nothing.
Out of the bed in seconds, my hands pat the front of my pockets, searching for my stuff. I need the hell out of here. I want to stay, need to, just not right now. I need air and to put my cold-cocked head on straight before dealing with anything else.
I want to throttle her.
Wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze until she gives me demons to waterboard. Strap her to a table, set my tools out in a perfect line, then suffocate her to the point Kate no longer has a leg to stand on and she abandons my girl.
Not in a million years would I do it, but I’m capable, and every time they push me the less I reel myself in.
On her knees, crawling to the edge, panic wrecks her features and my collapsing heart. Off the side, she struggles to find her footing but doesn’t reach for me, forcing herself to find balance on her own.
“’Lias… please, please don’t go,” she panics.
“I have to. I’ve got…fuck. I need space. This shit…”
“Five years and now you need space?” My composure dissolves with her cracking voice.
I’m a bastard.