Chapter 1
RIGGS
Now
It’s been three days.
I think.
Three days in the dark, breathing in dust and the smell of blood.
Listening to the muffled sobs and quiet prayers of my brothers.
It’s Gallagher. He’s the one who’s crying, I’m sure of it.
He’s green. First tour. Joined the Reserves, straight out of high school, to help pay for college.
He has no business being here. He’s just a kid.
Has a girl back home, waiting for him. They got married two days before we shipped.
He showed me their wedding picture on his phone, standing in front of some small town courthouse in West Virginia.
He’s wearing his dress blues. She’s wearing a white sundress, a cash and carry bouquet of pink carnations clutched in her hand.
His arm wrapped around her waist like he means to hold onto her forever.
Both of them beaming into the camera like forever is just the beginning.
I hated him a little when he showed it to me. Hated how happy he looked. I feel guilty about that now.
The building came down before I could get him out. I guess that makes it my fault that he’s lying under fifteen thousand pounds of metal and concrete, crying for his mother.
You’re mama’s not here, Gallagher and Marines don’t cry—so you’re either gonna shut the fuck up or I’m going to come over there and give you something to cry about.
Freeman, taking a break from banging a scrap of metal pipe on the section of duct work she’s pinned under. When she says it, her voice thick with pain and the terror we’re all feeling, we laugh because she’s full of shit and we all know it.
She’s not going anywhere.
None of us are.
But Gallagher stopped crying.
He stopped praying too.
They all did.
No more crying. No more banging. No more praying.
Now all I can hear are the far off barks of the rescue dogs and the muted cadence of tense conversation—the Army Corp of Engineers, working out the best way to get us all out of here without bringing the rest of the building down on top of us.
And her.
I can still hear her.
I can see her too—at the least the shape of her—lying next to me in the dark. Feel the warm weight of her pressed against me. Soft breath feathered on my cheek. Cool fingertips brushing against my forehead.
That’s how I know it’s too late. That I’m never getting out of here. That I’m dying.
Because this is heaven.
I’m already here.
“Are you real?” I ask, my voice rough. Throat raw and throbbing.
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
As real as you are, I guess.
“I’m sorry…” I want to reach out to her.
Touch her like she’s touching me but I can’t.
Like Freeman, I’m pinned. Flat on my stomach, arm trapped at my side under something heavy, pressed against my spine.
It’s broken. Something’s not right. I know it because I can’t feel anything but the wrongness of it.
There’s no pain. No pressure. Like my lower half was quicker than the rest of me.
Like it got up and got the fuck out before things got bad.
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
For what?
“You know what,” I whisper, too ashamed to say it any louder than that.
I really don’t, Riggs. You’ve got a lot to be sorry for, so I’m afraid you’re gonna have to be specific.
I laugh when she says it, the dry scrape of it digging and gouging into my throat, because even though she’s right, even though hearing her say it hurts, her sass is one of the million things I’ve missed about her. One of the million things I fell in love with.
“I’m sorry I left you,” I answer her honestly, still whispering. “I shouldn’t have. I regret it.”
You regret it now?
“No…” I wish she would touch me again, just so I can feel something. “I regretted it the second I did it.”
Good.
I laugh again.
The conversations above me get louder. The barking more frantic. Chunks of concrete and broken rubble start to shift overhead.
“The second I kissed you, I wanted to do it again,” I confess quietly.
You did. You did kiss me again.
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
I sigh quietly with relief. I want to tell them to stop.
Stop digging.
Stop trying.
To leave me here.
To leave us alone.
“Not enough. I didn’t kiss you enough.” Ignoring it all, I focus on the dark. On her. “You were right that day. The day I walked you home.”
You walked me home on lots of days, and I was right more often than not.
I laugh again because I did walk her home on lots of days. Even when she didn’t know I was there. “That last day. The day down by the river, when you told me to leave you alone. Threatened to tell Beck what I did if I didn’t…”
Oh… that day.
“Yeah…” Staring at the shape of her, lying next to me, I feel the weight of it. How much I love her. How much I’ve missed her. How much I wish I’d done it all differently. Done it better. Been better. “You were right. I was afraid.”
Afraid of me?
“Yes.”
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
Because loving me felt wrong.
“No,” I confess quietly. “Because it was supposed to and it didn’t.”
Why now, Riggs? Why are you letting me in now?
“I don’t know,” I mumble it, heart pounding out of my chest because saying it makes me what I’ve always been when it comes to her.
A coward.
A liar.
“Are you happy?” I hope the answer is no. As shitty and wrong as it makes me, I hope she’s miserable. I hope she’s felt every minute of every year like I have.
Cool fingers.
Warm breath.
I’m—
“We hear you, Marine,” someone shouts above me. “Keep talking. We’re coming.”
Light suddenly stabs into my eyes, washing my vision in a blinding field of bright white.
Robbing me of the dark.
Stealing her away.
Nononononono…
“Don’t leave. Fuck—please, just—” Closing my eyes, I try to get her back. Try to feel her. Try to keep her with me. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Eyes screwed shut, I feel my chest constrict. My throat starts to throb, something deep and twisted ripping itself out of me on a roar when I feel a strong, steady hand grip my shoulder.
Don’t leave.
Don’t fucking leave me. Please…
I was wrong.
This isn’t heaven. It’s hell.
Because when I open my eyes, she’s gone.