Girl On the Edge

by CD Reiss

  * * *

  I couldn’t walk to the hospital alone, especially after dark. Green Zone or not, security was locked down. I caught a ride with a guy armed to the teeth on his way to train the Iraqi Army in counterintelligence. We were stopped twice in the quarter mile and waved along once.

  As the hospital came into view, my heart raced. Soon, soon.

  Caden and I hadn’t been separated that long, and I’d thought I was handling it okay, but I wasn’t. Not until I stepped through the hospital doors and knew I could see him at any minute did I realize how nervous I was. Not until I was standing in the middle of the admitting room with no idea whom to ask what did I realize I was out of place. I approached the desk.

  “Can I help you?” A uniformed woman looked up from a clipboard. She had a touch of lip gloss and had given her lashes a quick brush of mascara. Her long, straight hair was wrapped tight in the back of her head. It was lighter than mine and matched her eyes. She had a colonel’s bird on her collar, and her name tape said DeLeon.

  “I’m looking for Dr. St. John.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She put down the clipboard and looked me up and down.

  No leaf cluster or name tape told her who I was. I could have been anyone or no one.

  “I’m his wife.”

  Her gaze flicked over me again, making a different assessment. I held up the Blackthorne ID around my neck.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you.” She held out her hand. I shook it. “He’s in surgery.” She called to a black man who was passing, “Stoney. Asshole’s wife.”

  Asshole?

  “He’s… wait…”

  Not an asshole.

  But Stoney was shaking my hand, as was a white guy with curly red hair and a short black woman in scrubs. They expressed surprise and shot questions about how long I was going to be around and why I’d come so far to see such an egotistical jerk. Good, solid army ribbing.

  “All right,” DeLeon said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go see what he’s up to.”

  She brought me down a wide, well-lit hallway with a clean tile floor.

  “This is much nicer than Balad,” I said, letting her know I wasn’t some civilian rube. I was jealous of her access to my husband and the place she had in his world.

  “It’ll do. Were you also there for Fallujah part two?”

  “We met right about then.”

  “And now you’re contracting?” The question was loaded, and the answer was worse.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “He’s a complicated guy.” The words left her lips with a touch of bitter syrup.

  Something was going on with her. Any doubt I’d had about coming to Baghdad was swept away. I needed to be here.

  DeLeon opened the door to a scrub room. “We got a medevac in about two hours ago.” She went to the other side of the room to a set of double doors with windows. “He should be finishing up.” She peered through. “Yep.”

  I looked through the other window. Caden’s head was bowed over the patient, and his fingers nimbly threaded the wound closed. DeLeon tapped the window. He looked up, saw her first, and smiled warmly.

  Too warmly.

  When he saw me, the smile dropped into a frown.

  Every drop of fluid in my body boiled.

  * * *

  DeLeon was gone, leaving me in the scrub room alone. When the surgery was done, the team came in, chattering about the operation. Caden entered last, snapping off a glove and yanking his mask down as if he wanted to say something. But nothing came from his beautiful, generous lips. He held them tight together as mine quivered, locking me in his gaze. The noise of the room was on the other side of a long tunnel.

  He was here. No screen. No camera. No microphone. He was a foot away, living, breathing, sucking all the energy in the room. The sun was tucked under the horizon, but in his eyes, it was always daytime.

  Wound tight as a man who’s been disobeyed for the last time, he peeled off his other glove without looking away from me. “Welcome to Baghdad, baby.”

  * * *

  His space was the size of a dorm room. Still in scrubs, without saying any more than “Follow me,” he’d led me across a narrow street to a heavy door, up a flight of stairs, and down a hall that echoed my footsteps.

  He had a twin bed made so tightly I could have bounced a quarter on it. A sink with a mirror. A cheap pressed-wood wardrobe. His trunk. A desk with a plastic chair. He closed the door to his room and locked it but didn’t turn to me. He just kept his hand on the lock.

  “Greysen.” The muscles of his back were defined against the fabric stretching across it.

  “Caden.” I held my hand out to put it between his shoulder blades and draw it down to his ass but pulled it back before touching him.

  “You’re here.”

  “I told you I was coming.”

  He put his forehead on the door. “I’m so disappointed I can barely think.”

  “I know.”

  “In myself.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Taking a deep breath, I put my hand on his back.

  He curved away, turning around quickly, as if I’d stung him. “That’s not what I meant. It’s all locked up. I don’t feel anything. I’m detached from myself. And when I see you, all I can think about is how you’re the cure for everything that’s wrong with me.” His hands flexed open and closed as if they were ready to grab something and hold it tight enough to crush it.

  “I am the cure,” I whispered, unbuttoning my shirt. “Take your medicine.”

  Watching me unbutton, he considered, then put his hand on my bare skin. “I want to lay everything at your feet.” He took me by the throat, digging his thumb and middle finger into each side of my jaw. “Leave it all on the table.”

  “Take it. Leave it.” I undid the last button, exposing my simple white bra. He tightened his grip just enough to see if I was scared. I wasn’t. I was a node of firing desire. A liquid conductor of sexual electricity. “I’m yours.”

  He murmured close to my face. I wanted a kiss so badly I was drunk with the need for it, but his lips didn’t touch mine.

  “Take off your clothes.” He put upward pressure, making his hand the one thing to unbalance me and the one thing to keep me upright. I undid my pants on my tiptoes as he murmured to my face, “You’re going to break without a sound. Not a word. Not a scream. If you want me to stop, you better say it quietly.”

  My pants fell around my ankles. I still had my boots on.

  He let me go and leaned back, taking me in, then walked behind me. I felt his sky-colored eyes along the length of my body, from the hair coming out of its ponytail to the pants pooled around my ankles. He unhooked my bra and slid it off, then yanked my underwear down around my thighs.

  “I can smell your cunt,” he whispered into the back of my neck. “It’s apples.” He laid his lips on the muscle between my neck and shoulder. “It’s delicious, just like your pain.” He bit me slowly. His teeth were all pleasure with an increasing tension. I gasped, swallowing a cry. With the same slow control, he reduced the pressure of the bite.

  “Caden,” I whispered.

  “Are you telling me to stop?” He wrapped his arm around me, grabbing a tit at the base and working up to the nipple.

  “No.”

  With his other hand, he pressed four fingers between my legs, opening me. He ran his lips to my other shoulder and made a matching bite with excruciating slowness. Tears dropped down my cheeks.

  “If you have something else to say,” he said when he released my flesh, “do it now. Quietly.” His hand stopped moving.

  “Have you been faithful to me?”

  I felt him shake his head, and taking that as a no, my tears increased.

  “Oh, baby.” He came around to face me. and his hand cupped my chin. “There’s no one who can love me like you do.”

  “So, you didn’t?”

  “Never.”

  I tilted my face to kiss the pal
m of his hand. He stayed in the caress for a moment, then kicked off his shoes and twisted out of his shirt. I stepped out of my boots and pants, fully naked.

  He cradled me in his arms, whispering, “I wish you hadn’t come. I’m so glad you came.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  CADEN

  When I’d hurt her and she cried, the buzz had sighed, draping itself over me like a bedspread thrown wide over a mattress. I held it on a leash but let it get its satisfaction.

  The raw potential of the Thing had rumbled behind a thin wall. Pure, uncontrolled rage. A hunger for destruction. Tearing her apart, destroying her, all those were figures of speech until I had to hold back what it wanted.

  The leash was strong enough, but for how long?

  * * *

  We both needed a shower, and mine was down the hall. I was off duty, and leaving the hospital compound was generally overlooked if it didn’t interfere with work and I showed up for emergencies.

  So, I took Greysen back to her place on the Blackthorne compound.

  “I’ve only been here once,” she said in the dark, “so give me a minute.” It wasn’t dark for long. Motion-sensor lights flicked on when we passed entry doors. “This is me. Number three.”

  The door was a hundred years old, but the keypad next to it was brand new. She waved her card past the laser. It beeped and clicked open.

  “Oh, hi!” A woman’s voice came from behind, and I spun around to get between Greysen and whatever danger my brain had decided was creeping up behind us. It was a woman in her late twenties with a blond bob and bangs. “Sorry about the mess.” She picked up the plastic cups, and I relaxed.

  “It’s fine,” Greysen said. “Dana, this is my husband, Caden. He’s over in the hospital.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  We shook hands. Her nails were manicured. That wouldn’t last long.

  “Ferhad came by. He put an envelope under your door.”

  “Thanks,” Greysen said. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Bye!” Dana said merrily and skipped off.

  “She could stand to cheer up a little,” I said.

  “Don’t give her any ideas.” My wife leaned into the door, pushing it open.

  As promised, a white envelope was on the floor.

  * * *

  Our first night in Baghdad, I stayed in her apartment. It was on the upper floor and came furnished with linens and sheets, like a hotel. The cracked stucco building behind an eight-foot cinderblock wall had four doorbells and a keypad. Behind the iron gate was a small yard with swinging lanterns strung between the house and the perimeter poles over a beat-up table, with half-used candles and two plastic cups, surrounded by mismatched but functional chairs.

  With the anger placated, I felt more in control. I didn’t have to lock everything away to keep it quiet. Before I’d given her pain, my emotions had been locked away. Afterward, I faced the fact that I was upset that she’d come, and I was also relieved to see her.

  With her, even insanity felt controllable. With her, I was strong enough, good enough, capable enough. She made a shitty world come up flowers and rainbows. She didn’t erase the cruelty and ignorance, but when she was in the room, I couldn’t deny that as ugly as shit got, beauty and perfection existed. The Universe with a capital U had something to aspire to.

  She sat between my legs in the bathtub, her back to my chest. Her trapezius muscles were beat to shit where I’d bitten them.

  “Dana’s licensed to administer meds but not prescribe.” Greysen told me about her job. “And she needs MD oversight. So, we’ve written up all the scripts in case of emergency.”

  I kissed her shoulder. “This might hurt when you lift your arm.”

  She leaned back against me. “It’ll remind me of you.”

  “So what’s the point of the shots?” I asked.

  “It’s for soldiers who’ve done the treatments you did.”

  “Really?”

  “It reproduces the effect of the breathing exercises. Opens the doors of the mind so memories that cause mental trauma can be detached from negative emotions. If it works, it’s years of treatment packed into a few days.”

  “And you believe this works?”

  She sighed and leaned her head back against my shoulder, stretching her beautiful body against me. She pointed her toes against the far wall. “I don’t know. I know how it affected you, and there’s a sense to it.”

  “You know how it affected me, do you?”

  She turned, kneeling between my legs. “You never told me the breathing was so hard on you.” Her lashes were blacker when wet, stuck together like pen marks around her chocolate eyes.

  I wiped a cluster of bubbles from her cheek. I shrugged. “I said I’d do the treatment. That means I do the treatment. If I complained, you’d either tell me to stop or feel guilty about it.”

  “You didn’t tell them about your father.”

  “They didn’t ask.”

  “They didn’t ask about childhood abuse?”

  She was working hard to be nonconfrontational, but some things were confrontations no matter how you phrased them.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want to know why you didn’t tell them.”

  “I wasn’t abused. My mother was.”

  She bit her lips back as if that would confine what she wanted to say. I knew what it was. Abuse of the mother is abuse of the child. But I didn’t agree and I wasn’t arguing about it.

  She put her hand on my chest. “I’m on your side.”

  “I know. But it’s my life. I’ll characterize it the way I want. And not to change the subject”—I held up my finger—“you should have stayed home.”

  “It’s my life.” She repeated my words, then bit her lower lip against a smile that demilitarized the entire subject.

  I put my hands on her hips and pulled her to me. “It’s our life.”

  I sealed my answer with a deep kiss.

  * * *

  The prayer chant woke me at dawn. Greysen was next to me, her hair spread over the pillow like a veil.

  “I never thought I’d hate prayer,” she said, eyes still closed.

  “I have to go anyway.” I kissed her cheek. “I’m on rotation.”

  She got up on one elbow. “I’m sore everywhere.”

  “Good.” I got out of bed and put on my pants. My dick had its own sore spot after entering her so many times the night before. That was good too.

  She sat with a groan and stretched as I got my shirt on. “You’re doing the walk of shame.”

  “I’ve never been less ashamed of anything.”

  I kissed her. When I tried to pull away, she held me back.

  “I love you, Caden.”

  “I know you do. No one would do such stupid shit unless they were in love.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  GREYSEN

  There were a few cups and plates in the cupboards but no coffee. Without a commissary, I’d have to get it at a local Green Zone vendor.

  The envelope was on the table by the front door. Flipping it over, I saw a sticker over the flap. CONFIDENTIAL. I tore it and slid out the stapled pages.

  CLEAN MINDS PROJECT

  List of subjects.

  The cover letter gave instructions for use of BiCam145. Each was marked with the name and serial number of the recipient. No substitutions. No transfers. No changes in dose. To be administered by the psychiatrist or physician’s assistant on staff after a traumatic event. Subject to be monitored closely afterward. Surveys given before and after. I knew all this already.

  Under the letter was a list of names. I flipped to S.

  Caden was there with an asterisk. So was Yarrow. The back-page footnote was clear.

  *placebo recommended.

  There was a quick, demanding knock at the door. Maybe Caden had forgotten something? I peeked out the window.

  A dark-haired, fully-armed man in US Army-issued camouflage. His back was to me,
but I’d have recognized that cocky posture anywhere.

  I whipped the door open and leapt into his arms. “Jake!”

  He held me up as if I was twelve all over again and he was my strapping big brother. “Punky!”

  He spun me around.

  “Oh my God,” I said when he dropped me back to the floor. “So long. It’s been—”

  “Since your wedding.” He smiled, drinking in the sight of me like a thirsty man. “I missed your crazy ass.”

  “Come in!”

  “I only have a minute unless I want to go AWOL.”

  “I have to get to work. Come, come.” I ushered him in and closed the door. “Sit. God, you look like such a man.”

  He had always been handsome, but he’d earned some toughness around the cheeks and a few lines around his eyes.

  “You look skinny.” He clearly didn’t approve.

  “Don’t get me started. Tea? There are mint leaves growing in the front. I picked a few.”

  “Sure. They set you up nice.”

  “Perk of the job.” I filled the teapot and plugged it in. “You should see the office.”

  “And you don’t get bossed around as much.”

  I stuffed leaves into two glass cups. “Oh, there’s plenty of bossing around. I heard you got your silver bar?”

  “Again.”

  Jake had been demoted back to butterbar twice. He followed orders but had a habit of doing it in whichever way he found personally appropriate.

  “Well, you’ll keep it this time.” I sat across from him while the teapot did its work. “How have you been? And get right to it.”

  “You never liked small talk.”

  “Not from you.”

  “Are you going to psychoanalyze me?”

  “Yep. And we have about fifty minutes. No charge.”

  He leaned back in the chair, legs spread, hands linked over his chest. “I shouldn’t have taken this deployment. It was stupid.”