Forged in Fire

by Jessica Scott

  “I couldn’t say, Sarn’t Major. I’ve been on the job less than a month.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, First Sergeant. I can have your ass heading north on Interstate 35 by the end of the week.”

  “Roger that, Sarn’t Major.”

  There was a flash of movement on the roof. Holly looked up along with the rest of the gathered crowd.

  “Tell me I’m not really seeing this,” she murmured.

  “Sorry. That ass is 100 percent real,” Sal said.

  The ass in question belonged to a soldier jumping up and down on the roof. Naked. Or at least very close to naked.

  “What’s he shouting about?” Sal asked.

  “Sounds like wolves. Something about the wolves are going to get him.” Holly glanced toward the fire escape ladder as the Corps sergeant major shouted at one of his sycophants to call the MPs. They weren’t going to have time to wait on the MPs or the fire department. “Call 911.”

  Sal grabbed her arm. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Getting up on that roof. People don’t generally run around stark ass naked in the middle of the day screaming about wolves. That kid is high and he’s as likely to jump off the damn roof as fall.”

  She escaped before Sal could stop her and headed toward the fire escape ladder. She pulled herself up easily, one of the few moments in her life when being able to do pull-ups was a massive help. It was just on the other side of the building where Holly could see it but it was shielded from the view of the Corps sergeant major and the rest of the crowd. She pulled herself over the top ledge and paused. The kid had his back to her, dangerously close to the edge, shouting down at the soldiers in the quad.

  He wasn’t naked, but his dingy white boxers looked like they hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in far too long. Dried blood ran down his back. There was broken glass on the roof and the kid didn’t have any damn shoes on.

  “Shit,” she muttered.

  “The wolves! They’re gonna eat me!”

  He danced close to the edge, his toes dipping too close to open air.

  And then he turned and Holly’s heart sank in her chest as she recognized Baggins. His eyes were wild, his skin gaunt and tight against his bones.

  Holly didn’t think. She crouched low and rushed from behind, changing her angle at the last second to knock him off balance, away from the ledge and back toward the safety of the roof.

  He screamed like a wild man but she maneuvered quickly and put him in a choke hold—a combatives move designed to quickly immobilize your opponent.

  She wasn’t trying to knock his ass out, she just needed him away from the ledge.

  “Let me go! Let me go! They’re coming!”

  “Listen to me,” she said roughly. She hooked her ankles around his thighs from behind and kept him from getting leverage with his legs. She had him under complete control. “There’s no wolves. I’ve got you. Listen to me!” Over and over she repeated herself as he struggled to break free. She held him, repeating her words until finally, after what seemed like forever, he went still. Not slack. He could start to fight again at any moment.

  She didn’t let go. She knew damn good and well how to control a situation like this one. The minute she let him go, she risked him flying over the edge, either accidentally or on purpose.

  “There’s no wolves. I’ve got you,” she said. She didn’t loosen her hold until the fire department climbed up onto the roof and strapped him to a gurney. “I’ve got you.”

  And wished like hell that she could find some way to break the news to Sal that wasn’t going to tear his heart out as they carried Baggins down.

  20

  Sal stood near the ambulance, turning the lighter over in his fingers and trying to remember what it was that he was doing here. He stared at the light reflecting on the faded and worn letters, not really seeing any of it.

  It had been Baggins on the roof. Closer to the edge of insanity than Sal ever wanted to be. He could have fallen. He was going to need massive amounts of antibiotics and several dozen stitches. But they couldn’t do any of that until he sobered up.

  And Baggins had been very, very high.

  Sal couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so…torn. The paramedics had brought the gurney off the roof very carefully.

  On the one hand, he was furious with Baggins. On the other, so damned relieved that Holly had taken decisive action even if he’d wanted to throttle her for putting herself in danger like that. Again.

  Baggins was strapped in. He was no longer screaming about the wolves. For that, he had Holly to thank.

  He’d seen a lot of wild shit over the years. War asked ordinary men to do extraordinary things.

  When he’d seen her shimmying up the ladder like a spider monkey, his first instinct had been to yank her ass back down.

  He didn’t know what Baggins had been smoking but whatever it was, it had done a number on him. It had taken him down a path that Sal never wanted to go. And never wanted to see any of his boys go again.

  The paramedics and the fire department cleared out, taking Baggins to the hospital. He’d be waiting for an update on his soldier for a while, he imagined. The Corps sarn’t major wanted to see the entire chain of command that evening. It wasn’t on his top ten list of things to do but then again, one didn’t exactly ignore an order from the highest-ranking enlisted man on the installation.

  He sent a quick text to LT Masters, telling him to start the serious incident report. Sal would review it when he got back.

  He tucked his phone away and started toward the barracks.

  Holly stepped in front of him. “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked.

  Steady. Unflinching. “Baggins’ room needs to be searched.”

  “I say again, where are you going, sir? You can’t execute that search. Call the lawyer, make sure you’ve got probable cause and have one of your officers do it. Preferably one of the smart ones.”

  He slipped his hand into his pocket, finding the lighter cool. Steady. “Thanks to you, we just pulled a very high soldier off the roof. I think I’ve got probable cause.”

  She shook her head, immovable. There was nothing personal between them right then. It was one hundred percent work. “I got it, sir, but you need to do this right. Call the lawyer, make sure. Whatever he smoked is probably still in there and you’re going to need the evidence. Hell, at this point, I’d say you need to call CID and have them do the room. Whatever he was smoking, it wasn’t pot.”

  He took a step back, sucking in a deep breath, trying and failing to relieve the tension around his heart.

  “You’ll thank me later, sir.”

  The battalion lawyer recommended he call CID. He made the call, a part of his soul shrinking. Baggins was a good kid. A damn good kid. And this. This felt like a betrayal of the worst kind.

  First Sergeant Delgado arrived a few minutes later.

  “You missed the excitement,” Sal said.

  “I heard. What happened?”

  “Baggins got smoked up and decided to see if he could fly.” He wanted to know where his first sergeant had been. Why he hadn't been the one crawling up on the roof instead of Holly. But he said nothing. Things were still raw between them over his call to have Pizarro charged with assault the other day. “I need the room secured until CID arrives,” Sal said. “No one goes in or out.”

  “Roger, sir.” A clipped, cold answer.

  He had neither the time nor the energy to deal with Delgado’s butt hurt at the moment. They’d get things sorted out soon enough.

  Right then, though, Sal needed to get away. To clear his mind and put aside the churning emotions and focus on what he needed to be doing.

  Except that he couldn’t.

  Because Holly fell into step next to him. He couldn’t be around her right then. One smart-ass comment and he was liable to completely lose his shit.

  “I’m not in the mood for any smart-ass comments right now.” He gro
und his teeth, his fingers gripping the lighter in his palm until the rounded edges started biting into his skin.

  “Good, because I wasn’t going to make any.”

  Sal snapped. “I can’t right now. Not with the jokes, Holly. You just tackled a goddamned soldier—on a roof, by the way—and you’re down here cracking jokes? You could have died. He could have died.”

  She kept her voice low. “But he didn’t. And I didn’t. And you need to get your shit together, sir, because you have soldiers watching you and you losing your cool right now isn’t helping anyone.”

  “I don’t need to be lectured by you, or anyone else for that matter.”

  She flinched like he’d physically slapped her. “Yeah, I think you probably do, sir. You’re wound up tighter than a lump of coal shoved up a gnat’s ass. You’ve got to get your shit together before you see the post commander this evening.”

  He frowned. “I don’t have to see the post commander.”

  Holly held out her Blackberry and showed him an e-mail. “Yes, you do. Because the post sarn’t major was at this fun little event and now his boss wants to hear from you what the hell happened.”

  “Hell. I don’t know what happened. Isn’t that what the cops are supposed to figure out?”

  Holly took a single step closer, close enough that she could grip his shoulder in solidarity, nothing more. “It is. But whatever you need to do to calm down, for the next three hours, sir, you do it. Yoga. Puppy therapy. Whatever it takes but you cannot go in front of the commander wound up like this. You’re radiating agitation.”

  He yanked out from under her grip. “You think? I just had one of my troopers damn near jump off a building and I’m a little agitated?”

  “And being a little bit of a dick, too.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. He almost lashed out again but realized it wouldn’t be worth it. She remained unfazed by his temper, by his bullshit.

  He did the only smart thing he could. He left, getting the hell away from her before he did something really stupid.

  Like let her witness how much seeing Baggins on that gurney fucking hurt.

  * * *

  It was only when she was alone, behind closed doors in her office that Holly let her guard down.

  She sank into her chair and rested her head against the back of the chair. Closed her eyes and let everything come tumbling out. The adrenaline. The fear. The anxiety. All of it twisted and writhed inside her, tearing at her guts as she sat alone in the dark and just breathed.

  Better that she deal with it now than to let it fester.

  Things always got worse the longer she ignored them. She’d learned that lesson the hard way.

  There was a quiet knock on the door. She rubbed her hand over her face and sucked in a deep, hard breath. Held it. Then, when her lungs began to burn, released it.

  “Yeah?”

  Captain Reheres stuck her head in the door. “Did you really tackle a soldier on a roof today?”

  “Sounds vaguely familiar.” There they went, the last of her emotions. Tucking them away into the box.

  “Seriously? Are you Spiderwoman now?”

  Holly shrugged. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”

  Reheres shot her a wry look. “You realize you were the only one who actually acted in that situation, right? I mean everyone else stood around and looked on.”

  “I’ve been in situations like that a time or two before.” Just once, actually. But she wasn’t ready to rip the bandage off that wound any time soon. At least not if she could help it.

  “Well, I’m glad you were there. And I’m really glad you weren’t hurt.”

  “Could have been worse. Captain Bello was a little sandpapery afterward.”

  Reheres sank into the chair across from her desk. “He’s sandpapery all the time. It’s just a question of whether he’s fine or coarse grit, depending on the day of the week and whether he’s got PMS.”

  Holly grinned and it felt good to relieve a little bit of the tension winding around her heart. “He definitely tends toward cranky. The man doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

  “It was surgically extracted from him in a combat hospital in Iraq,” Reheres said. “Or so I’ve been told.”

  “Good to know,” Holly said. After a moment, a quiet admission slipped out. “It was one of his soldiers on the roof. He’s rightfully upset.”

  “He’s dealing with a lot right now.” Reheres sighed. “Freeman asked for permission to go see Balboa in the hospital when she got back from her eval.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I said she could. We might be frustrated with her but if seeing her will help that soldier out, then it’s the least we can do.”

  “What if she’s the reason he was on the roof in the first place?” Holly asked.

  “Then we have bigger problems on our hands than a little bit of drugs.”

  “Apparently.” Holly sighed and glanced at her watch. “Ah hell, I’ve got to get to the headquarters to see the Corps sergeant major. I think this is some kind of land speed record for being called to his office. If I still have a job tomorrow, we’ve got to figure this out.”

  “He can’t fire you, Top. He doesn’t have that authority.”

  Holly laughed bitterly. “Clearly you have no idea just how much authority the post sergeant major actually does have.”

  * * *

  Sal was at the hospital. It was pretty much the last place he wanted to be but seeing how Baggins was now stabilized, it was time for his required meeting with the psych docs.

  “Pretty much never figured that being a shrink would be added to my duty description as a commander,” he said to Delgado.

  Delgado handed him a sheet of paper. “I’ve got his counseling statement ready.”

  Sal skimmed the contents and handed it back to him. “This is a generic negative counseling statement. You don’t have anything on here that happened today.”

  “I got it off NCOER dot com. They said it was all you needed for a chapter packet.”

  Sal slid his hands into his pockets and found the familiar warmth of the lighter, understanding now why Sarn’t Major Cox had put Holly in charge of running through their legal packets. He ran his thumb over the well-worn letters and not for the first time, questioned what he was doing and what he was trying to prove. Hell, he wished Holly was there. She was sharp as hell and radiated competence. Delgado…things hadn’t gotten back on track like Sal had hoped they would.

  “I can’t use this. Talk to the XO and get real documentation with specific information in it. This isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

  Delgado’s face reddened. “Just trying to get ahead of things, sir.”

  “I got it. But this doesn’t help. I can’t do anything with this.” There was no other way to explain it. Delgado simply didn’t understand what Sal was saying. And it hurt his heart to look at an NCO and see anything other than competence. That wasn’t how he’d been raised. “Look, go talk to the other first sergeants and see if they have counseling statement examples you can use for today’s shenanigans.”

  “Roger, sir.”

  Delgado left and Sal wondered if they were ever going to get back on solid footing. He’d just have to push his officers and the other NCOs harder to fill in the gaps. They’d get their deployment surge of troops soon enough.

  In the meantime, Sal was going to have to cover down on the first sergeant stuff more than he already was and it burned that Delgado was checking out because Sal had had to remind him who the commander actually was. He was not going to let his organization fail. He’d worked too hard to get things running to let them fall by the wayside now because his first sergeant was irritated with him.

  The doc waved Sal into the back. He followed the diminutive captain into a small office. She stuck her hand out. “Captain Emily Lindberg.”

  She had a strong handshake even if her hands were soft and smooth.

  “Sal Bello.”

&nbs
p; “Aren’t you in Deathdealer battalion?”

  “I am. How do you know that?”

  “I’m friends with your battalion’s lawyer and a few other folks.”

  “Major Hale is a good egg,” he said.

  “She is.”

  The lighter was a solid weight in his palm. “So what’s the deal with Baggins?”

  Emily frowned. “Who?”

  “Sorry. Balboa. My trooper in the ER.”

  “Ah. Someday you’ll have to explain that nickname to me,” she said. “Basically? The symptoms he’s displaying are consistent with bath salts.”

  “Bath salts?”

  “Otherwise known as Really Bad Stuff. It can’t be detected on standard urinalysis tests and we have no way of knowing what he actually ingested.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “We keep him here until he comes down from the high and then we admit him to the fifth floor and get him stable. We need an NCO guard on him in the meantime. Once we admit him, we’ll need all the normal things.” She handed him a printout.

  “It’s really sad that you have a handout for this.”

  She tucked her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. “Sad but true. We can’t keep up with the demand for beds. I’ve only been here a few months but it’s staggering the number of soldiers we see on a daily basis. I don’t know if it’s the war or something else but this is like nothing I ever saw in my civilian life.”

  He studied the sheet of paper in his hand, his mind circling the hard reality the words there represented. “What’s the outlook for Balboa?”

  “It’s hard to say. If he has a preexisting mental illness, the bath salts could make things worse. I’ve seen soldiers permanently disabled from this stuff and we’re at the beginning of what the FBI thinks is the start of a new wave drug.”

  Sal breathed in hard through his nose. “When will we know?”

  “A few days, depending on how long it takes him to detox. I’ll check his medical records and see what we can figure out. Once he’s admitted, we’ll call a meeting with the entire team and figure out what comes next. We’ll need you and your first sergeant there.”