by BT Urruela
“You have no idea…” Her voice trails and she sighs loudly into the phone. “So what’s she like?” she asks.
“She’s really cool, actually. A total badass. Foul mouthed like Brandi.” I laugh and she does too, and it’s almost as if we are actually together. I close my eyes to hold on to that feeling as long as I can.
“A guy from her unit, an old friend I guess, is here with her. Good dude. Quiet. He’s definitely got an I’ve-killed-people-for-a-living look.” She laughs loudly into the phone as I hear her rustling under her covers. “I think we ran into the trouble Chase was talking about last night too.”
“Really?” she asks.
“Yeah, some hard-looking dudes. Pretty much clones of what I saw in prison. I’m going to try and get as much on the situation as I can while the whole impersonation thing lasts.” My thoughts trail to Chase and how he may feel about what I’m doing. I’m quite certain he wouldn’t be happy about it. “Hey, babe,” I say. “Would you mind keeping this quiet with Brandi and Irish for now? I want to tell him myself.”
“Yeah, of course, love. I won’t say anything.”
“Hey, you know I don’t want to ask, but I feel like I have to. I just worry, baby,” I say, quietly, noticing movement inside through the large front window.
“Dad’s okay,” she says, obviously knowing full well where I was going with it. “We’re just taking it one day at a time.” Her voice is low, apprehensive.
“Well, you know I’m here for you if you need it,” I say, waving to Gabi as she walks by the window. “Baby, they’re up and moving now. I think we’re going to go out to breakfast in a bit. I’ll give you a call here a little later though, okay?”
“Okay, babe. Sounds perfect.”
I pause, swallowing stiffly as the weight of what she’s going through hits me. “If you need anything, baby… anything at all. You call me and I’m there in a heartbeat.”
“I know, Xander,” she says, sweetly. “I’m okay. I promise. I love you so, so much.”
“I love you too, Paige. I’ll talk to you soon.” I press end on the iPhone, holding it in my hands for a moment and just closing my eyes, painfully wishing I could be in two places at once.
The opening of the front door pulls my attention and I see Gabi lean out, decked out in last night’s band tee with her mess of blonde hair held up by a hair tie on the top of her head.
“Hey, killer, you ready for some fucking bloodys? I’m dying here.” She laughs, pretending to choke herself out.
“Yeah, let’s do it. I’m starving.”
“You never said last night, how long do you plan on staying in the area?” Gabi asks, chasing a forkful of eggs with a long drink of her Bloody Mary. My mind runs through the scenario, but I honestly hadn’t even thought about how long I’d stay here. As long as it took to make sure she was okay. So, who the fuck knows how long that’ll be.
“I’ll be up here a month or so.” My mind formulates the lies, on the spot and quickly, as it so often does. “I make this trip once a year. My Wyoming stuff sells the best, so I end up grabbing a lot of shit from up here and shipping it back down.”
“Carpentry you said, right? What, like cabinets and shit?” Shane asks, handling a mug of coffee.
“Not really cabinets. More craft type shit. Wine stoppers, book holders, pens, cutting boards… pretty much anything like that you can think of. Pays well and I love the work.” I can almost feel Irish speaking through me.
“Well…” Gabi looks at Shane, pinching his arm and leaning into him. “Shane and I were talking last night, and if you’re going to be here that long, there’s no reason you should have to pay for a hotel room. Once Shane here…” she nudges him with her elbow, “…clears the band shit out of the way in the guest room, you can just crash on the futon in there.”
“Wait, are you sure? I don’t want to impose,” I say, genuinely shocked.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.” She winks. “Honestly, Rock is a real good friend of ours. He’s like family. So a friend of his is a friend of ours. And according to Shane, he’s talked quite a lot about you.”
“A whole lot,” Shane adds with a laugh, raising his cup of coffee in a half cheers.
“Well, that’s definitely appreciated. It does get crazy expensive,” I say, gathering my change and sliding the server’s book to the edge of the table, still trying to believe my own damn luck.
As the world crumbles around me for everyone I love, somehow the luck falls on me, and I couldn’t feel worse about it.
“Wait… when the fuck did you get the check?” Gabi asks, looking from the server’s book, to the incoming waitress and then back to me.
“I’m sneaky as fuck.” I laugh, wiping my mouth with a napkin and tossing it to the table.
“Well… thanks,” Gabi says, Shane nodding in agreement.
“No problem at all. So… tell me more about this band shit,” I say and Shane’s eyes light up.
“You play?” Shane asks.
“Yeah, guitar. And I sing a little bit. You?”
Gabi rolls her eyes and chuckles. “Here we go.”
“I play a little guitar and drums, but bass is my shit. I’ve been playing since I was a kid. I’ve got all three in the room though.” His eyes drift to Gabi and he smiles. The way they look at each other is something else. It takes my mind to Truman Valley, and to the love that is waiting for me there.
“Which Gabriela just fucking loves,” Shane says, nudging two knuckles into her side and garnering a squeal. She rears a knee up and then stomps down on his foot. He leans back in obvious pain, biting his lip to keep from making a sound.
“Fuck, woman. That shit hurt,” he says through an exhale, attempting to reach down and massage the pain out of his foot. Gabi turns to me with a mischievous smile.
“Yeah, instruments, cords, picks, songbooks… fucking everywhere,” she says, with a quick eye roll. “He’s been storing his shit at my house for a year now. It’s been delightful. ‘Just a month’ he says. ‘I swear I’m moving to Wyoming’ he says.” Gabi shoots Shane a playful smirk and then huffs dramatically.
Shane shakes off the pain and passes her an exaggerated look of detest. “I’m gonna get you. You know that, right?”
“Uh huh,” Gabi responds.
“As long as you know that,” Shane says before turning his attention to me. “Anyway, we should definitely jam sometime. Gabriela’s neighbors fucking love it,” Shane jokes, sliding out of the booth before Gabi can get another good stomp in. He puts his hat on and waits with a smile, his arms crossed and a safe distance away, as Gabi and I slide out after him.
“Yeah, it’s a fucking dream to deal with them the next day. Let me fucking tell you.” She laughs, swinging a fist down just to the point of hitting Shane in the nuts before stopping. He jerks, flailing his arms in defense as she gingerly walks to the door, a maniacal little giggle trailing behind her.
Counting sheep. It’s what I do most nights out here in the desert. After two previous deployments, each one more unbearable than the last, sleep has become a hot commodity. One I don’t run into very often. We got in from mission not two hours ago, so the events of the day still play fresh in my head. Tomorrow, it’s back to work. Tonight, it consumes me.
A child, barely four, is caught in the line of fire, his innocent eyes look at me, confused. His mother screams for him to come back, selflessly running after him into the carnage.
I could do nothing but watch from behind the wall as his head split in two from a stray round. His innocent eyes no more. As his tiny body crumpled to the ground, his mother fell onto him, cradling what was left of his head, sobbing in deep, breathless cries that overpowered even the gunfire. She too caught a round, and then another and another. And then she curled into a ball around him… and they became one.
These are the thoughts that race through my mind as wind whips sand against the thin trailer walls. There’s no one here but me. No one here to talk to, bec
ause unlike every other Special Forces soldier in my unit, and every other SF unit for that matter, I am a woman. And I never had a fucking clue just what that would entail. As tears run freely down my cheeks onto my pillowcase, I wish for only my mother to talk to, to hold me, to tell me everything is going to be okay. I love my guys, they mean the world to me, but sometimes a girl just needs her mother. Regardless of where I am, I won’t ever again see mine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember the rock that she was, or the insight she instilled.
Sometimes at night, when I close my eyes just tight enough, and wish for just long enough, I can almost hear her voice telling me I’ll be okay. I can almost feel her tender arms wrapped around me, rocking me to sleep.
And then I open my eyes and reality hits, I am a soldier, fighting for a cause I don’t believe in, with brothers I would die for. I’m okay with most of that, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t fuck with me.
My random fleeting thoughts are interrupted by a light rap at the door.
“Michaels, we got a mission,” a muffled voice says through the door. The voice is familiar, but it’s too indistinct to be sure who it belongs to. I climb out of bed and slip my pants on. I creep through the dark trailer to the door, flipping the lights on before opening it. My vision is hazy, but the last thing I make out are masked faces and I hear the whir of a stun gun. And then I’m out.
I wake up several times to the same things—sweat, grunting, laughing, and a familiar smell. Not just familiar. Distinct. It’s Old Spice aftershave. It’s Captain Anderson’s Old Spice aftershave. I can’t be sure that it’s him because every time my eyes open and I fight through the haze enough to see, I get shocked again. And then the darkness envelops me.
I open them again and it’s someone else now—thrusting and moaning and taking. Violating. The pain runs through me like blood through veins. And again, I’m shocked by the stun gun, left to the darkness.
My eyes shoot open, my head pounding, and a persistent ache roots itself in my gut. I lift my head from the sweat-soaked pillow and run an arm across my forehead. My heart pounds like a drum in my chest and for a moment, I must tell myself it’s not real; that I’m not back in Afghanistan, that I’m not again losing the last piece of myself left that’s good.
I rub a palm into each eye letting out a loud groan. There’s only one thing that’ll ease the hate and pain I feel after nightmares like that and it’s hidden in my nightstand drawer. I open it and dig inside, eventually pulling out a locked cash pouch. Standing from my bed, I slink to the bathroom with it.
Standing hunched over the bathroom sink, I unlock the pouch and pocket the key before pulling out its contents; a little baggy of cocaine and a queen of hearts to cut it with. I dab a mound of coke out onto the counter, and using the card, I cut the clumps up into three fine lines, licking my lips in anticipation. Snagging a dollar from my pocket, I roll it and ready it against my nostril, the right one this time as the left has taken a pounding lately.
Just as I’m about to kill the first line in one fell swoop, the bathroom door comes ripping open. I turn and freeze with the bill to my nose, unable to react as I spot Chase wide-eyed with the door hanging half open.
“What the fuck, Chase?!” I yell, impulsively, a snarl on my face.
“Oh, my God,” he gasps. “I’m so fucking sorry. I thought I heard you guys leave. Fuck, I’m sorry,” he pleads, yet he still stands there with the damn door open as if I’m not about to snort fucking coke off a countertop. I straighten, pocketing the bill, and turning to block the lines with my body as he pulls the door closed.
Retrieving the rolled dollar from my pocket again, I take down each line like a fucking hoover. Once they’ve disappeared, I lick my finger and collect the remaining powder with it before rubbing it into my gums. As I do, my gaze fixates on my reflection in the mirror, tracing the thin lines of my face, the weary, distant look in my eyes, the weathered bags beneath them. I am who I am. As to who that actually is, I’m not so sure anymore. I shake it off, wiping my nose of any evidence. I exit the bathroom just in time to catch Chase hightailing it toward the front door. As I approach him, he fumbles with his keys.
“If you need to use the bathroom, it’s available,” I say with a smirk.
“I really am sorry. I had no idea you were still here,” he says, his eyes on the floor. “A week here and I’m already fucking shit up.”
“Hey, listen, it’s all good. Shit happens… but whatever you saw in there…” My voice trails as I wait for him to look up. He does with his hand hanging on the door handle. “Keep it between us. Shane doesn’t need to know.”
His forehead wrinkles in confusion. “No problem at all. I didn’t see shit. But I have to ask, what’s the big deal? He doesn’t really seem like the judgmental type. I used to dabble in the stuff myself. It’s no big thing.” He shrugs.
“Let’s just say I like the powder a little too much sometimes.” I laugh, though there’s nothing funny about it. It’s just not something I want to be discussing with him. And it’s definitely not something I want to talk to Shane about. He wouldn’t let me live it down until I stopped again. If I even get the chance to stop.
He nods. “Hey, I get it. I’ve had the same relationship with alcohol,” he says, smiling.
Before I can respond, the sound of loud banging against the door rips through the small house. Chase pulls his hand back from the handle, looking at me with a puzzled expression. He may not know the devil that stands on the other side of this door, but I do, and it scares the ever-loving piss out of me. Another round of knocking stirs me into action.
“Do you have a gun?” I whisper and he nods. “Grab it and stow it.” He nods again and makes his way into the guest room as the banging continues, and I make out Javi yelling from the other side.
“I know you’re in there, bitch. Open the fucking door. It’s payday,” he says. I can barely make out the words as I grab one of my many guns from a kitchen drawer; a small chrome snub nose I stuff into my bra.
“Open the fucking door,” he growls. I have no trouble making that one out. He bangs the door so hard it seems as if it may bust from the hinges at any moment.
Chase comes out from the guest room, stuffing his own pistol into his waistband. He positions himself in the kitchen, behind the counter, and with a clear view of the front door.
“Gabi, please don’t make me wait,” I hear Javi say, calmer this time. “You really don’t want to push your luck more than you already have.”
I press myself against the door, a shaking hand against the deadbolt as I look nervously toward Chase. He nods his head confidently at me, though his eyes tell a different story. I’ve been in combat, and that’s one thing, but to be out here as a civilian, fighting the same kind of ruthless motherfuckers without a hundred other soldiers watching your back… it’s a different story entirely. I can feel my life clock tick-tick-ticking down.
I turn the deadbolt and then the bottom lock and open the door, slowly. Reluctantly. Javi stands, bobbing his foot impatiently with the same two hard, ugly-looking motherfuckers he always has with him mean-mugging me from behind him. They’re probably six five, maybe six six, but right now they look about eight feet tall. I know anytime I see these guys it may be the last thing I ever see. I may take one of them with me. But I’ll be going too. I’m sure of it.
Javi makes his way in, pushing past me and noticing Chase immediately. His two cronies follow close behind him and take up positions, one in the living room and the other in the front room, with Chase capturing their full attention. The one near the hallway goes to clear the bedrooms as Javi paces the front room, one lap around with a quick glance toward Chase before he settles just in front of me.
“Take the fucking gun out of your bra and give it to me.” He nods toward Chase. “Him too.”
“What gun?” I ask, though I can’t even rationalize why. Javi’s not stupid. And he’s been doing this a long time. He patiently smiles and looks over his shoulder at h
is minion coming back from the bedrooms. The hulking man nods and Javi nods in return.
“Gabi, Gabi, Gabi. Don’t play games with me. You’ve worked with me for how long? Almost two years now? You know who I am. You know how I operate. Just as well as I know how you do. Now take the fucking gun out of your bra and if this puta motherfucker—” he points to Chase “—doesn’t get out from behind that counter and hand over his gun, too, I’m going to shoot you both dead right where you stand. I promise you that.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and I cringe. I fight the urge to put a palm into his fucking teeth and smile back instead.
“What can I do for you, Javi?”
“I told you, sweetheart. It’s payday,” he hisses, laughing and, thankfully, removing his hand from my shoulder and setting it to his hip. He glances over at Chase, the saccharine friendliness draining from his face and a look of resolution replacing it. Chase breathes out heavily as he slowly shuffles from behind the counter, one hand up and the other retrieving the piece from behind his back. He hands it to the goon by the hallway and stops on the other side of Javi, slipping his hands into his pockets.
Javi motions to Chase’s pockets and looks him dead in the eye. “Get your fucking hands out now.” Chase does and settles them onto his hips. Javi looks back at me, putting his hand up and rubbing his thumb against his ring and forefinger. “It’s payday, Gabi. I want my fucking money.”
“Javi, I told you, I don’t have it all. I—”
“Give me what you got,” he says, cutting me off. I nod, reluctantly slinking to my room with one of his guys following close behind, a 9 mm gripped tightly in his hand. I open a drawer and dig in, pulling out all my available cash, a wad of twenties, tens and fives I’ve hustled up along the way, because I know full well, he will see right through me if I don’t grab it all. I’m just taking the quickest available route from A to B.
I walk past the beast of a man, with his fidgety finger against the trigger, and out of the room toward Javi. I hand the stack of wrinkled cash out for him and he takes it. He riffles through the bills, mumbling to himself, before folding them into a thick bundle and stuffing it into his back pocket.
