Whole Pieces

by Ronie Kendig

  Wait. Was that happening now? Were the SEALS under attack right this second? Or had he stepped into another alternate stream of time? The holocaust vision—he was almost certain that had been a picture of the future. So maybe the battle he’d just seen was the same kind of deal. Maybe there was a chance to save their brothers in arms.

  Heart and head pounding, Hawk drew up a leg and shifted on the rocky bed to look over his shoulder. Who are you, kid? Why are they willing to fight so hard for you? Why are they worried about you more than the average kid out late?

  “Hawk, what’s up?”

  He skated his attention to Stratham. “We . . . need to move.” He kept his voice low in case the freedom fighters started their search up here, on the crest of the hill that bled into the mountains. No need to be a homing beacon for the men who wanted bodies to drag through the cities as trophies.

  Stratham’s eyes, lit only by moonlight, darkened. He grunted, then shook his head. “No. We stay.”

  “I saw . . . Taliban.”

  “Where?” Stratham jabbed his eye to the scope.

  Quiet dropped on them as Hawk peered through his own reticle, begging God to show him something he could use to avert this tragedy. Please . . . help me save this kid and the team. The two had somehow become integrally connected. As more bad things happened to the kid, the end game worsened exponentially.

  “Where?” Stratham repeated. “I got nothing.”

  Hawk swallowed. “I . . . They were there. By the field.” He scanned, searching for the mound of rocks, remembering where the SEALs had holed up. But try as he might, he couldn’t find that spot. “I saw them.”

  “You’d better be wrong,” Stratham hissed. “Jensen and Jacobie are still out there.”

  Guilt climbed down his throat and clenched his heart in a fist. Was this how it would play out now? He tried to fix one mess and created another? Had he just killed two men?

  The kid. This was all the kid’s fault.

  No, that wasn’t fair. Abda was only an innocent element tangled up in this nightmare. Why had Hawk ever thought he could fix this? Save the day, alter the very fabric and integrity of time, play God.

  “Let me take the kid back.”

  “What!” Stratham’s voice strained, carrying with it incredulity and anger. “No. Just . . . do your job. Eyes out.”

  “The kid—”

  “I said no!” Stratham clambered toward him. “Don’t know what’s wrong with you, Hawk, but you’re wigging out. Making bad calls.” Breath, heated by his terse words, soared over the cool wind and smacked Hawk. “Just . . . eyes out.”

  “What if the fighters are working with Tarazai? What if they are out looking for the boy?”

  “Eyes. Out!”

  Teeth gritted, Hawk shoved his eyes to the terrain. Clenching his hand, he fought to tamp down his anger and frustration. God, I need a break. Show me . . . show me.

  Dirt crunched and ground to his left. He skidded a look to the side and found Abda hauling himself toward him using his tied-up hands, eyes locked on Hawk. Wait a minute—I tied up his legs too!

  Abda chewed the edge of his lip as he came up alongside Hawk. “I can get out of worse knots. My friends and I had contests to see who could tie up someone best.” He beamed. “I won.”

  Hawk let out a quiet snort. “No doubt,” he replied in Pashto.

  “Something is wrong?” Abda’s quiet but sincere question hung between them. And there seemed, in that moment, a maturity that did not belong to a small child but nestled there all the same.

  “How old are you again?”

  “Seven.”

  “You’re pretty alert for your age.”

  “I see things.”

  “No doubt,” Hawk found himself saying again.

  “Moor says that is why Plaar does not want me in the house when the colonel is there. He thinks I will figure things out and will tell someone.”

  Figure things out. What things could the kid figure out? “So . . . have you? Figured things out, that is?”

  Abda shrugged. “I know that the colonel is not a good man, though many do what he says. I know my father, though he has never told me, does not like the colonel.”

  “Then why is he letting him meet there?”

  “The last man who went against the Sand Spider watched his family burned alive in their home.” Abda looked down, his face solemn. “It was . . . terrifying. Sometimes . . . sometimes I still hear her screaming.”

  Hawk tried to hold back the question, but it hovered like a lead weight. “Who?”

  “Rafeeia.” He sighed. “I loved her.”

  Unable to hide the chuckle, Hawk realized the seven-year-old boy beside him could very well have been a thirty-year-old man. He’d seen too much. Experienced too much trauma and tragedy.

  “Your captain . . .”

  Master Sergeant.

  “What is wrong?” Abda said in a whisper, ducking as if afraid Stratham might hear him. “He is very angry.”

  The boy could say that again. Stratham’s nerves were on edge. He had two men on recon, and the five of them here could come under attack at any moment. Hawk had seen what would happen, but he couldn’t deliver anything tangible to his team leader.

  “Extremists,” Hawk muttered, then considered the boy. “Why would they look for you?”

  The boy frowned and looked away. “My mother’s brother.”

  Hawk’s pulse thumped. “Your uncle?”

  A slow shrug bore the answer. “His son vanished one night.” The kid’s face bore more sadness than should ever touch a life so young. “The men he worked with were rebel fighters, and they felt my uncle should not have accepted help from soldiers when his daughter became ill. They said he should not get help from the Great Satan—” brown eyes, whites glowing beneath the moon, darted to Hawk with an awareness that Hawk was part of that Great Satan—“so they killed his son. It made all the women very crazy. We had to play only inside for a long time.”

  Recoiling, Hawk scowled. He’d heard of worse, but knowing Abda had lost his cousin to tribal warfare . . . He’d seen so much. Too much! “So . . . it’s possible they’re afraid you might get taken by—”

  Oh no! His thoughts tumbled one over the other, competing for dominance and success. The foreign fighters—what if they weren’t working with Tarazai? What if they were here to kill Tarazai, an Afghan security forces officer who worked as part of the coalition, receiving training with the Americans? A man his own superiors had become convinced was corrupt. Perhaps everyone else knew it too.

  The SEALs—their mission could be anything. Helping the fighters stop Tarazai. Making sure Tarazai died.

  But ODA 375 was here to gain intel, gather facts. Nothing more.

  Hawk had leapt without looking. Jumped boots-first into a chance to erase his “mistake” in letting the boy live, determined he could fix what had happened. But ever since he’d landed here, one nightmare after another had twisted and coiled around his good intentions.

  The greatest collision was yet to occur. Was this where that holocaust vision started? With one small boy?

  No no no no. This couldn’t happen. Hawk screamed out to God, shrieking for him to stop this madness.

  The night he never forgot—the one that devastated his whole life, smothered his will to live, to even exist—trembled, ready to implode on itself. Like a massive sinkhole, taking his plans, his hopes, his belief that he could right what he’d done wrong.

  “Hawk.” Abda waited till their eyes locked again. “I have to go home or everyone will die.”

  9

  “You’ve been a very foolish soldier, Haytham.” The voice boomed through the darkness.

  But Hawk didn’t need to look to see who owned that voice. In fact, he’d rather not look, considering the facts, the most important of which was that there was no doubt Thomas Constant was peeved.

  “I’ve been called worse.” Hawk pressed himself toward the ground more, as if he could seep through the
earth, and peered to the side.

  “Of that I have no doubt.” The master of time lay on his back, tossing something between his hands as he bounced his crossed leg in the air.

  “Haytham.” Constant said the name with a huff. Arching a refined eyebrow, he clucked his tongue three times. “I say your name not to remind you who you are, though your eyes betray what you think you are.”

  “And what is that?”

  “A failure, Haytham. A complete and utter failure—that being, of course, your thoughts of yourself. Not mine. I say your name because I am disappointed. You stole my watch, thought it would secure your victory.” A laugh rumbled through his chest. “Not so easy playing me, is it?”

  “Playing God, you mean.”

  Constant eyed him with as much amusement as disdain. “You have something that belongs to me, and you might want to return it quick-spot and not dillydally.”

  “Dil—”

  “Death is on his way, right behind me.” Fierceness edged out Constant’s lighthearted demeanor. “You’ve already borrowed four hours that he wants back.” He puckered his lips. “You see, by breaking the laws—stealing something of mine—you also violated the fine print.”

  “I never signed a contract.”

  “Oh, you signed, Haytham. You signed.” Vehemence reddened the man’s face as he almost dared Hawk to argue. “With the very blood in your veins, you bargained away your rights.” Constant jabbed a finger in Hawk’s face. “You stole from me, and that annoys me. You do realize, don’t you, that it is within my power to pull the ol’ proverbial plug on this gift of time I’ve given you.” He arched that eyebrow again, jutting his jaw toward the boy who lay quietly beside Hawk. “You’ve complicated things by befriending the boy. Imagine the mess you’d leave him in if I exerted my rights.”

  A protective nature that went above and beyond the soldier persona in Hawk leapt to the front. “Leave him out of this.”

  “Oh no. Not possible. You’ve fully entangled him in your attempt to rewrite history.” He cocked his head at Hawk. “Have you any idea what you’ve done with the time—?” With a blink, he snapped his mouth shut, his eyes darting over Hawk’s face. “My, my, my. You honestly have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

  “I’m righting a wrong.”

  “Or are you wronging a right?”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “More sense than you have at this point in time—and it’s mine, Haytham. You have annoyed me to no end, first stealing my watch, then squandering—”

  “I’m not squandering.” Okay, maybe he was. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  “And clearly that is not good enough, now is it? You’ve used nearly the entire seven hours, and still you haven’t succeeded.” He let out a long-suffering sigh. “In fact, I am so disappointed, I’m tempted to let Death come. I had convinced him to look elsewhere for another soul, but perhaps your time is up?”

  “You can’t be serious. I still have time.”

  “I want my watch back, Haytham.”

  “Promise me more time.”

  “Thieves have no bargaining power.”

  Hawk closed his hand over the piece. “Then I keep it.”

  Thomas tilted his head and looked over Hawk’s shoulder. “Would you prefer to explain to him . . . ?”

  Glancing back, Hawk saw only the starless sky. He scanned the veil of clouds . . . Wait. His heart jammed as what he saw registered. Not a starless sky with thin clouds. But a creature, subtle yet obvious, drifting closer, hovering, descending.

  “Oh, merciful God . . . ”

  “Yes, that he is, but let’s keep this between us and Grumpy Ghoul, shall we?” All too pleased with the situation, Constant let out a chuckle that danced on the stream of time. He waved his fingers in a give-me manner.

  Without the watch, what would happen? He couldn’t peek into the outcomes. He couldn’t correct this. But if he didn’t give up the timepiece, then Death . . .

  The harbinger lurked in the darkness, dropping closer and closer.

  “You do realize it’s perfectly within my power and rights since you resorted to petty thieving to cancel what you have left—”

  “You can’t do that!” Hands fisted, Hawk drew himself up straight.

  “Oh, I can. I most certainly can.”

  “No! Please, you can’t. I need the hours I have left. I’ve got to change this.” He motioned to the men around him . . . and stilled. Nobody seemed to be moving. Or talking. Or anything. Were they frozen? Was that how this conversation was taking place without anyone noticing?

  Time is frozen.

  God, please . . . The team hadn’t been saved. In fact, things were worse. There had to be a way. A route to take that would alter this.

  What if the original route was the right one?

  No. Absolutely not. He couldn’t accept that. Wouldn’t believe that it had been right for six men to lose their lives.

  “I want those last two and a half hours.” Hawk braved the storm that was Thomas Constant’s face. “I was wrong—to steal the watch—but these men around you, their lives are worth everything. I want to save them.”

  “What if they aren’t supposed to be saved?”

  Haunted that Constant had voiced a thought that had just flitted through his mind, Hawk shook his head. “I won’t accept that.”

  “It is not for you to accept or deny.” He narrowed his eyes. “Haytham, you do realize the difference between a gift of time and the ability to override the power of the Creator.”

  “Oh, what? Getting religious now? A few minutes ago you wanted to leave him out of this.”

  Was Thomas growing? Where had all this light that illuminated his face come from? How could Constant’s face be illuminated and yet darken with anger? His lips pulled taut. His chest rose and fell unevenly. Then he snapped his gaze away. “Alas, I’m a gentleman, and gentlemen do not steal from those who have given gifts to them—”

  “I apologized!”

  Constant held up a hand. “—nor do they allow those below them to badger and manipulate them into getting their way—”

  “I just want to save my men!”

  An icy finger slid down the back of Hawk’s neck. Colder still, it traced his spine. Prickling dread drenched Hawk. He stretched his neck.

  Constant was glowering now. “And I most certainly—”

  “Hold up!”

  A roar plugged his ears. The chill coiled around his shoulders and chest, drawing his gaze over his shoulder to the sky. Dark and forbidding, a solid blanket of black closed in. Screams and shrieks burrowed through his mind.

  Death.

  “Hey!” He snapped a look to Constant, who merely flicked up that stupid eyebrow again. “I’m just—” Another check to his six affirmed the harbinger closing in. “Okay, okay,” Hawk shouted. “Just stop him.”

  Time held out his long hand, fingers stretching to infinity, it seemed. “Return it to me, Haytham, and perhaps I can persuade Death to take a detour this dark night.”

  “What? No way, not till you agree to give me the last couple of hours.”

  Constant adjusted the French cuffs peeking out of his coat sleeves and then smoothed a hand down his waistcoat. “As I was saying before you rudely interrupted me—we’re not doing well in the manners, are we, Haytham?”

  Hand held up to Constant, Hawk drew back from the frigid, hollow sensation overtaking him from Death’s direction. Heat yet cold danced along his neck, his hairs standing on end. “Okay, I’m sorry. You’re right.” He swallowed and looked back, his thoughts stumbling over each other. The team—he needed more time to save them, and apparently Constant wanted him to beg for it. So be it.

  Ashley. Oh, man. If he died right now, he could never tell her how much he loved her, how much . . .

  He’d been a jerk. Class-A jerk. How many times had he yelled at her, ordering her to go away, when he’d just hated having her see him weak and broken. She deserved so much more. So very much
more. She deserved the world. She was too good for him.

  Shrieking enveloped him. Pecking at him, his courage, his will to live. Flying in and out, tiny black wisps plucked at his clothes, his flesh, his mind, playing a melody that lured him into wanting to surrender.

  Just give up, they whispered.

  You failed. It doesn’t matter. . . . You don’t matter.

  Walk away. Nobody needs you. Nobody wants you.

  Yes, you’re a hero, but they don’t appreciate you.

  The voices, thick yet whisper-thin, swooped and dove, in and out. Through his mind. Through his heart. Through his soul.

  The same voices he’d heard on the bed back in the original time strain.

  The same voices that convinced him to kick Ash out of his life. To give up on the love she had for him. And to just . . . surrender to death. It’d be easier. He’d tried to let himself die. Gave them do-not-resuscitate orders. The only thing with a DNR was that the person had to die. And despite his every effort, he hadn’t been able to die.

  God doesn’t care about them.

  He wants them to die. You’re of no use anyway.

  You failed. Again. Just like everything else.

  Just . . . surrender . . .

  It’d be so much easier. Hawk closed his eyes. Let the thought sink in, let himself sink into the nothingness.

  Then, four letters flitted through the heaviness.

  Abda.

  10

  No! Not surrender. Fight like never before.

  But not fighting the way he had with angry words and epithets, abandoning his faith and love. Fighting through surrender.

  Whoa. What a heady thought. Hawk felt a strange new rhythm pumping through his chest.

  “It’s quite fascinating to me,” Constant said with a smirk, “how contrite the impudent become when Grumpy Ghoul swoops in—” he made a motion like a bird of prey diving in for the kill—“for their souls.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I’m sorry?” Craning his head forward, Constant tucked a finger behind his ear and nudged it out. “Say again?”