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Ashton
For a whole hour, things felt good.
I felt good.
The wind in my face and a pretty girl laughing in the passenger seat felt…right.
For that whole hour, the Raiders, the Marines, and my headaches all fell away. Instead, my reality filled with Freya throwing her hands up into the warm evening air with abandon, closing her eyes as she breathed in the fresh air. It did something to me. At first I couldn’t place it, but eventually I figured it out. She made my heart beat harder, and my chest warm with hope that maybe things weren’t as fucked up as I’d convinced myself they were. Maybe there was something left to live for.
I had no intention of being one of the statistics. I wasn’t going to kill myself because of the frigid, endless hopelessness that normally filled my chest, but damn, sometimes it made it hard to want to go on when it felt like there was nothing left to live for.
A giggle burst from Freya’s mouth as she opened her eyes, meeting mine for just a second as my attention drifted to her for the hundredth time.
“This is so amaz—”
The dark sky burst into light, sparks of yellow erupted in front of us, not more than a mile off as a loud burst smacked me in the eardrums.
My eyesight immediately blurred, throwing me back to that fucking hidey hole. White sparks as we were blown to bits, the rock falling on top of us as I tried to crawl to O’Kiell who was closer to the blast.
There was nothing but blood and fleshy matter making up the left side of her face.
The car swerved as the darkness of another PTSD episode took over my brain, making it throb.
I pulled the car to the right, slamming on the brakes with what little bit of consciousness I could manage, but let go of the wheel when I felt Freya’s hands cover mine on the wheel, taking control of it so we wouldn’t crash.
My eyes were fucking blind, and the smell of explosives in the air clogged up my nostrils and lungs. I was there again, moving away from O’Kiell to Rogers, but there was a massive piece of rebar sticking out of his chest, eyes open and glassy, reflecting back at me through the smoke.
“Rogers! Kane!” came Jamison’s choked voice, a fumbling hand catching on my boot as the sound of gunfire started up outside our hidey hole.
“Ibrahim betrayed us!” Yamin called from further back, but it sounded like I was hearing things from underwater.
Thank God they were ok.
“Roger is down!” Jamison cried, voice thick with emotion as he moved his rifle around from his back while he got ready to fight whoever had put the bomb in what was supposed to be our safe place for the night.
“O’Keill is down,” I called over the ruckus, trying to focus my head while blinking out the burning smoke from my eyes.
I tried to concentrate as warmth trickled down the side of my face. My eardrum was definitely busted. Trying to stand, I realized that I had to have some other injury because my leg wasn’t holding weight. There was no pain though, so I dragged myself forward, my rifle in my hand as I fumbled for the com in my thigh pocket. The thing was slick with sticky fluid which had to be blood, mine or someone else’s, I didn't know.
“Man down, man down, man down!” I called into the com. “We need a bird! We got FUBARed. We need a lift and back up!”
“Copy, a bird is on the way,” the calm voice said back. “ETA seven minutes. Pickup on the ridge to the southeast ridge.”
“We’re taking fire,” I growled. “Shoot these fuckers down and we’ll make it to the pickup location.”
“Roger. Hold tight boys.”
The com went out and I turned my head to look at the boys behind me, covered in dust in mud and…why was it getting dark?
All of a sudden I was weightless and then…nothing.
Chapter 13
Freya
Holy shit!
The tires squealed on the street as Ashton’s foot smashed the breaks, and my hands flew over, grabbing the wheel as he blinked almost absently, as if I could knock but nobody was home.
