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“What are you going to do now?” she asks.
“It’s pretty straightforward for an educated guy with no money,” I say with a shrug. “I’m going into the military.”
If they had killed me, I wouldn’t have seen Lia again.
Though the memories seemed ancient considering everything that had happened since my time in Arizona, I could still clearly see the look of desire in her eyes as her hand caressed my abs. The sound of her soft moans as I filled her ran through my head, and the feeling of her flesh against mine made everything else bearable.
Almost.
Then I would remember the bodies of my unit sprawled on the ground, the realization that one of my own had given up our location to the enemy, and the taste of sand filled my mouth again. My stomach tightened involuntarily, and I sat up slightly as my body tried to double itself over. I squeezed my eyes shut and didn’t even try to stop the memories. It didn’t work anymore, anyway, and it was too much effort to try to control it any longer.
Up on the roof of the base, rifle at my shoulder, I can see a figure walking in the distance, and I set my sights on him. As the crosshairs focus on his head, I can tell he is nothing more than a kid—maybe fourteen or fifteen. Through the scope, my view of him is crystal clear. His clothing is dirty and torn, there are smudges on his face, and a bruise over his left cheek. His eyes hold resolved terror.
He doesn't want this. He's going to do it, but he doesn't want it. He’s holding his arms out at his sides at an awkward angle, and it’s obvious he has something strapped under his arms and around his waist. When I refocus between his eyes, I can see tears in them.
I lower my eyelids for a moment before I secure my aim and fire.
One memory followed another as I remembered running through a hailstorm of bullets to pull my unit’s communication officer out of the line of fire. The captain of the unit was hit and unconscious, and I became the first Marine in years to earn a field promotion from staff sergeant to second lieutenant right there on the dunes. Carrying my captain over my shoulder, I led my unit out of the firefight and back to base.
With exactly seven weeks under my belt as a lieutenant, I’m staring at the bodies of all my comrades as they lie there in the sand. I feel slightly dizzy, and my stomach churns as I realize it’s not a dream, a hallucination, or a trick of the light. A slight sound behind me registers but not before I feel a sharp pain in the back of my head.
I gripped my hands into fists, tightening the muscles in my arms as I tried to pull them across my chest. All I got in response was the constriction of the cuffs around my wrists and the clanging sound of the chains against the bedrails.
My wrists are tied so tightly I can’t feel my hands. I’m sure if I could see them, they would be blue or black or some other unnatural color. I’m glad they’re behind my back so I can’t watch. As my hands go numb, the pain in my shoulders from my arms tied together increases a thousand fold. I wish I could pretend it’s all a nightmare, but I know it’s real. There’s no getting out of this.
The very concept of “pride” is completely foreign to me now, and I no longer care how it looks or sounds. I scream and beg as they throw me back into the hole.
I didn’t open my eyes but squeezed them shut so tightly my head was beginning to pound. I flexed my hands once to prove to myself I could still move them, but it made the cuffs tighten a bit more. I could feel a scream building in m
y throat, but I swallowed it down.
I guessed I had managed to pull a little pride back inside of myself at some point. I wondered when that was and figured it was probably around the same time Rinaldo took me in and gave me a reason to be. Regardless, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself—not here.
Really, I just didn’t care to have anyone coming over and fussing at me about it.
I spit to try to get the grains of sand off my lips, but it doesn’t work. It never does, but it gives me something to do—something to strive for to stop the mind-numbing lack of interaction with anyone or anything. Time is meaningless, and the only connection I have had with anyone in what feels like days is the sound of footsteps in the compound where I’m kept in a deep, sand-filled hole.
I’m convinced it’s for the sake of convenience. When I die, they only have to fill it back up again.
Unfamiliar sounds, then gunshots and the whirring blades of a helicopter fill my ears. I assume my mind is playing tricks on me as I think I hear voices in English, but then a few minutes later there is a voice close to me.
“Lieutenant? Sir? Are you a Marine Corps Lieutenant?”
“What do you have there, Smith?”
“I dunno, sir, but he’s wearing fatigues, or at least what’s left of them.”
“He’s got tags. You’re right—he’s USMC.”
I feel a hand on the skin of my neck. Shuffling sounds above me become louder, and I try to turn my head enough to see. I want to call out, even if I’m calling out to my own imagination. It sounds real enough, and I don’t mind the fantasy. It beats eating sand. I don’t have enough of a voice to respond, though.
“Lieutenant? Lieutenant?”
“Lieutenant?”
My eyes flickered to the sound out of reflex, and I found Mark Duncan staring into them.
“Can you talk to me?”
