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“She told me one day they meant secret love—gardenias. She was younger. I— the…ISIS was there…everywhere. The delivery drivers, everyone was in their pocket. Like the mafia.” I run my fingers through his hair and hold my breath while he breathes slowly to catch his.
“I would go sometimes…around delivery time…and wait in that room. In case something happened. I was always hot. Summer. We weren’t really over there yet—at least not officially. According to the head shed.” Another few seconds slide by, and I can feel him draw another long, slow breath. “I had on the local dress,” he goes on. “Clothes.”
Despite the benign nature of his words, his body jerks with a hard shudder. I pull him a little closer. “It’s okay.”
I feel him breathing: measured breaths. “She wore a burka and—” His voice breaks. “She did want to take it off.” He laughs roughly. “She’d come into that room and…I would never let her.”
I trace the curve of one of his curls, and he lets his breath out slowly. “She would let me do overwatch from up above the store.” He lifts his head, looks out across my room, toward the window, beyond which the world is indigo with dusk.
His eyes glide to mine. He frowns vacantly before moving his gaze back to the window.
“One day someone else—another operator,” he rasps, “got some intel. Something was happening with IS in the area. I went. I thought maybe…” He swallows. “I thought I could get something, you know? She might know something. She gave me some tea and she was telling me her sister-in-law was pregnant, like it was so important. But I didn’t think about it.” His face blanks out, and his voice drops lower, like he’s remembering this day so vividly, he’s more there than here.
“I went up there on the roof and saw these women. Two with babies. One of them looked pregnant,” he says slowly.
He puts his hand against my throat and curls his fingers. I can feel them shaking. I close my hand over his.
“After a little bit,” he rasps, “they scattered—those three women. One of them blew up. I tracked the other ones. The babies…looked so real. But you can’t— There were other people down there. Shopping. So I didn’t hesitate. I took out a second woman, quick. And then I moved to the third one. Took her down. She blew up after a minute, so she had a bomb on her…”
He shakes his head and inhales deeply.
“That third lady,” he whispers, “she was clearly… But the second one…”
I see him shut his eyes, and for a moment he is silent in the watercolor of the Christmas lights above us.
“Maliha ran out there,” he chokes. It takes me half a second to realize Maliha must be the young florist. “I saw her drop down by this second lady…” His body jerks a little, and I press my hand over his. “I thought it was her sister-in-law…”
His eyes hold mine for just a moment, and they’re stark with pain and— Maybe that’s confusion on his face.
He shakes his head.
“It wasn’t.”
I watch his hand clutch at his temple.
“The tea she gave me…it had opium tincture in it. I can see her reaching for that woman’s stomach. I can see her eyes… and they were wide. It was like a dream. Not just the tea. I saw her, but I couldn’t…” His eyes find mine. “Anyway,” his gaze flicks down, and then back to mine— “there was a backup detonator. She grabbed it. I saw her going for it, should have known, but…” He shakes his head. He drops his head down in a bow.
“They told me that,” he rasps. “When I joined the Unit, someone warned me…” He shakes his head, like whatever he’s trying to convey is just too much, too much effort. “She was young, Gwen. She used to listen to this band...Icona Pop and…Taylor Swift. She had this iPod.” I see a tear drip down his cheek as he looks into my eyes. “Sometimes I think…I wonder why she said my eyes were different. If you notice…look, sometimes in pictures. Older guys, the people just like me.” He swallows. “Those old guys’ eyes look hard and cold. Almost…dead. To people who don’t know, but…they aren’t. They’re just fucking sad,” he whispers.
He lies down on his side, his head on a pillow. I lie in front of him and pull my knees up toward my chest. My shins touch Barrett’s thighs. I reach out and stroke his hair.
“She liked my eyes. I guess…they weren’t sad yet.”
I see something twinkle: another little tear that falls under the lights. His leaking eyes lock onto mine again.
“You know…they told me that. In training. You can go…bad…one of two ways, a sniper can go bad,” he murmurs. “Either you can’t shoot or you go nuts and shoot up the block. I just…couldn’t shoot her.” His voice cracks as his eyes shut. “She detonated the bomb. I found out later IS made her do it. They had her sister-in-law.” He stops to swallow, takes his time before he goes on, in a lower voice.
“She had blocked the roof off. Stacked a bunch of shit in the stairwell. But they knew I was up there. They’d given her the tincture for me, hoping they could fuck my aim up. I had to get away, I ended up jumping…off the roof. And when I landed— When I landed,” he sighs deeply, “there was this IED. I don’t know…my head hit something. Or…” he shakes his head, “maybe just the blast. I was fucking out of it. That’s how I got the brain bleed, the shrapnel. Breck came. We could track each other. He had to get me out. We made it to the Bradley before he got…hit with this bomb,” his voice cracks, “…it had acid in it.”
My stomach clenches, and I wrap my hand around his. His hand squeezes tightly.
“They had pushed me in…so I was safe.” His fingers squeeze more tightly, so tight I almost cry out. I feel his body start to shake again, and I scoot over closer to him. When I wrap my arm around his shoulders and his head, he curls into me. “It got him…kind of in the back,” he rasps. “They got him in and…his skin was…hissing.”
When he speaks again, his voice has dropped down to a whisper. “The phosphorous was eating…through his skin…and he was trying…to smile. He was a tough son of a bitch, my buddy Breck.”
I feel him swallow, and I wait a long time without moving, but he doesn’t speak again. He just lies there breathing on his side, his body stiff, his shoulders shaking, and there’s nothing I can do.
I stroke his hair. “Oh, Barrett. I’m so sorry.”
