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16
MONTY
Bombs were going off everywhere.
It had started with a series of flash bombs tossed at us. Before the commander even had time to yell for cover, they went off, the blinding lights knocking us off guard and discombobulating me. That was what they were designed for, after all—to stun you right off your ass. And they had done their job. But as Marines, we had been trained to combat their effects, to continue moving our bodies and searching for tactile information even before our brain even caught on to what was happening. And that was exactly what I did. As my hearing came back in increments, I was slowly aware of more bombs going off, sand and shrapnel shattering at my feet and spraying my face as I ran. It was hard to know what I was running toward or away from. The enemy was everywhere, and I just had to survive.
Bodies lined the path in front of me, sacrificed to the blood-thirsty blasts. They were missing body parts that had probably been blown to the other side of the field. Gunshots started ringing out, and one of the soldiers in front of me instantly dropped to the floor, his head blown off. I jumped over it, continuing to run. That was how it was in a war zone. It was what our training dictated. I had no time to stop and even process the death or check if the soldier was still alive because I was trying to save my own head and keep it from getting blown off. This wasn’t my first bloodbath…the first time this happened, it seemed I had to keep fighting back the urge to stop and check on my teammates. Now it was simply par the course to step over bodies in my flight to freedom.
And I didn’t know what the fuck that said about me, about the fact that the thing in me that expressed horror at human pain and had empathy was probably shattered already, blasted straight to hell.
I felt a bullet tear into my leg, and I felt the sharp pain, but I continued running, fueled by pure adrenaline. Another one tore into my shoulder, but I still kept on going. I ran for a few more seconds before I felt my leg giving up on me. Fuck, come on, Monty. You can’t give up here. Keep going, damn it. But I had no choice. My body had stopped cooperating, and the more I tried, the more it lagged until I felt my body dropping to the ground despite my best efforts.
I curled myself into a ball, rolling out of the way of the incoming fire. We were in a desert. There was no bush, no covering, so all I could do was lay low. I saw the body of an enemy soldier lying in front of me, his eyes unblinking, unseeing. I didn’t even hesitate. Heaving with effort, I pulled his body on top of mine to shield myself from any stray bullets, and then I simply waited.
There had been several times I had been about to die, and you would think I would be used to it by now but I never really quite got used to that heart-rending anxiety as all the energy left my body, leaving me feeling bereft. But there was an odd acceptance as well.
Any moment now, it would end, or I would die. Either way, it would all be over.
I began the breathing exercises like I had been trained, taking slow, shallow breaths so I could still mimic being dead. In my mind, I prayed that my teammates were still alive, hoping against hope that they eventually made it out of this hell hole and could go back to their families. I prayed for my fiancée back home, praying she would find some way to move on without me. I prayed that my brothers were happy. It was while I was thinking about all those things that I noticed the body above me shift, his hand snapping out to snatch my neck.
The body rose as if coming alive by an otherworldly power, his hands around my neck squeezing and squeezing for life, his blank eyes staring down at me. I tried to fight against him, only to find more hands holding me down and preventing me from moving. I screamed at them, telling them to get the hell off me, but the hands were digging in deeper and deeper…
“Monty!”
I came awake in a rush, my mind and body already assuming battle-ready positions. I swung unseeingly in front of me, and then, upon noticing a figure at my bedside, I readied myself to strike again.
And then suddenly, the face came into focus, and my hands froze in motion, only inches away from Kayla’s startled face.
“Kayla?!”
My mind was still in a fog, trying to piece reality together and differentiate it from a nightmare I had been having. Kayla suddenly blinked at me, worry and fear on her face.
“Sorry,” she said softly, clearing her throat. “You were shouting in your sleep just as I came in, so I thought I could….”
And then, with a vengeance, the haze cleared, and rational thought returned.
Horror washed over me. I brought my fist down and addressed her angrily, “Are you insane, woman?”
She shook her head, looking offended at the accusation. “I don’t think so.”
But she had to be. She had to be out of her mind to do what she had just done. Did she even realize what she had done, how she had put herself in danger by being around me when I was in that state? My mind raced with the horrible possibilities. “Do you know what could have happened? I could have hurt you! I almost hurt you!” I had swung at her the first time without even seeing her, and it was only luck that I did not hit her. Jesus, I had enough training to level a small elephant with my fists. With the amount of force I had been using, fuck, I could have more than just seriously hurt her.
“Nevereverdo that again,” I cautioned firmly. “Never walk up on me while I’m having a nightmare. Do you understand?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look like she understood the magnitude of what could have happened to her. I could have hurt her. I didn’t know what I would do with myself if I had.
“Tell me you fucking understand, Kayla!” I said, and she nodded.
“I do! I understand, okay?”
But that was not enough to quell the self-loathing, the guilt, the fear.Messed up fucker. Freak.Shit, if anything had happened to her…if I had hurt her…
That would be it. I didn’t even know what I would do at that point because it would have been over. Any single hope of happiness would have shattered, and the world would have become a sea of nothingness with not a single hint of light.
And it hit me just like that. She was my light.
I pulled her into a hug then, wrapping my arms around her, needing that contact to assure myself that she was still alive and I hadn’t hurt her. I breathed her in deeply, taking in that spicy strawberry scent of hers, and clutched her as if my entire body was trying to take her into me. I knew I was probably squeezing too tightly, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop.
