Page 28

Rhodes---PTSD

I sit, staring at the thin paper coffee cup warming my hands. I can’t help but wishing we were at Amelia’s instead. I wish that this cup was one of her colorful ones and there would be laughter in the room. I want her dancing in my shirt, Lennon silently judging me from his sunspot. Instead, my jeans are three days old and I haven’t seen outside these four walls in many more than that. I will not leave her side. She needs someone in her corner.

Shifting, I return my attention to the bed in front of me, my eyes scanning her body in search of a new injury that hadn’t been there mere minutes ago. The bruises marring her golden skin are uglier than four days ago. I am sitting on a hair trigger. She needs to wake up and the fact that there is nothing I can do to increase the odds of that happening is not ideal. I am on edge. I know this and there is little to be done about it until Amelia wakes up. The darkness looms over me, testing my defenses for a way in.

I don’t do well in situations where I cannot control the outcomes. I’ve only been in this situation one other time and it was the reason I had retired from the military. Three years later, I still wake up in a cold sweat.

“Veles has the target in sight. Clear shot, over.” I shift deeper into my lay, resting the butt of my rifle against my shoulder. I wrap one finger around the trigger, similar to the way I’d curl it around a woman’s body as I drive her higher and higher, seeking that spot deep within her heat.

I hear my spotter, Chris, behind me, shifting his weight as he checks our surroundings. We work in teams, two by two, and Chris has been with me for the last two years. Veles and Thor, Rhodes and Chris. I don’t say much while in position, leaving the talking to Chris. I feel the building beneath my body, steadying the rhythm of my heart into a matched cadence with the air moving through my lungs.

We were supposed to be headed back to the States earlier in the week until orders were given to eliminate this threat. Supposedly, our target is an upper ranking member of a terror organization and by eliminating him, we can clear the path to the kingpin. I have never missed a mark and I’m not about to start now, especially when all that stands between me and getting home is a dead body with a bullet hole in the head.

“Permission to engage?” I murmur, knowing Chris will hear. I can’t move or take my eyes off the window in front of me. I want the shot while I have it but damn protocol prevents me from firing before Command gives the okay. Chris relays to Command and we wait, perched atop the building across from the target. A few seconds pass. A minute. Chris radios again.

“Permission to fire at target, over.” The wind shifts, and my gut tells me something is off.

Command must give the affirmative because all I hear behind me is Chris telling me to take the shot. Then the world goes black as the ringing in my ears deafens the explosion below and I feel like I am free falling.

I wake up to find myself pinned under a slab of concrete laced with rebar, with my head spinning. I blink, trying to clear my eyes from the dust, and yank my arm. Fuck. My arm is pinned above the elbow and I don’t have the leverage to push the rubble off me. I start yelling, unsure of my location and unsure of where Chris is. I need to move. Staying still means dying and I am not keen on that happening today. I cough, the dust from the implosion still hanging in the air. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. I call out, throwing every last shred of my nonexistent faith into the void, hoping someone finds us. I will not leave without Chris.

I hear the whirling of chopper blades, the rotations of them louder than my pounding heart. Flexing my fingers, I begin to gauge my response and there is nothing. I can’t curl them. I can’t move them. Fuck me. Fuck. This. I scream, emptying my lungs of the very air I need to survive. Boots find me, camouflage identical to my own now standing before me. I don’t care who they are. I just need to get out. I need to find Chris. The person before me speaks and I can’t make out what they’re saying before I hear a coordination and feel a sharp pain radiate up my arm. There is tugging and pulling before I am free.

“Find Thor. Find him,” I whisper as my adrenaline response wears off and the shock starts to dissipate. “He fell. Gods, he fell.”

Medics, or so I assume based on the insignia I see, work me over and I hear mumbles into their comms about an evac and needing surgical support. My stomach drops and I know in this instant, I am done.

“Found him!” A voice calls out behind me and I turn, fighting the hands holding me steady. I climb over the rubble, further injuring myself. I don’t care.

“Thor! Chris!” There isn’t a response and the operators standing by him are silent, watching me as I make it closer to where he lays. I hit my knees and slam his chest, yelling as the tears run down my face.

Fuck. No. Not Chris. Dammit. Why isn’t anyone helping? A sound I don’t recognize rips from my chest, guttural and inhuman. I collapse on his body, sobs wrecking me, and I feel a hand on my shoulder. ?? “Time to go, Rhodes.” I can’t bring myself to stand, let alone leave my partner behind. Strong arms lift me as a whirlwind of coordination surrounds me, and I crash.

When I finally came to, I was laid up in a hospital bed, my arm secured, and devastation deep in my body. I was told that I would be honorably discharged should I want to be and I would need therapy to regain movement in my left hand, from my fingertips to mid-bicep. I spent months angry at the world. Angry at my leadership. Angry at myself. I wasn’t okay and the frustrations of getting my mobility back did not help at all. I just wanted to drown in my grief, of the pain from losing my partner, and my career. Nine fucking months of therapy and recovery gave me a piece of myself back. Nothing healed the hole from losing Chris.

I couldn’t save him. I live with that truth every day.

I can’t lose Amelia too. I will not come back from that loss.

I rest my arms on the blanket beside her, laying my head on them to look up at Amelia. Even in this moment, I’ve never seen anyone as breathtaking as her. I decide to tell her a story before bed, something happy to bring light to the darkness surrounding us.

“When I was six or seven, my mom decided that she would teach me how to make the traditional Polish dishes she’d grown up on. Pierogi, little racuchies topped with powdered sugar, and this red borscht. Gods, this soup had beets in it, kochanie . I despised beets. Still do. But Mama wanted me to learn about my Polish roots and so, we spent that summer covered in flour and who knows what else. That was the first summer I remember going to the lakehouse my dad built. It wasn’t anything most people would be impressed with but for young Rhodes? I thrived . I could fish all day, run around barefoot until Mama called my name or the fireflies danced in the night sky.”

A chuckle releases from my chest at the memory.

“Mama made my birthday cake that spring too. Wuzetka is this traditional Polish pie that combines chocolate and cream. It is the best. You’d love it. Probably do that little dance you do when your food is really good. I’ll make it for you on your birthday, okay? It won’t be as good as my mama’s but I’ll do my damndest to get it close. I’ll feed it to you, I swear.”

A single tear rolls down my cheek, getting trapped in the beard I’ve grown from lack of trimming it.

“That’s my favorite place in the world. No, that is a lie. That used to be the place I was happiest. You are my happy place, kochanie. I am not happy if I’m not with you.”