Page 34 of Issued

The emptiness of the house presses in at the sight, and the silence grows deafening. A cacophony of nothingness. If she crashes, she’ll... No, she’s fine. Can’t think like that. Sweat breaks out on my forehead. I slam the garage door shut, and the sound ricochets through the house like a gunshot.

What if she’s running from something other than me?

The way all the color drained from her face at the party. And when she looked at me, wild-eyed and pupils dilated. The tiny tremble of her bottom lip. Taya’s afraid of something. Same reaction our Afghani interpreter had when I pulled my gun on her during our last mission.

My gut clenches when past memories come swarming to the front of my mind.

“What the hell is Aland doing here?” Lux lowers his weapon, approaching slowly as our interpreter and the boy come into sight.

My stomach churns at the thought of the young boy’s name. The boy I killed. Aland had been a regular part of our lives for the better part of our year overseas. Every day, he hauled one of the men and haggled over pricing for his fruit. If he had an errand to run for his uncle, he left his basket on the street corner before scurrying off, only to return for it hours later. Both the boy and his basket had become nonentities, as normal a sight as the sun and the sand.

My head throbs like someone has taken a dull blade to my skull. I pace around the foyer in the dark, unable to sit or relax. My eyes water, my nose runs. A wave of nausea churns my stomach and vomit flies out of my mouth, my knees crashing into the hardwood floor. The muscles of my abdomen lurch again, spewing more vile liquid from my stomach.

I gasp loudly, sucking in air and pushing it out until I feel less dizzy. I sit back and wipe my mouth with my forearm, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes as the high-pitched ringing in my ears grow in intensity. My fingers lace through my hair, pulling at the roots as I scream out.

“I’m not leaving without him.” Marwa lost her youngest years ago, and her soft spot for Aland was never more evident.

“You know we can’t,” Lux snaps back at our interpreter. “We have to stick to our orders. No natives means no natives.”

The argument was well worn and automatic. Lux and Marwa had been having it out for the past several days. Though we’d become used to it, I kept my weapon raised. Something felt off, especially since most of the locals had evacuated on their own already, and the building offered no protection from hostile fire. God, I remember the chilling way the hairs on the back of my neck rose and how cold my skin felt.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I will the crushing pain to go away. The same way I did back in Kabul. But just like that day, relief is elusive. What I wouldn’t give to be stalking across a stone floor in a bombed-out building on the edge of the city, my men spread out behind me while the acrid aroma of gunpowder, unwashed flesh, and burning buildings floods our noses.

Pipes in the walls creak, triggering another wave of ringing in my ears and blinding throbbing in my head. I stand on shaky legs and make my way to the kitchen, hoping to reach my medicine before I vomit again. Panic rises like smoke in my chest. I hurt all over, my arms ache, and it’s hard to tell whether the chills racking me are from the memories or the cold.

Stumbling into kitchen, my hand pats around in the inky darkness. The cold granite of the island offers a landmark. Inching to my left I tentatively step and grasp the countertop on the opposite wall. Grasping my pills, I twist open the cap and pop two bitter-tasting doses into my mouth. They stick to the back of my throat as I force them down, then sink down onto the cool floor.

The low hum of the refrigerator soothes a bit of my anxiety the same way the whirl of chopper blades became my lullaby in the desert. But it’s the soft clink that haunts my dreams. The noise no louder than a single drop of water into a pool, but one that may as well have been a bomb going off in the night.

My fingers clench and unclench into fists as I remember the way my bullet hit the wall, spraying concrete into the air and driving Marwa away from Aland. Lux ducked for cover as he pulled his sidearm, so nothing stood between the boy and me as Aland shifted his weight. His hands clasped the edge of his ever-present basket, and his eyes were too wide and round for his young face. As he shifts, I heard it again. The clink.

When he moved, the weight of the objects in his basket slid against one another.

Metal against metal.

My next shot hits him squarely in the chest just as his fingers closed around the detonator. There was no other way to save my men. Anything other than a kill shot would have given Aland the time he needed to detonate the bomb.

But it was the grenade I missed. The grenade the boy hid in his other hand. The one that exploded and sent me flying across the room. Lux had run over to check on me, but I’d insisted everything was fine. I was alive, after all.

Two days later, the piercing ringing in my ears struck, followed by a violent headache that left me helpless and in a cage of agony during a mission. The pain throbbed so violently in my skull I couldn’t help wishing my head would just crack open.

That’s when Marwa rounded the corner, screaming in a mix of Arabic and English, and I pointed my gun at her. Lux had thrown himself between us red faced and scowling as he tried to talk me down. But the pain was so bad, and the ringing so loud, I couldn’t make out the muffled words.

Lux stepped in closer, studying me, and then he pointed at my nose. I wiped it with the back of my hand, only to find a streak of fresh blood covering my glove. There was no hiding the extent of my injury from Lux. He was our team medic.

“Dammit, Lux.”

The idiot wasn’t supposed to fall for the interpreter, but true to his rebellious nature, Lux didn’t give a shit. So, when we returned from our mission, he reported me to the commanding officer of the Forward Operating Base, betraying our team. Our family. We were supposed to watch out for one another, take care of one another.

He betrayed me, his childhood friend.

His brother.

“All for Marwa.” I drive my elbow backward, hitting the cabinet with such force, I fear I may have splintered the wood.

Maybe it’s my punishment for killing a child. But rage can’t drown out the screaming. If I see that small body sinking to the ground every time I close my eyes, then I can only chalk it up to karma. Nightmares are my penance, though no amount of sleepless nights will ever bring redemption for what I’ve done.

Time to stop dwelling and start scrubbing. Reaching beneath the kitchen sink, I find a treasure trove of cleaning supplies. Grabbing an armful, I cuddle the Clorox and assortment of other cleaning agents against my chest as if they were tiny kittens. The nook catches my eye as I rise to my feet, and my throat relaxes.

---