Page 9 of What I Should Have Known

Every muscle in my body turned to stone. My heart wedged itself into my throat.

“Get…” I swallowed stiffly, and tight creases formed between my brows. “Get who?”

“Matrix. That’s what we named the dog,” Kat quietly said, her shoulders raising to her ears as she grabbed the money. Soft cheeks bloomed a gentle pink as her doe eyes blinked and sympathy mixed with confusion washed across her features.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered, choking on the words.

“Bernie, you okay?” Raiden asked quietly as all sounds drowned away, replaced by a heavy ringing in my ears.

Was the world trying to play some cruel, sick joke on me? What about for the rest of the team? My mom was right. I wasn’t one to normally argue like this. I wasn’t normally so closed off, but even my own ghost had given up the spark and fallen into a pit of depravity and misery. The witty banter normally spewing rather crudely from my mouth seemed a far distance from whatever thoughts clouded my mind now. Whatever “Bernie” had existed before that bullet ripped through Duncan’s skull had died with him.

High pitched, the ringing rose louder, spinning colors of red and murky black in front of me as his call sign continued to swirl around in my head. Couldn’t the dog have been named anything else? Any other name except for Matrix would’ve been acceptable.

Thwunk.

That damned sound.

It should’ve been me.

Why wasn’t it me?

A sharp yowl of a cat sliced through the frozen, deprecating trance holding me thickly bound.

Glancing to my left, there she sat. Right up against the glass of her box, bright green eyes like those of emeralds locked onto mine. Muffin’s tongue flicked out, sliding across her little nose without breaking contact with my gaze.

The destruction of her kennel faded behind the simple stare of an animal that was caged into something she didn’t understand. She was trapped in a world of confusion, desperate to escape. Swatting at the glass once more, the pad of her paw made a similar thump to the bullet through Duncan’s skull.

I couldn’t leave her there. As trapped as I felt within my own life, she cried out once more as if she too was in her own prison of hell.

“I’ll take her, too,” I stated.

A gasp pulled my attention back to Kat. “You’ll…what?”

“Muffin. I’ll take the damn cat.” I tossed a thumb at the strangest creature I’d ever seen.

Her hands froze as she dropped the last bill of Raiden’s into the cash register. “You want to take the cat that you called a ‘thing’?”

“Yeah,” I blandly replied.

“Oh.” She raised her brows as a smile rose on her lips. “Okay! I’ll just need you to fill out the adoption form Raiden did a few weeks ago when he came in first to look at Matrix. And then the adoption fee and—”

“Here.” Digging into my back pocket, I slipped out the worn leather wallet and dug through the jumbled cards. In a frenzy, as the ringing dug deeper into my ears, I slapped my ID and credit card down on the counter along with my wallet.

The piercing shriek in my head heightened. With my palms braced against the edge of the counter, the cool speckled plastic seared into my skin as I rammed my eyes closed.

I knew what image was threatening to slip into play in my head. I knew what memory was riding the wave of the building migraine. After years in the military, after making the decision to join after graduating college, the consequences I’d accepted upon signing my name were finally meeting me.

The back of Ford’s head flashed through my mind.

Squeezing my eyes even tighter, I physically shook the thought out of my head. Nothing felt right. Nothing was right anymore.

Cold rain slipped down the back of my neck.

Everything rocked and swayed.

So unsteady from its usual course forward.

Clenching my jaw, I slid my teeth back and forth over each other.

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