Page 18 of The Art of You

“Sorry, Ashford,” New Guy apologized. “I’m not trying to replace you, I?—”

“It’s fine. Most of us just go by first names here.” I did my best to breathe. To try and let go of the battle warring inside me about my mom. Shake it off for tonight, at least. “You want me to call you Devon or by your last name?”

“Anything is preferable to New Guy.” He flashed me a smile.

“Fair enough.” I took a knee by the gear as Matt came over to us.

“We’ll be flying to the Y tonight. No choice with the terrain around the target.” Matt lifted his hand to silence my protests before I could even start. “I know, I know.”

“The troop chief took a helo to the valley to patrol ahead of time,” New Guy—shit,Devon—tacked on.

The fact Matt trusted him over someone else on the team to be on overwatch meant I ought to put my faith in him, too.

“If we’ve got squirters, we’ll know about it,” Matt said. “We learned from what went wrong last month. It’s why we do the AARs.”

Before I could speak up, Alfie, Echo Three, joined us, stroking his auburn beard. “You, uh, good?”

My first impulse was to tell one of my closest friends on the team that I was far from it, but I caught Matt’s head shake, a quiet order to keep my mouth shut.

I dragged a palm along my jawline and looked around the room, knowing one wrong move from me downrange could get someone on Echo killed. So, I did what I knew was my responsibility to do. I defied the chain of command and broke my silence. “Actually . . .” I avoided eye contact with our team leader. “Just found out my mom’s cancer is back, and I don’t think she’s going to survive this time.” My gaze bounced back and forth between Alfie and the others as I admitted, “So no, I’m not even close to being good.”

Chapter 6

Hudson

Present Day

The fire raged,destroying everything it touched as I ran into the mouth of hell.

“Alfie,” I called out, choking on the smoke. “Matt, are you?—”

“Wake up. Hudson.”

“. . . must be . . . a nightmare.”

“At least he’s speaking. That’s a good sign, right?”

“He’s moving, too. He keeps ripping off his oxygen mask in his sleep, so that . . .”

At the sound of the familiar voices, the fire extinguished. The building was no longer ablaze, and I wasn’t in Afghanistan. Instead, I was walking alone through a pitch-black room.Where am I?

“Hudson, can you hear me?”

Alfie? No. No, that’s not you. Matt?

“Hudson, you’ve been in an accident. Can you hear us? Do you knowwhere you are?”

I didn’t recognize that voice.

But wait . . .?

I slowly blinked, opening my eyes. My left one hurt a hell of a lot more than the right. Like I’d smacked my face into a wall or a—steeringwheel.The memories from what happened surged forward, making me gasp for air as I tried to sit but failed. My body wasn’t just weak, it was . . . drugged?

My eyes squeezed closed again. While my mind tried to drag my ass back to that inferno in Afghanistan, I did my best to stay present in the room and on the bed.

“I’m here with you.” The soft voice that came next shocked my eyes open, ripping me from the past with violent force.

“Bella?” I rolled my head to the side, searching her out. The lights were too damn bright. “Are you okay?” My hand went to my chest at the pressure there. My heart would fly free on its own accord and leave me a pile of useless limbs on the bed if I’d hallucinated her voice and she wasn’t really with me.

---