Page 2 of Lorenzo & Lily

The explosion engulfed the helicopter…the one filled with most of his team.

God, was there anyone left? Was it just him now?

He glanced around and saw unmoving bodies. The rest of his team, either injured or dead from their proximity to the blast.

The heady moisture of the jungle was no match for the fire, and the oppressive heat became choking.

A voice squawked and he blinked.

Remy’s satellite phone.

Lorenzo’s phone had broken down sometime that night, but Remy’s was still working. He shifted Remy’s body and unclipped the phone from her waist.

His voice was hoarse and dry, but clear. “This is the captain. I’m near the evac point. Where’s the second helicopter? I need an extraction. Over.”

“Team status, Captain? Over.”

He caught the movement of a soldier crawling on the ground, another surviving member of his team. From his vantage point, he couldn’t make out who it was. His stomach clenched, the need to vomit overwhelming, but he swallowed it back, the bile piercing his throat. “I see only one man moving, but severely injured. Over.”

“Can you both make it to the backup extraction point? Over.”

He heard the enemy coming closer. Their feet, their cries, their guns. “We’ve got maybe a minute before they make it to the clearing. Over.”

“We can’t land in the fire area. Head a hundred yards east of the fire, and we’ll send down a rope. Get you and your man hitched to it, and we’ll get you out. Over and out.”

Shit!

He knew the men who were coming for them. They were an anomaly here in the dense African jungle. Unlike the kind villagers they’d met during their deployment, these men were not kind. They kidnapped young children, often young girls, for rape and amusement. They also mutilated bodies, even dead ones.

Especially dead female ones.

He did the only thing he could think of: he ran towards the fire.

His friends, his colleagues were all in flames. He put Remy on the ground and – for some reason he couldn’t fathom – he closed her eyes before he tossed her into the flames. Even their enemies would leave a flaming body alone.

To prevent their technology and any sensitive information he carried from falling into enemy hands, he threw his pack on the flames, then grabbed a fallen branch and lit it. He quickly checked the pulses of the bodies littered on the ground, but found none. He set fire around the remaining bodies and tossed the branch aside.

He moved to the writhing figure in the grass. “Perez? Can you run?”

Perez shook his head, his teeth clenched tight. “My legs won’t move. Leave me.”

“We’re the only two fucking people left. I’m not leaving you.”

He didn’t have a choice. He would have to risk injuring Perez more by carrying him to safety.

He ignored Perez’s sharp cry of pain as he cradled him against his chest, and ran like hell.

Then he felt the sharp sting of a bullet in his arm, and he stumbled.

When the next bullet lodged in his thigh, he screamed.

* * *

Lorenzo shoved the bedcovers away, his feet pushing them down and kicking them off the bed. He sat up, gasping for air as if he were still in the jungle, the scream still hoarse in his throat, his body drenched in sweat.

He swung his legs off the side of the bed, set his elbows on his knees, and buried his head in his hands. He took a few, long deep breaths and reminded himself it was just a dream.

It wasn’t just a dream, though. It was a memory, a nightmare he’d lived and survived.

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