Page 43 of Beckett
“The dog alerted. Why didn’t you see it?”
“We trusted you!”
My hands were slick—blood or sweat, I couldn’t tell. My heart hammered against my ribs like automatic fire, each beat a bullet that might tear me apart. The air turned thick, too heavy to breathe, like drowning in reverse.
Rodriguez down. Miller screaming. The interpreter’s eyes, wide and unseeing, reflecting the sky he’d never see again.
I’d failed them. Failed to read the signs. Failed to call a halt in time. The K-9 had alerted—hackles up, low growl—but I’d been watching the wrong sector. Three seconds. That’s all it would have taken. Three seconds of attention in the right direction and they’d all still be alive.
“Beckett? Are you okay?”
A voice cutting through the gunfire. Female. Wrong. There were no women in our unit.
“Beckett? Can you hear me? What’s wrong?”
Hands on my arms. Small, gentle hands that shouldn’t be here. The enemy. Had to be. I reacted on instinct, muscle memory taking over—grip, control, neutralize. My fist pulled back, body coiling to strike.
“Oh shit. Okay. Okay, don’t hit me. Please, Beckett. It’s me, it’s Audra.”
Audra. The name fought through the chaos, but my body wouldn’t listen. Every muscle locked in combat readiness. I could feel her bones under my fingers, fragile as bird wings, and I was gripping too hard but couldn’t stop. The part of me still anchored in the present screamed warnings, but the part drowning in the past was stronger.
“Beckett, look at me.” Her voice shook, hitching on tears she was fighting. “You’re in Montana. You’re safe. There’s no danger here. Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real.”
No. Wrong. The danger wasalwaysreal. The second you forgot that, people died. I’d learned that lesson in blood and failure.
“Please,” she said, and now I could hear her crying, feel her trembling under my grip. “Please, Beckett, you’re scaring me. What’s happening? Are you sick? Should I— Jet, no, stay back!”
The dog. Whining. Pressing against my leg. Another heartbeat in the chaos, steady and real. But not enough to pull me back from the edge.
I collapsed to the ground. My chest felt crushed, like someone had parked a Humvee on my sternum. Each breath came shorter than the last, lungs refusing to expand fully. The world started to fragment at the edges, darkness creeping in like spilled ink.
This is bad. Really bad. Worse than it’s been in months.
“Your eyes,” Audra said, her voice high and thin. “You’re not seeing me at all, are you? God, what do I do? How do I help you?”
Through sheer force of will, I managed to shift slightly. The movement sent lightning through my locked muscles, but it made my phone slide partially out of my pocket. The effort left me shaking, sweat running cold down my spine.
“Your phone?” Her voice caught with hope. “You need your phone?”
I couldn’t nod. My neck had turned to stone, every tendon pulled tight enough to snap. But she understood somehow, maybe from the way my gaze flickered down.
“Okay. Okay, I’m going to get it. But you’re holding my arms. You have to let go.”
Let go. Simple. Impossible. My fingers had become steel cables, digging into her arms hard enough that I could feel her pulse racing beneath her skin. I was hurting her. I had to be. Another sin to add to the collection. Another person I was harming when I should protect.
She shifted, working around my grip, her breath coming in short gasps. “Can you ease up just a little? Just enough so I can reach? Please, Beckett. I know you don’t want to hurt me. I know you’re trying to fight whatever this is.”
The darkness pushed closer, narrowing my vision to a pinpoint. Time running out. If I went under completely, if I lost the ability to communicate at all, she’d be alone with someone in full PTSD lockdown.
With effort that felt like lifting the entire world, I willed my fingers to loosen. Not much. A fraction. But enough that she could twist, could contort herself to reach.
Her hand found my phone, pulled it free. The screen was cracked from where it had hit something when I’d first grabbed her, spider-web fractures across the glass that caught the light like broken promises.
“Who do I call?” Desperation made her voice crack. “9-1-1? Should I call 9-1-1?”
No. Not that. They’d take me to a hospital. Sedate me. Make everything worse. I needed someone who understood. Someone who’d walked through this particular hell and come out the other side.
“Coop,” I managed, the word scraping out like broken glass, leaving my throat raw.
