Page 76 of When the Stars Fall
“What’s good in your life, Jude?”
“Same answer as before. You.” I dipped my head and kissed her softly. Gently. Like she was made of glass and would shatter if I pressed too hard. It was Lila who deepened the kiss and sunk her teeth into my bottom lip. My girl. She was a fighter.
“Next time you decide to fuck me, don’t forget to bring me along for the ride.”
“You’re my ride or die, baby. I’ll never leave you behind.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jude
I’m crossinga field of poppies in Afghanistan. I’m in front, Reese right behind me. Up ahead, I see the boy. Today he has a cell phone in his hand. He grins at me before he darts away. I know I should report it but I don’t. He’s just a kid, no more than ten or twelve. Why would an innocent kid report our position to the Taliban?
Only a few minutes later, we’re walking down a road when the shooting starts. I duck behind a wall, taking cover. I’m shouting at Reese but it’s too late. He falls to the ground, and I leave my cover, crawling toward him. An AK is pointed at me.
I lift my rifle and get him in my sights. I pull the trigger and I shoot him. The boy’s eyes widen as he falls to the ground. When I look again, it’s not a boy, it’s a baby. Belly down, I drag myself across the blood-soaked dirt. A bullet whizzes over my head and kicks up a cloud of dust right next to me. I don’t even see the next shot being fired or where it’s coming from but I feel it. My face is in the dirt and I’m choking on it. I feel like I’ve been bashed in the head with a baseball bat.
Everything goes eerily quiet but I can still hear the call to prayer from the mosque. Lifting my head, I blink the sweat from my eyes and try to adjust my blurry vision.
I’m shouting, Reese needs help, but nobody hears me.
Pressing my dirt-caked hand over Reese’s neck, I try to staunch the bleeding. “Hang in there, buddy. You’re going to be okay.”
“Can I get a Hail Mary?” His voice is garbled. Blood runs from his mouth like a river.
“You’re going to be okay.” I keep repeating the words, telling him that everything is going to be okay but I know it won’t.
Reese’s eyes stare blankly at the blue Afghan sky.
But it’s not Reese. And it’s not the boy or the Talib I just shot and killed. It’s a baby with green eyes and dark hair.
I get to my feet and I stagger back a step, my boot planted firmly on the ground. My blood runs cold and I’m covered in sweat. I know it was a mistake. I look down just before the IED explodes.
I jolted upright,my pulse racing and my heart pounding. Panic clawed its way up my throat, goosebumps raising the hairs on my sweat-slicked skin.
I was dying. I was going to die. All the air was trapped in my lungs and a freight trained raced through my head. I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“Jude. You’re okay. You’re okay. It was just a dream. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.” She kept repeating it until the words reached my ears and I did as she said, trying to fill my lungs with oxygen then release it. Since when had breathing become so difficult?
I leaned my back against the headboard and closed my eyes, spent and exhausted. “Did I hurt you?” I asked when my breathing was normal again. I wasn’t nineteen years old, watching my friend die before my eyes and I wasn’t in Afghanistan. I was in my bed in Texas with Lila who was pregnant with my child. “Did I do anything...”
“No. No, you were just thrashing. And you... you were shouting.”
Fuck. I was thrashing and shouting? I opened my eyes and scrubbed my hands over my face. “I’m sorry. Did I scare you?”
“No,” she lied.
Of course you did, asshole. What kind of a psycho thrashes and shouts in their sleep? My head hurt like a motherfucker and the light made it worse but I flicked on the table lamp because I needed to see her face. I needed to see Lila and make sure she was okay.
She sat up next to me and I turned my head to look at her face. She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m okay,” she assured me. “What was your dream about?”
I couldn’t tell her. My dream was too real. I never wanted Lila to look at me and see a man who killed people. I never wanted her to know about all the shit I’d witnessed or the things I’d done. Once those visions were in your head, they wouldn’t go away. So I’d always kept them in a separate compartment to shield her from the horrors of war. Except now it wasn’t so easily contained. It was bleeding into my real life. Instead of leaving the war behind like I’d managed to do for the past five years, it had followed me home.
My eyes lowered to her hands. She was cradling her wrist. When she saw me looking, she released it and hid her hands under the covers.
“Lila. Let me see your wrist.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine.”
