Page 50 of Velvet and Valor
“How did you get out of your cuffs, anyway?”
Axel holds his right hand in the air. He grabs his thumb with the opposite hand and bends it back….and back…and back!
“That looks excruciating,” I say.
“That’s because it is,” he winces. I notice he has red abrasions all over his wrists. Those cuffs didn’t come off easily.
“Are you double-jointed?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Well, not in the conventional sense.”
His eyes grow distant, and there’s a ghost of old pain in his gaze when he speaks.
“We were in the mountains of Afghanistan chasing down some guy whose name I couldn’t hope to pronounce in a terrorist compound. Intel told us it would be lightly defended. It was anything but.” Axel’s gaze darts to me and softens slightly. “Fortunately, our CO figured out the mistake and ordered us all back into the chopper. My friend, Charlie Nash, he…he took a dozen rounds in the back two steps from the copter.”
“Oh, Axel,” I say, my heart shattering like glass for him. “That’s so awful.”
“I grabbed his arms, and I held on as the copter lifted off. I wouldn’t let him go, even when my CO was screaming at me to. He was dead. I knew he was dead, I just…didn't want to leave him behind.”
Axel’s expression sobers, and his eyes return mostly to the present.
“Anyway, it was a good ten miles to a safe place to touch down. By the time we got there, the damage had been done. I tore up my hands, bad. Needed two surgeries to correct it, but on the bright side I can slip out of cuffs no problem.”
I look at his wrists. They have to hurt like hell. No problem my foot!
“Does it hurt?” I ask softly.
“Nah,” he says, grinning.
I sigh and my shoulders slump.
“Yeah, they hurt,” he says. I look up and see that the grin is gone. “Bad, sometimes. Especially when it rains.”
It isn’t much, but he does shove the door open a little further, to let me in. I feel warmth spreading through my core, but then I remember we're sitting on the side of a gravel road with two dead bodies.
“Um, should we get out of here?” I ask.
“Hell yes,” Axel says. “I’m driving.”
“This isn’t even a cop car,” Axel says, sliding behind the wheel. “No radio, no computer. These guys are total amateur hour.”
“They fooled you enough to get you into cuffs,” I point out.
Axel opens his mouth, jabbing a finger at me, ready to mount a defense. But it dies in his throat, and his gaze.
“Touché,” he says, starting up the engine.
I buckle up as he tears around in a swift, hard turn. The SUV comes up on two wheels as we sail around the bend and back onto the main road.
“Slow down!” I snap.
“Sorry, this thing’s got a lot more ass than I thought it would,” Axel says, shifting down. “Somebody’s been modding around under the hood. I think this thing is turbocharged.”
“I’ll just pretend I know what that means.”
“It means truck go fast,” he says with a mad cackle, taking us around a sharp bend in the road. The trees get perilously close. “Woohoo, I’m going to have to buy one of these!”
“Axel, you’re freaking me out,” I say, grabbing the Jesus handle over my window and hanging on for dear life.
