Page 22 of Only Her (K2 Team)
That hurt, but he had it coming. Not that he wanted to stick around and have the couple stare at him like he was the big bad bogeyman, so he gladly headed to the Range Rover. When he reached the vehicle, he slid into the driver’s seat, started the ignition, and turned on the heater to warm up the interior. He figured it was better if he drove. That way, he could ignore everyone and they could ignore him.
He scrubbed at his face. What the hell was wrong with him? The dream had haunted him for months now, but he had no memory of meeting a young woman named Asra. Inside that cabin, though, when Justin put the knife to Megan’s throat, Cody had been transported back to a dusty room in Afghanistan and had seen Asra’s face clear as day.
There was no way he could hide this from Kincaid. If he didn’t tell the boss, Ryan would, and rightly so. He didn’t want to believe it had been a flashback, but what else could it have been? And why couldn’t he remember?
The front passenger door opened and Justin slid in, giving him a wary glance before putting on his seatbelt. Ryan got in the back with the girl so that the couple wasn’t sitting behind him and Ryan where they could get up to no good.
“Glad that’s over,” Ryan said as they watched Megan hugging her parents.
“Yeah, me, too.” Justin’s parents were on their way to bail him out of jail. The charges against him were going to be tough for the kid to beat, but Cody hoped he’d been scared straight. As they walked out of the Des Moines airport, he tried to get a handle on the bugs crawling under his skin. Ryan had decided they’d spend the night here, have dinner and a long talk. It was the last thing Cody wanted to do.
“Anything particular you want to eat?”
“No.” He wasn’t even sure he could eat. His head felt like spiders had woven thick webs around his brain, keeping him from being able to think straight. His legs and feet were a hundred pounds heavier, making it hard to put one step in front of the other. His heart had shriveled to the size of a prune. And he was tired, so damn tired.
It was getting harder to deny that something had occurred on his last deployment that he couldn’t remember. Ryan probably expected him to try to explain away what had happened in that cabin today, but he wasn’t going to do that. It was time to man up and admit something was wrong, letting the chips fall where they may.
They ended up at a diner near the hotel where they’d made a brief stop to book rooms. There hadn’t been many cars in the parking lot, and Cody guessed that was why his teammate had chosen it. Easier to talk with no one around. Another reason might be that there was no alcohol available, which Cody would almost kill for.
They took a booth in the far corner, and without looking at the menu Cody ordered scrambled eggs, toast, and a glass of milk. His stomach wasn’t feeling so well, and he hoped he could keep the bland meal down.
“You call Kincaid?” he asked after the waitress left.
Ryan leaned back against the booth with one arm stretched across the top. “No. Texted him. Told him we’d be back in the morning.”
That surprised Cody. His friend should have called the boss, giving him an update on the operation and Cody’s screwup. The waitress returned with Cody’s milk and a cup of coffee for Ryan.
“I never told you what went down with my wife.”
“You mean besides the robbery?” Ryan’s wife had been killed when a druggie had shot her after burglarizing her jewelry shop. Where he was going with this, Cody hadn’t a clue.
“Yeah, besides the robbery.” He put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands, reminding Cody of someone praying. “She was two months pregnant when she was killed. Do the math.”
Cody blinked. They’d been deployed for six or seven months when Ryan had been notified that she was dead. “Fuck, man. You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish. The thing is, every one of us on the team has been screwed up in one way or the other. From what I understand, Kincaid couldn’t get past the guilt of losing Evan on his watch. Jake lost a man on a K2 operation and went off the deep end for a time. Jamie blamed himself for his parents’ deaths, which messed with his mind for years.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I just pick up on things here and there mostly. As for me, I spent a year trying to deal with the fact that my wife cheated on me. My point is, you’re not the only one on the team who’s walked ass deep through shit. We’ve all been there. You need to trust that not only do we understand better than most, but we’ll always have your six. You’ll always be our brother. Now tell me about these nightmares you’re having.”
The reassurance that his team would have his back was fractionally calming, but his craving for a bottle of scotch and a dark room hadn’t abated. Problem was, if he started down that road, he might never come back.
Their meal arrived, and Cody tried not to gag at the greasy smell coming from Ryan’s burger. Man, his stomach was messed up. He forced a bite of eggs down his throat, following it up with a long drink of milk.
He ate one slice of toast before setting down his fork. No way he could eat and talk about his nightmare at the same time. “So, that dream I keep having. It’s always the same. I think what happened in the cabin was triggered by hearing the guns going off at the same time the kid put the knife to Megan’s throat. It was like I was back there again.”
“I’m guessing those were the deer hunters we were warned about. Go on.”
“I’m... I’m about to go up on a roof with my spotter when this young girl calls to me. I know her because she’s given me intel previously. I tell my spotter to go on up to the rooftop, and then cross the alley and follow her into the house, thinking she’s got some new info. It’s not until then that I see she’s hurt. Then I sense someone behind me. That’s it. That’s where I wake up drenched in sweat every fucking time.”
Ryan pushed his empty plate to the end of the table. “And the flashback was the same as that?”
Cody slid his half-empty plate aside. “Yeah, I saw her clear as day. It wasn’t Megan in that room, it was Asra. I swear I don’t know anyone named Asra.”
“You know this happened for real, right?”
“If so, you’d think I’d remember.”
