Page 62 of Married to My Master

Benton shook his head and began to flip the burgers. “It's just so fucking hard all the time. You know, first, they say they want you to admit to having it—the PTSD. Then, they want you out because of it. Then, they don't want to give you the help you need.”

“Come on, Benton,” Dane clapping his brother on the shoulder and squeezing, “I know you're trying. It's tough coming back. I know it is. But, you're a good father, at least you try to be. Better than Mom and Dad, right?”

Benton laughed. “Yeah,” he said, still flipping burgers and rolling hot dogs. “Don't I know it.”

“Just keep taking the medication the doctor recommended. Things'll get better, and you'll still be there for your kids. You'll see. You'll be the best dad any kid ever hoped for in this fucked up world.”

His twin chuckled. “Yeah. My kids don't deserve this world, I'll say that for sure. They deserve heaven.”

“Don't we all?” Dane asked, laughing. He took another drink of his beer and looked back out to the kids, watched them rolling around and fighting on the green lawn.

“What about you?” Benton asked. “You dating anyone yet?”

“Me?” he asked, shaking his head. “Still getting used to civilian life. Haven't really started to get settled in, yet. Figure it'll happen when it happens.”

“Well, I hope you find that special someone,” Benton said, as he stepped away from the grill and, beer in hand, went to stand next to Dane. “Landon and Paula need cousins, you know. And maybe, if she gets a niece or a nephew, Marianne will back off about our third one.”

Dane laughed. “Number three?”

Benton rolled his eyes. “I can hardly keep up with these two. And, just my luck, twins will end up running in the family.”

As they both laughed, the day began to fade, the world disappearing into a blanket of shrouded darkness. The vision ended, drifting away no matter how hard Dane tried to hold onto it.

His ears rang from the shock, and his world seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Instead of Landon and Paula's laughter, there was the sound of stomping feet. Instead of the taste of Bishop's Brews, there was salt and copper.

The men tore him from Emily, pulled her away as she screamed, and reached out for him. Emily’s hands grasped at empty air as they took her back to the barricades.

With his last bit of waning strength, Dane reached out for her like a lifeline. His hands touched nothing but empty air, though, and fell to the plaza.

This was it. It was all over. Even if Benton's family wouldn't ever come back, he'd still be vindicated. Dane had seen to that. But, like in all things, there was a price to pay. Now Dane had his own crimes to take responsibility for.

# # #

Emily

The world was a blur as Emily was pulled from Dane's strong embrace by more hands than she could count. With her ears ringing, she screamed for him as she reached out across the distance, her fingers grasping vainly as she was dragged away.

The only person who mattered to her now was being taken away from her by gray, indistinct shapes that seemed little more than ghosts. “Dane!” she screamed, her soundless words raw in her frayed throat. “Dane!”

He just looked on, his eyes haunted and distant as the EMT's and paramedics surrounded him, blocking him from view. Emily realized she'd been wounded, too, as she tried to stumble toward him, her leg giving out beneath her wait.

No, this was all happening too fast, like the worst nightmare anyone could conceive of, and she was thrust into the middle of it, like Alice through the Looking Glass. They began to drag her back to the ambulance, trying to gently subdue her as her hearing resumed.

The world of sound, previously dimmed from the gunfire, returned in with a crash. The sound of helicopter blades pounded above her, sirens whirred, and men shouted orders. “Get him in the stretcher! We need to see how bad these gunshots are!”

“Get her back to the ambulance! I want a tourniquet on that leg! We need to stop the bleeding!”

They dragged her back to the ambulance as she kicked and screamed, fighting against every inch they put between her and Dane. “Please,” she sobbed, her throat ragged and raw as she sobbed out her tears. “Please, let me go to him!”

“Ma'am, we need you to settle down,” they replied, their voices one step away from tense shouts as two burly medics finally lifted her into the air and got her into the rear of the ambulance.

“Dane!” she screamed again, the tears streaming down her face now as she fought against their hands and grappling arms. Men in uniforms strapped her to the stretcher and tightened her bonds as she thrashed violently, trying to break free to get back to her love.

“Get a god-damn sedative in her,” growled one of the men. “She'll bleed herself out with all this kicking.”

“Surprised she's going so strong, with all this blood gone.”

Then there was a sharp pain in her thigh, followed by blissful, omnipresent darkness that encompassed all. She drifted like a lost soul over the inky waves of blackness, the only thought she could form a wordless blob that coalesced into the shape of Dane Bishop, his shirt bloody and ragged, his eyes hollow and haunted as he watched her torn from his protective embrace.

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