Ifwas a word that haunted him.Ifonly they hadn’t gone on that last mission;ifhe’d checked intelligence reports just one more time, even though he’d checked them a half dozen times before they left;ifone of his team hadn’t hesitated when that woman came out of the darkness, running toward them.
“Does it ever go away?” she asked.
He heard the tears in her voice and stroked her wet hair and lied, because at the moment that was what she needed.
“In time. Just hold on. Hold onto me.”
“You’ve seen it before.”
They both knew what she meant.
“Aye.”
“How do you make it go away?”
He thought about that, the conversations with fellow soldiers, his mates, with people who had been there and lived through it, and other people with a list of degrees behind their name who thought they understood but didn't have a clue.
“You tuck it away deep inside,” he told her. “You lock it in a box, and keep it there.”
And pray to God the box doesn’t open, he thought. Because if it did, it would consume you, piece by piece, until there was nothing left.
“After a while, it’s something you remember,” he brushed a strand of hair back at her cheek.
“But it’s not the first thing you remember. And then, it’s not the second or third thing. It's as if it happened to someone else.” Another lie.
The flat was silent except for the faint hum of the furnace. Her head was heavy at his shoulder and he realized that she was asleep. He eased her down onto the couch and tucked the wool blanket around her.
There would be dreams. It was impossible to escape them, but he would be there, awake, unable to sleep...fighting back his own demons.
It was half past one in the morning.
He tapped the number on his cell phone, abruptly ended the call, and stared at the clock. He entered the number again, this time waiting for the ringtone.
How many times, Jonathan Callish thought, had he dialed that number late at night, only to end it before she picked up? Knowing that it made her angry. Then, coming through the entry from the garage eventually, safe.
The evening news channel had carried the broadcast—the latest terrorist attack in London they were calling it. A local nightspot this time, popular with young professionals at week’s end, gathering to toss back the latest cocktails while unwinding from the work week, execs from the latest start-up, entertainment types from theatre, and the assortment that seemed to gather in places like that.
The photos from the Blue Oyster had been ghastly. Among the dead—Brynn Halliday of Sky News, a video of her being carried into an ambulance, a lifeless hand slipping from under the blanket over her body.
He'd glanced at the clock then and watched the newscast with growing anxiety, terrified to see the carnage, terrified what he might see, terrified to change the channel.
She's not there, he told himself. She's alright. But still he watched, scanning the faces of the injured, those who had survived, the chaos.
There was no answer.
Where are you? screamed through his thoughts as the images on the screen played like a macabre horror film. He ended the call and hit the auto dial key again as a sound at the latch came from the door.
“Where have you been?” he demanded as she came through the entry hall.
“Working,” she replied, throwing down keys and a shoulder bag. “I told you I would be working late.”
“The news...”
She looked past him to the wide-screen on the wall.
“Yes, it was on all the channels. Have they said how many casualties?”
“Several were taken to hospital...” he started to explained. “You know how I worry.”
