12:39 p.m.…
Leo watched Olivia’s throat work over a swallow and her big, blue eyes widen until they seemed to take up her whole face. “R-Rusty?” she asked, her voice breathless and weak. Neither condition struck him as particularly Olivia-like.
Then again, that awful day outside Aleppo had changed all of them, so…right.
“You see, we made this…um…” He trailed off, trying to find a way to explain the unexplainable. How did one describe what it was like to spend a decade and a half working and fighting beside a guy, being scared and cold and hungry on the battlefield, or sharing beers and bonfires and bar bunnies back stateside? How did one explain what it was to be part of a band of brothers and the incredible weight of a deathbed promise to live your life to the fullest because one of you wasn’t going to live another sixty seconds?
“Look, Rusty had been talkin’ about hangin’ up his combat boots and camo for a while,” he said, opting for the simplest of explanations. “He kept sayin’ that none of us were gettin’ any younger, that all of us had more than done our duty for our country, and that it was time to start makin’reallives for ourselves. When we found him alive inside that asshole general’s compound—”
“I don’t know how he lasted that long,” she whispered, shaking her head, her voice catching. “When I left him, I would haveswornhe was dead. If I’d known he was still alive, I would’ve—”
“He was the toughest sonofagun I ever knew,” he cut her off. “And heshouldhave been dead. Don’t blame yourself, Olivia. There was nothin’ you could’ve done for him. Except maybe get yourself killed too.”
Something flickered in her eyes, something that had him cocking his head. Then it was gone. Just like that. And, yeah. He reckoned no matter what he said, nothing could make her stop second-guessing that day.
“Anyway,” he went on, “he brought it up again.So, we made a pact”—thoughcovenantwas really closer to describing the promise they all made while huddled on the floor of that helicopter—“that we would do what he wanted. Quit the Navy as soon as our contracts were up and start makingreallives for ourselves.”
He lifted his arm, showing her the tattoo and leaving out the part where tears and snot had flooded from his face while he held his dying friend in his arms, his fingers and the fingers of his men plugging gunshot holes—somanygoddamned gunshot holes—in a vain attempt to sustain a life that was quickly slipping away…
“Promise me,” Rusty said, the gurgle of blood making his words nearly unintelligible above the loudwhump-whump-whumpofthehelicopter’s rotors beating the hot air overhead. The big bird lurched forward, its landing skids scraping the ground for a couple of heartrending seconds before it finally hopped into the sky. The sound of rounds pingingoffthechopper’s metal skin grew fainter and fainter as they gained altitude and raced to get out of range. All the while Michael “Mad Dog” Wainwright maintained his position at the open door, raining death in the form of hot lead onto the rebels below.
Bwarrrrrrr! Bwarrrrrr!Thebigfloor-mounted .50-caliber machine gun’s mouth burned bright orange from the heat of the endless rounds it spat from its throat. Spent casingsclinkety-clackedagainstthefloorandwallsallaroundthem.
“P-promise,” Rusty gurgled again, one side of his face covered in blood from the bullet that had grazed his skull and left his scalp torn.
“Don’t talk, man!” Bran begged, yelling over the angry buzz of the weapon. Leo looked up to find his best friend’s face shiny with far more than just sweat. Great streams of tears streaked down Bran’s dusty cheeks and formed crystalline droplets in the bushy beard he’d grown to blend in with the local population. “Save your strength!”
“Pr-omise me, LT…” Rusty insisted, lifting his hands to curl his fingers around the straps of Leo’s body armor. Considering most of Rusty’s blood was coating the floor of the helicopter, the little jerk he gave Leo was surprisingly strong, “…that you’re f-f—” He was racked by coughing then, blood filling his mouth to leak from the corners of his chapped lips in oozing rivulets.
“Turn him onto his side so he can breathe!” Doc bellowed, ripping open a package of QuikClot with his teeth.
“How is he?” Romeo yelled from his place in the copilot’s seat. Leo didn’t answer. He was too busy helping Bran, Mason, and Wolf keep pressure on Rusty’s myriad wounds while they carefully pushed him onto his side so the fluid filling his lungs and throat didn’t choke him to death. Rusty grunted, hacking up a puddle of blood that coated Leo’s knees. But that gruesome mess was nothing compared to the sight that met his eyes when Doc yanked up the side of Rusty’s fatigues shirt, revealing a ragged wound on his flank that pumped deep red, nearly black blood.
Oh shit. Oh, please God, no.Leowasnodoctor, but he’d been in the field long enough to know a punctured liver when he saw one.
Docglancedup at him, his expression a terrible perversion of its usual wholesome Midwestern self. And with that one look, he confirmed what Leo hadn’t allowed himself to contemplate since the moment they dragged Rusty into the helicopter. Their friend and teammate, their brotherineverythingbutblood, wasn’t going to walk away from this one.
Leolethisheaddropbackonthecolumnofhisneck, gritting his jaw so hard it was a wonder his teeth didn’t crumble. And for the first time in his life, he cursed God or Fate or whoever the hell else might be responsible for this unforgivable mistake. And itwasamistake. Because Rusty was thebestofthem. The man they all counted on to keep them sane, keep them grounded when things went pear-shaped and the bottom dropped out from under their asses.
Thiswasn’t supposed to be happening. It couldn’t be happening. Itshouldn’tbehappening!
Fuck you!hesilentlyyelledtoeveryoneandnooneinparticular.Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuuuuuuck you!
Ifhe’d been screaming the words aloud, he would have shredded his vocal cords, flayed his throat raw. But he held them in until they exploded inside his chest like a handful of live grenades, burning and flaming until his heart and lungs were reduced to ashes.
And that’s when he felt it…the warm liquid pouring down his face.
For a moment, he thought maybe he’d been grazed by a bullet. But, no. A second later he knew it wasn’t blood that coursed unchecked over his cheeks. Like Bran, he could no more stop the tears spilling from his eyes than the mighty Mississippi could stop itself from spilling into the Gulf.
“LT!Madre de Dios!” Romeo called back again after Mad Dog finally laid off the trigger on the big sawgun. “How the hell is he?”
LeoloweredhisheadandturnedtoRomeo. He didn’t need to speak the awful words aloud. His tears and the agony on his face said it all.
Romeo’s mouth fell open, his nostrils flaring wide as his own eyes welled with wetness. And for a couple of seconds, the two of them shared the soul-shredding knowledge that these were Rusty’s last minutes. The moment stretched and contracted, taking an eternity and simultaneously seeming over in the blink of an eye. Using his hands to wipe the moisture from his cheeks, Romeo jerked his chin in a quick downward motion of understanding, casting Rusty one last, lingering look before turning back to the helicopter’s controls.
TherewasnothingRomeocoulddoforRustynow. Nothing any of them could do except maybe try to make him comfortable.
ItwasasifDochadreadLeo’s mind. When Leo swung back around, he found the man reaching into his medical go-bag and pulling out two syringes of morphine.
