As he leaves, he offers me a small smile. “You’d overdose on coffee and snap.”
He’s right.
By the time I trudge up the steps to my brownstone—well, my mother’s brownstone—I feel like a wet noodle. That massage was just what I needed. And my mom was having a good day. The new computer setup I got for her allows her to use her barely functional fingers to pick words and phrases off a large monitor so she can communicate. When she can no longer move her fingers, it’ll track to her eye movements.
ALS—amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease—is terminal and insidious. First, she started to stumble. Then noticed weakness in her legs and muscle spasms. That was six months after I moved back to Boston, and two months ago, she lost the ability to speak. But her mind is strong, and even though there’s no cure—yet—and I know she probably only has another year or so with us, she can still read, watch television, and now…send me emails and “talk” to me when I visit her every few days.
Tonight, she spent an hour telling me the story of her and Dad’s first date. And how it ended with food poisoning and a trip to the ER. I haven’t laughed that hard in weeks, and the joy on Mom’s face…it makes all the long days worth it.
After a shower and a cup of chamomile tea, I slip into bed with my tablet to catch up on a few lingering emails before I try for a solid six hours.
The first message waiting doesn’t have a subject, and I don’t recognize the sender. CodeAnon01? What the hell? But as soon as I click on it, my heart starts pounding in my chest and I grip my tablet tighter.
Everything I did was for the good of the company, Evianna. EVERYTHING. And what do I get for it? Fired by the coldest bitch on the planet. You wouldn’t even give me a chance to explain. I thought you cared about the company. I thought you cared about all of us. But all you care about is covering your ass. Whatever you’re planning…it’s going to fail. And everyone will know it’s your fault. Noah never should have hired you. You don’t deserve to work for a company like Beacon Hill. I hope you get what’s coming to you.
My stomach pitches, and my tablet almost slides off my lap. My hands shake as I forward the email to our HR manager, Sarah, with a note.
“I thought you should have a copy of this for your records. He’s angry and hurt, and I don’t blame him. But in case he tries to break his NDA, we’ll need an electronic trail.”
Despite there being nothing I haven’t heard before in the email, something about it unsettles me. Unable to deal with any more drama tonight, I go back for a second cup of tea, and this time, add a generous splash of bourbon to the cup. So much for all that post-massage bliss. Now, I’m more stressed out than ever.
3
Dax
Five hours. As my alarm blares, announcing the time, I’m tempted to grab my phone and throw it across the room. but I rely on it for everything: the color scanning app to help me get dressed, the saved number to the Sighted Companion Network if I get myself lost or need a guide to learn a new neighborhood, the optical character recognition technology built into my lightly tinted glasses that reads menus and signs for me.
At least those five hours were mostly continuous. Better than I’ve had in the past two weeks. Ford and I shot the shit over beers and a burger for three hours, and though my level of “opening up” could only be described as a shallow paper cut, when I got into the Lyft, something between us had shifted from confrontational to almost comfortable again.
My life depends on routines. The toothbrush in its precise place. My electric razor on the charger. The shampoo to the right of the soap. As I run a comb through my hair, I wonder if today’s the day I’ll work up enough courage to call Ryker.
The memories threaten as I sit by the door and pull on my shoes. We came up together. Got roaring drunk together the day we put on our berets and patches for the first time. And for three years, I was his Warrant Officer, his second-in-command.
“Alpha Team! Move! Move! Get the fuck out of there!”
Ry’s order comes a second too late. We’re pinned down, and bullets pepper the rocks all around us, sending shards pelting our helmets and tactical gear. Dropping to my belly, I try to raise CENTCOM. “Alpha Team in need of air support. Now, now, now!”
“We’re on our own,” Ry mutters as he rolls over onto his back next to me. Digging into his pouch, he tugs out a grenade, pulls the pin, and counts to three before letting it sail towards the group of guys we thought were goat herders until they opened fire. “I counted seven. You?”
“Same. Ripper?”
Our Communications Sergeant grabs the radio out of my hands as the explosion rocks the side of the mountain. “Based on where that landed…five now,” he says with a grin. The man’s insane. Zero sense of self-preservation. I swear, he’s only alive because he cares about the rest of us too much to do anything overly stupid.
I angle a quick glance through a crack between two rocks. “Two down, one…Jesus fuck. Make that three. The third guy is…well, spaghetti.”
In seconds, Ripper’s modified the radio to send out a morse code burst with our location. “Hold ‘em off for another ten minutes, and we’ll be sitting pretty on the chopper out of here.”
“Sitting ugly, you mean,” Gose says. “We’re the sorriest looking sons of bitches in Afghanistan. Hab’s covered in goat shit, for fuck’s sake.“
“And yet Ry still looks like he’s modeling for an army recruitment poster. He’s the prettiest thing out here,” I joke. That earns me a punch to the arm, but I’m right. The fucker could model—if he wasn’t always covered in dirt and tactical gear.
“Fuck you. Don’t call me pretty.” He jams a fresh magazine into his M4. “Ready?”
Checking my own mag, I nod. “I got your back.”
I always had his back. And he had mine. Even in Hell. How can I be too scared to call him? I’m fucking Special Forces. No one can take that away from me. Even if I can’t see more than vague hazy shapes and colors. I don’t back down. I don’t let shit scare me off. But calling Ry…I just can’t. Not yet.
Evianna
