“What’s wrong?” he asked, but he didn’t give Tanner a chance to answer as he grabbed the cellphone on Tanner’s desk. Mark hastily unlocked his phone using facial recognition and placed a call.
“Don’t call her, I’m f—” Tanner responded, but was cut off when the call was answered.
“House of God, God speaking, how may I direct your prayer?” a deep masculine voice inquired teasingly.
“Lance?” Tanner asked.
Mark smiled and handed Tanner the phone. “I’ll be outside when you’re ready to go, okay?”
“Tanner? Sweetheart? Are you alright?”
“I think—” he shook his head and tried to breathe through the panic. There was no reason to panic. It would all be alright. “I’m spiralling.”
“What happened?”
“They sent me an envelope.”
“Who did?” Lance asked when Tanner didn’t volunteer it. He didn’t want to volunteer it. He didn’t want his fears to be fully realized and saying it out loud would make it all so real.
“I don’t want to go back,” Tanner’s voice cracked as tears formed. He wiped them away with rough, jerky movements using the sleeve of his shirt.
“You’re not going back, Tanner. We talked about this, and you don’t have anything to worry about. You’re here permanently now,” Lance promised in a hard, confident tone.
“You don’t know that!” Tanner exclaimed, fighting for control over his rising panic. “Whatever they say goes. If they tell me I have to go back—”
“Tanner, sweetheart, please slow down. You were medically discharged right? You were determined to be unfit for active duty, remember? They’re not sending you back,” Lance said calmly and carefully.
“Maybe they changed their minds. Maybe they need pilots and I’m the only one they could find—”
“Tanner, breathe for me.”
“I’m breathing,” he said, even as he felt the room shrinking, the lights dimming, and the walls closing in.
“Is Mark nearby?”
“Yes.”
“Call Mark for me,” Lance ordered, and it was issued so authoritatively that Tanner obeyed immediately.
It took far less time for Mark to return to his office than it took for Tanner to remember where exactly he was. Tanner was suffocating. He pulled at the shirt he was wearing, snapping the first few buttons right off. Then he sat back in his chair, trying to get enough air. When that didn’t work, he got up from his chair and walked around his office. Well, at least that had been the plan, but his bad leg wasn’t holding up very well. He stumbled and reached for the wall to keep his balance. He found the wall cold and reassuringly solid, as he slid down until he was sitting on the floor, pressed into a corner next to his desk.
“Right, yeah, okay.” Mark’s voice was barely audible. He was too busy trying to breathe to care.
“Hey Tanner?” Mark said, as he knelt in front of Tanner. “Lance is almost here, okay?”
Here. Tanner found the word puzzling. Where was he right now? Was he—was he home? Or was he back there? His panic was primal and absolute. It also felt familiar—like an old friend coming to greet him. But some instinct told him to push it back.
“Please don’t leave,” he whispered.
“Just breathe for me, alright?” Mark encouraged him in a gentle voice.
“Where am I?” Tanner asked, fighting to stay in the present.
Mark laughed, which, oddly enough, broke through Tanner’s ennui. “You’re here at your boring office job. You’re here in the US. You’re home. For good.”
He was home, but they were trying to get him back. They were going to pull him away from home kicking and screaming.
“I don’t want to go back, Mark. I don’t want—I can’t!” He hiccupped as fear grabbed him from beneath and pulled on him so hard that he felt sunken halfway through the floor.
