SCAR_A Dark Military Romance Read online

  I close the door and go back to my bed. It’s cool and neat because it hasn’t been laid in yet tonight. I abandoned it for Ken’s arms and I don’t regret it for a second.

  What if he doesn’t come back?

  The question forces itself into my mind. What if he doesn’t? He might not. War takes the good and the brave and the talented. It does not discriminate in its swathes of destruction. Even the most agile fighters can be caught off-balance. Even the stealthiest spies can be exposed.

  All I can do is wait and hope. Hope that he comes back safe. Hope that the fighting stays distant. Hope that we survive another day. I lie there looking at the ceiling, not awake, not asleep, just floating in that place insomniacs know all too well.

  The sun is up when he returns. He smells. It’s a stench of human misery and burning flesh. It’s the sort of scent you don’t get off your clothes. You throw them the hell away.

  I stay still, pretend to be asleep as he tramps to the shower. I hear the water go on, and his clothes hit the ground. If this was anywhere else in the world, any other time, I’d try to go and join him, but the smell he brought with him is pervading the CHU ever more thickly, curling into my nasal passages, making me want to vomit. I can’t stay in here with that smell. I push off the bed and throw open the door, gasping for fresh air as I stand back against the CHU. There are men and women everywhere, going about their business with grim, tired faces.

  From here, I can see that some of the vehicles have taken damage. Charred, twisted metal has been towed back to the FOB. Jesus. The place is a hive of activity. I’d love to go and get a closer look, but I’m not really supposed to be out here at all, and I can see enough to get a sense of the atmosphere anyway. It’s tense, but professional. These men and women work with the ferocity and alacrity of fire ants, mending what needs to be mended, tending to those that need it. It’s really impressive to watch, training turning to effective action which makes the worst conditions in the world not just survivable, but winnable.

  “What are you doing out here?” Ken’s gruff tones interrupt my thoughts.

  “Breathing,” I answer as I turn around to see him standing in the doorway, a white towel around his waist. “Are you okay?”

  I don’t know if I’m in trouble, and I don’t care. I just want to know that he’s alright.

  “I’m fine. Thought I told you to stay inside,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at me with that patchwork stare of his.

  “I.. the smell…”

  “Yeah, sorry,” he says. “I got rid of most of it.”

  You don’t really get rid of it, not right away anyway. It’s pervading the camp, light on the breeze, but present. Indescribably here.

  “Did anyone get hurt?” I ask the question maybe more bluntly than I need to. There’s no good way to ask it, and Ken’s never given me the feeling I need to mince words with him.

  “Couple wounded on our side. Nothing life ending.”

  “And on theirs?”

  “They’re still counting. I’ll leave this door open, but come inside.”

  He ushers me back indoors and I go. This is the reality of life out here. At any minute of the day or night, you can be ripped from your life and sent to end someone else’s. I feel guilty for being relieved that he is okay, and that all “our side” are okay, while out there, not so far away, there are a lot of people who are very much not okay at all.

  Before my stint in the hospital, I would never have been able to handle this. It took away so many things, but it gave me one or two things too - like an understanding of what it truly means to have an enemy, a deep knowing that there are people in the world who will do unspeakable harm. Not in aid of a goal, necessarily, but just because they can.

  It’s a fine line between necessary violence and outright sadism, and in the end it is simply a matter of character. Weak men take pleasure in hurting others, they give in to the beast inside which bays for blood, and the demon which laughs at cruelty. Strong men can do necessary violence without glee. They do it because it is necessary, and they are even more frightening in some ways than the sadists, because their actions are calculated, clear, and devastatingly effective.

  “I’m sorry you had to go do that.”

  He gives me a curious little smile. “It’s my job,” he says. “Someone had to do it, and seeing as I’m more or less on loan out here, I’m happy to do what I can to increase safety.”

  “You’re not with your unit?”

  Stupid question really. I would have noticed a special forces unit here for sure. They carry themselves differently, for better and for worse. Ken is something of a sore thumb in some ways.

  “No,” he says. “I’m out here doing some solo reconnaissance, with backup from these guys. Once I achieve that goal, I’m due leave.”

  Leave. So he’ll be gone. I’ll miss him. The thought of him not being around is already like a knife to the guts, but I try not to dwell on that. We have however long we have together and that will just have to be enough. If there’s one thing life has taught me, it’s that nothing is forever.

  “When you came for me in the hospital, you weren’t special forces then, were you?”

  “I was between enlistments.”

  That makes sense. Men like him are rare and valuable to the military. It’s not uncommon for them to take breaks between enlistments, or even to think that they’re done, only to return. It’s a calling.

  “I’m really lucky you were,” I say softly. If not for him… that doesn’t bear thinking about either. My thoughts are like a minefield of things better not confronted. Sometimes it’s hard to think at all with all the things I can’t think about.

  “We never talked about what happened there,” he says, gently probing. “How you came to be there…”

  I guess I owe him some answers. It’s literally the least I can give him.

  “I was poking my nose in where I wasn’t wanted,” I say with a rueful ghost of what might be a smile. “I’d heard that there were remnants of certain groups continuing the work of their forefathers in South America. I thought maybe I should investigate. I got some funding from an indie news network and I went out there.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah, they only paid me enough to go alone. Said if I found anything, they’d up the budget for the story. But that never happened obviously, because I got caught the first week I was down there. I had managed to sneak up through the hospital, find the wings that obviously weren’t treatment wings.” I talk quickly and blankly, trying desperately not to recall the emotion associated with the incident. “I thought they would maybe beat me up and throw me out, or worst case scenario, kill me. But they managed to find a worse option.”

  “A lot of strings were pulled to get you out of there,” he says. “You must be connected in some pretty high places.”

  “I have no connections,” I say, shaking my head. “I guess I just got lucky.”

  “You never found out who got you out? I thought…”

  Shit. He’s asking a lot of specific questions now. I force myself to stay as calm as possible, though it’s fucking hard.

  “What?”

  “I thought it was your family who had tracked you down,” he says with a slight frown.

  “I was an only child to a single mother, and my mother died while I was in there,” I say, trying not to let the sadness overwhelm me. “When I got back ‘home’ I didn’t have anyone, or anything. I was missing, presumed dead. So they cleared out my apartment and sold my stuff. My friends had moved on. Scared a shit out of a couple of them though.”

  “Oh yeah?” The corner of his lip twists with amusement.

  “Turns out, my being dead was real convenient for my boyfriend and best friend. They were so heartbroken about it all that by the time I saw them again, they were together.”

  “Ouch,” Ken grimaces.

  “And they had a one month old baby.”

  “Oh god.” He rolls his eyes a
nd shakes his head.

  “Yeah, the guy was so sad about me he knocked her up a couple months after I was gone. So, no. There wasn’t anyone in my personal life looking for me, that’s for sure. Actually, after a few weeks of being back, I realized…” I hesitate for a second. “I realized that life had gone on without me. So I got my press credentials, and I headed out here.”

  “Shit,” he says, reaching for me and pulling me into a hug against his bare upper body. He’s rippling with hard won muscles as I curl into his protective embrace.

  This man has been up all night fighting. He came home wearing the scent of the dead. And yet he’s comforting me right now. I don’t know whether to be touched by that, or to feel like an asshole for making this all about me. Both, really.

  “It’s okay,” I mumble into his chest. “I’m safe now.”

  “Goddamn right you are,” he says, squeezing me tight. “Did you get any sleep when I was gone?”

  “A bit.”

  “So none,” he says. “Come on.”

  He lays back on the bed, clad in nothing but the towel and I curl up into him. The door stands slightly ajar, kept open with a boot to allow the dusty breeze to pass into the CHU. It’s already warm and it’s going to get hotter, but I close my eyes and I press my face against his body, and I take what I can get for this moment, right now.

  5

  MARY

  A few days pass. It’s quiet for the most part and Ken and I spend the time together, mostly in bed. He is a demanding and dominant lover. I am a rebellious and receptive one. Together, we are incandescent with passion. In this world of death and fury, mating has a greater meaning and more satisfaction. He is a lion in bed, his cock surging in an out of my aching cunt. I’m sore from sex, but I want more. Always more.

  Work inevitably calls again though, work I am allowed to accompany him on. Something relatively boring then, though I don’t mind because it means I will be with him.

  “We’re going to roll through that same village we did the other day,” he says as we head out. “I want you to stay in the vehicle. Tensions are high right now.”

  “Why?”

  “That attack the other night originated from a local warlord. They’re trying to move in over this way, and the villagers are loyal to them already. But he’s a nasty son of a bitch and I want him. He knows that. So it was this village he hit that night. It’s a warning, to us, to stay away. They’ll be punished with death if they don’t resist us. So today could be dodgy. Stay in the car, no matter what you see, and no matter what happens.”

  “Okay, I agree. “No problem.”

  “That was easy,” he says, his brow raised in surprise.

  I’m surprised too. I want to please him. It’s a strange impulse for a woman like me, but I guess I’ll get used to it.

  The first part of our journey is relatively uneventful. There are more burned out vehicles on the side of the road than before, some of them no doubt from the battle a few days ago. I usually don’t have much of a reaction to sights like these, but on this occasion I’m reminded that Ken was in the middle of this. He was in the range of fire, he was exposed to all this death and destruction. It’s the water in which he swims. I always knew that about him, but this is the first time I really feel it, and it’s the first time it upsets me.

  As we enter the village, there are more sights which indicate battle has taken place. Some of the houses have been utterly destroyed. Others are burned out. There is more chaos than there was last time, and as we roll through, the villagers are obviously suspicious. I try to keep an eye out for the women I met last time, just to see if they’re okay.

  Ken stops the convoy, takes a couple of guys with him and steps out. I wait in the back, two other soldiers with me, weapons at the ready. There’s a little window I can look out of and I see the chaos in the village at close quarters.

  Somewhere, in the midst of the shuffle and the work to rebuild, I see a man and a woman fighting. Well, a woman who is cowering and a man who is yelling at her. As they draw closer I see that it is one of the women from my first visit. I also see that he has, in his hand, one of the little soaps I gave out then. The context is immediately clear. She is being harassed and hurt because of me, because she wanted something a little nice.

  In her, I see myself. I see how I was hurt in that laboratory. I couldn’t fight back, and she isn’t fighting back either, because to do so would be to guarantee her own death.

  I see the man’s fist rise and come down toward the woman. Everything becomes slow motion.

  I’ll never be able to explain what happens next.

  It’s pure rage, and it animates me without my conscious will.

  The sliver of mind which watches my actions dispassionately notes that I am running from the LAV. I am shouting at the top of my lungs. I am lashing out with boots and fists and before I know it the man who was trying to beat the woman is on the ground and I am hitting him with every bit of fury and strength I have.

  KEN

  “Jesus Christ!”

  It takes three of us to pull Mary off the guy. He’s hiding his face in the sand, covering his head with his hands and she is going in on him like a feral animal. There is shouting and chaos and weapons are being drawn and guns cocked and for fuck’s sake this situation was like a powder keg when we rolled up here and now it’s turned into a dangerous farce.

  We grab Mary and throw her into the LAV none too gently. There’s no time for gentle. I bark at the others to hold her in there and I do my best to settle the situation, which has devolved into chaos. It soon becomes apparent that there is no hope of salvaging this mess. If we don’t want to get into an armed conflict, we need to get out of here.

  “Back to base. Now!”

  It’s a retreat, and a shameful one on multiple levels. I am pissed.

  Mary sits in the back of the LAV, a rebellious expression on her face.

  As much as what she did seems admirable, it wasn’t. It was stupid as hell. The guy she went for is the cousin of the man I’m looking for. He’s an asshole, but he was on the verge of giving me some information. Now there’s not a man in that village who will work with us. She just humiliated someone they respect, and she humiliated us too. It’s sexist, but a woman who can’t be controlled is one of the most offensive things to these people. We lost face, we lost ground, we lost intel. And now, I’m going to lose her.

  I take Mary off the LAV and to my CHU as soon as it stops inside the base. She stays quiet, brimming with fury for the fight we both know we’re about to have.

  “He was hitting her!”

  Sure enough, she practically explodes the moment we get inside.

  “I don’t care if he shot her, you don’t attack people out here,” I growl. She doesn’t get it. She’s a huge danger to herself and to everybody else, and I can’t allow that.

  “I’m sending you home. Your credentials are in the process of being revoked.” Saying those words hurts me. It’s fucking awful, but there’s no other option.

  “What?” Her eyes go wide.

  “I can’t let you run amok out here, Mary. You almost got every single one of us killed, and I guarantee you that woman’s life wasn’t improved by what you did either. You’re impulsive and you’re reckless and you’re a danger to yourself and everyone around you. Pack your stuff. You’re going home.”

  “I don’t have a fucking home!”

  “You’ll find one, Mary.”

  I don’t want to send her away. I want to keep her with me, but this is no place for a woman like her. I have to send her home to save her. It’s the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do, and every part of me wants to go back with her, but I can’t. She has to go. And she has to go alone.

  “So you fucked me and now you’re done with me. I get it.”

  She makes everything worse with that accusation which devalues everything we’ve ever had.

  “Don’t you dare,” I growl right back at her. “I want you, Mary. I goddamn
well fucking love you, but you are not in the right frame of mind to be out here, and I’m not going to risk it anymore. You’re going back.”

  “Fuck you, Ken.”

  I see the rejection and anger in her eyes. I’m sure she hates me in this moment. If I have to be hated to keep her safe, then that’s what I’ll be. The next chopper out of here leaves in two hours, and her ass is going to be on it.

  The next hours are some of the worst I’ve had in a long time. I wanted so much for her to be able to stay with me until I get leave. I wanted to take her somewhere nice, Singapore maybe, or a beach in Thailand. But that’s not going to be possible now.

  She needs help. The kind of help I can’t give her here. Her emotions get the best of her, and no matter what she says, I know a death wish when I see one.

  For a second time, I find myself putting the woman I want above all others onto a helicopter.

  “Be good, Mary.”

  She refuses to even look at me as she gets aboard. Her face is a cold mask. She’s hurt. So am I.

  We’ll survive.

  6

  MARY

  I feel like shit. I feel worse than shit, because I know I deserve this, and I know I basically made him do this to me. It’s too late to apologize as the chopper lifts me into the sky. He’s done with me. And it’s all my fault.

  The journey back to the States is long and miserable. I don’t have anything waiting for me there. He knows that, but it’s not his problem. I’m not his problem. I’m absolutely crushed, surrounded by soldiers who are excited to be going home.

  They will be held on base for a week or two to acclimate when they return. I’ll be left at the airport. Fucked if I know what I’ll do then, maybe grab a cheap motel for the night before I explain to my editor how I got expelled.