Page 35 of Fighting for Valor
Within thirty seconds, they’ve both confirmed, and as I fall asleep to the sounds of the rain on the sidewalk and the occasional light mist coating my cheeks, I decide to give Safe Haven another try. I might fail. But I have to find a way to get some semblance of my life back, even if I never touch a computer again.
Chapter Fifteen
Cara
The light seeps through the thin curtains in my bedroom, waking me long before I want to open my eyes. After I make myself a cup of tea and take my meds, I curl up on the second-hand couch with my tablet and check my email.
Still nothing from Leland. My stomach twists into knots, and every day I don’t hear from him is another day closer to breaking his rules—and mine—and calling him. I have an internet site I can use to mask my location, but it’ll only give me two minutes of time. And it’s expensive.
Please, Leland. Get back to me.
The man’s been a JSOC analyst for twenty-five years. He knows how to hide and how to protect himself. Taught me everything I needed to know in a safehouse at the edge of Charleston before he sent me to Tulsa with two different fake IDs.
“This guy in Afghanistan is one of the worst on JSOC’s radar. Yet no one goes after him because he has contacts everywhere. Runs guns, missiles, drugs, and…people.”
“People?” I whisper as I change the bandages on the gunshot wound to my thigh. The bullet only grazed me, but it was enough I almost didn’t get away.
My tea goes cold before I rein in my racing thoughts. Grabbing my phone, I go right for my standard coping mechanism—puzzles. If I can distract my brain for ten minutes or so, I might be able to pull myself out of this panic cycle before a full-blown attack.
It’s an hour before I move from the couch, and as I stand, pain shoots up my calf from my turned ankle. Thank God I don’t have to work at the diner today.
The free morning and afternoon mean it’s time for me to plan out the next week. My light blue canvas box holds the only things more important to me than my lapis pendant and my fake ID: my notebook, a weekly organizer, a set of colored pens, and my bank ledger.
Survival on the run with ADHD, anxiety, and a potentially life-threatening heart condition requires me to plan my life down to the day—if not the hour. I can’t be caught without meds, and since the combination of drugs I need to keep myself sane and healthy are so unique, I have to buy them illegally. The local pharmacy is too risky.
Sitting at my little kitchen table, I count out my pills. Fourteen days left for my ADHD meds and the anxiety pills, but…shit. Only three days left for my beta-blockers. The small little pills keep my heart rate from skyrocketing and aggravating a genetic condition that leaves me prone to arrhythmia. Without them, I feel like I’m running a marathon—all the time.
To make it to the end of the month, I’ll need another $400 paid to my dealer. Which means dipping into my cash reserves. My anxiety kicks up a notch as I check the balance. When I left JSOC, I had $50,000. Now…I’m down to less than $22,000, and the balance shrinks every two weeks when I have to replenish my meds.
The notes I scribble on each day in the planner get harder to read as two words bounce around inside my head. My dealer. I have a dealer. If my mother saw me now, she’d call for her fainting couch. The last few years of her life—lung cancer stole her from me when I was only twenty-three—she never stopped talking about how beautiful I looked at my debutante ball back in Charleston. She was convinced I was going to be a doctor or a lawyer. Or at the very least, the wife of one.
Instead, I’m a former chef with people out to kill her, who’s working as a waitress with a side gig slinging comfort food out of a truck. Sitting back, I scan the various multi-colored notes strewn across the next two weeks. I don’t know how much longer I can go without something going my way, but I have to try.
Ripper
The morning rush at Broadcast Coffee is long over by the time I pull open the door a few minutes before 10:00 a.m. Good. Dax and Ry aren’t here yet. I don’t want a repeat of breakfast the other day. After I order a cappuccino and a piece of pound cake, I take a seat where I can watch the door.
With the tall windows in front of me and rock music blaring through the speakers, this is about as different from Faruk’s compound as it could be. There…it was quiet all the time. When he was pleased with me, I was allowed an hour or two after the morning prayers and breakfast to walk the courtyard and exercise, but the rest of my days…he insisted I stay inside, confined to my work room or my small prison with its cot, dresser, and bathroom.
I wash down my morning meds with a generous sip of coffee, watching each customer as they enter. Ry’s truck pulls up to the curb across the street, and as he and Dax head for the door, I worry this was a mistake. They’re going to try to get me to join Hidden Agenda again, and I can’t.
“Rip,” Ry says, directs Dax to the chair to my left. “I’ll get the coffee. You want anything else?”
“Pretty sure I can find my own damn seat,” he mutters in reply. “I’m not totally blind, you know. And yeah. Anything that won’t end up all down my shirt.”
As he folds up his cane and takes a seat, he sniffs. “Never thought I’d see you eating sweets.”
“See?”
Dax chuckles. “Yeah, dumbass. It’s an expression. You’re not going to piss me off by saying the word. Besides, ‘never thought I’d smell you eating sweets’ sounds like I’m Hannibal Lecter.”
I don’t know what to say, and I try not to flinch when he reaches out and rests his hand on my shoulder. “Rip, you can crack a joke once in a while. Or laugh.”
“Not sure I remember how.” Pulling away, I wrap my hands around my mug. All of a sudden, I’m freezing, which my shrink would say is evidence that I’m headed towards a panic attack if I don’t find a way to distract myself. “H-how’s Evianna?” Small talk. I remember small talk. Vaguely.
“Good.” His voice softens, the southern twang deepening. “She and Wren are dress shopping and cake tasting.”
“New Year’s Eve, yeah?” The rich cappuccino suddenly tastes like sludge. “Double wedding?”
