Page 29 of Fighting for Valor
He’s well spoken, sober, and polite. So why is he sleeping on the streets? Another sip of wine, and I lean back and close my eyes. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll pack up an order of enchiladas after my shift and drop them off to him. I feel like I should do something to thank him for helping me, even if he did get all snippy at the end. Before he broke down completely.
There’s something about him that calls to me. The sadness in his voice, the haunted look on his face…he knows loss, and while I can’t fill the hole in my own life from giving up the person I used to be, maybe a little kindness can help ease his pain.
Before I crawl into bed, I grab the little notebook with all my secrets and the cheap tablet I got off of eBay. Searching for Cara Phillips seems ridiculous at this point. I’ve been safe for eighteen months in Seattle, but I still can’t relax. Not after how close I came to losing it all back in Tulsa.
No current results, so I move on to the other names on my list. Francis Jessup, Bill Parr, and J.T. Richards. Still nothing. Just like every other time I’ve looked.
My stomach won’t settle, my anxiety a vibrating knot deep inside, so I log in to the anonymous email account I created when I left Fort Bragg. Leland Parker—the only man in the world I trust with my life and my secrets—sends me an email message once a month, and he’s overdue by a week now.
Nothing.
Opening the notebook, I find the words I copied from his last message and read them again, hoping this time, I’ll find something in them to give me hope. I should know better.
Our mutual friends came by again last week for a visit. They lost track of the international package they were looking for, and hoped I’d seen it. The weather’s turning unbearable here, and I’m going to escape the heat for a while. Stay safe.
It’s a terrible code. But at least this time of year, the weather in North Carolina can melt asphalt, so if anyone did get a hold of the message, they wouldn’t know with any certainty he was talking about anything other than the ambient temperature.
The international package has to be J.T. Richards. So, apparently he’s no longer in Afghanistan working for the guy Jessup and Parr knew. If the two JSOC operatives are looking for Richards, maybe they’ve decided to leave me alone for a while. Or…maybe I’m fooling myself.
I look at the clock and groan. Tomorrow’s going to be just as long of a day as today, and it’s almost midnight.
With a final check of the locks, I turn out the lights and burrow under the covers and my weighted blanket. It helps keep the anxiety at bay while I sleep, and makes me feel…almost like someone’s holding me. Yeah, right. Like that’ll ever happen again.
Between my broken brain and the two men who want me dead…I’m bad relationship material. I can’t get comfortable, and an hour later, I’m still tossing and turning. Every time I close my eyes, I go back to the day everything changed and hear Jessup’s voice, the rage in his tone terrifying me.
“It’s time to put the pressure on our foreign friend,” a man says as he jingles his keys in his pocket. The sound echoes off the walls of the parking garage, and I freeze, pressing myself to the back of a cement pillar. I know this guy. Jessup. Every time he comes into the JSOC cafeteria, he stares at me like he’s imagining me naked, and I hate it. But my chef’s whites hide most of my figure, and he’s only one man. Everyone else here, despite being secretive and scarily lethal, is great, so I try my best to ignore him.
Another voice replies, “He hasn’t responded to us in three months. What makes you think he’ll start up again now?”
“Because we won’t give him a choice. I’m tired of waiting for Richards to slip up again. That traitor does everything he’s ordered to, and his work is practically untraceable. All we have to do is threaten to leak the news that J.T. Richards is alive and well and working for the enemy. We do that, and our friend will move as many crates of weapons and opium as we want. And give us a bigger cut of the profits.”
This conversation is getting way too serious and scary for me, and I clutch my purse tightly as I try to creep away in the opposite direction. But before I make it more than ten steps, my phone rings, the We Will Rock You tones deafening in the silence of the garage.
“Fuck. Who’s there? Show your face right fucking now!” Jessup shouts.
I don’t. Instead, I run.
With a whimper, I roll over and pull the blanket tighter around me. “Breathe, Cara,” I say over and over again, and eventually, it’s not Jessup’s voice I hear, but Ripper’s. Not Parr’s face I see as he grabs my arm and drags me towards the balcony of the apartment in Tulsa, but Ripper’s kind eyes as he helps me calm down after I fell.
It might not be the most normal fantasy in the world—being kissed by a homeless man—but it’s a hell of a lot better than the memories of screaming as I clutch the metal railing with both hands, staring down at the street fifty feet below, knowing I’m going to die. Of Jessup’s face as he pries one finger after another off the rail. Or of falling, almost in slow motion, trying desperately to contort my body, and landing on another balcony two floors below, breaking my right arm, but saving my life by inches.
Ripper. Back to Ripper. Yes. Tomorrow, I’ll bring him dinner after my shift at the food truck. That’s a plan. And maybe…it’ll make those damn enchiladas palatable again.
With my mind still racing, I punch the pillow and start to count backwards from a thousand. I hope I fall asleep before I reach one.
Ripper
Letting myself into my studio, I jab the button to open the blinds on the floor-to-ceiling windows. If I’m going to stay here for more than a few minutes, I need light. Lots of it. Bypassing the brand new, still-in-the-box laptop on the desk—courtesy of Ryker and Wren—I head for the bathroom.
The new tattoo stings as the hot water pelts my forearm, and I relish the pain. The sensation reminds me I’m alive. Dax and Ry want to talk this morning. Breakfast at some joint in Greenwood. I’m not good in public. Fuck, I’m not good anywhere.
Every day, I have to re-learn something new. Find a piece of myself I lost. It’s exhausting. The soap in my hands smells both right and wrong at the same time. The entire time we were in Hell, we were surrounded by dirt, shit, blood, sweat, and fear. Once Faruk had me, it was all incense and spices. Scents I can’t stand now.
I wash off the grime from my night on the street, wrap a towel around my waist, and grab my razor. Standing at the sink, I stare at the stranger in the mirror. His hair looks like mine. So does his nose. His chin. His eyes don’t.
Staring down at the shiny blade in my hand, I wonder, again, why I haven’t just ended it all. And then I see the tattoo, and I understand. I’m alive because Ry checks on me. Every fucking day since we got to Seattle. I can’t let him down. Not again. Not ever.
My phone, charging next to the laptop, rings on the table, and the sudden noise makes me jump. The razor skids across my chin. Blood drips into the sink, bright red, and my vision tunnels.
