Sunny squinted. “Why is he callingyou?”
“Because he—”
“L.,” Brennan clipped, “what is going on? Where are you?”
“We’re at Scott and Ophelia’s.” Liza uttered a long sigh and stood up. She went back into the living room and peered out the window again but didn’t see Connor anywhere. “I ripped off the Band-Aid.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. There was some kind of activity in the background. “How does he seem?”
“Uhm.” She skimmed her gaze across the sidewalk. “Not awesome. He went for a—”
“Fuck,” Brennan said again, louder this time. “I’m way the hell over in Vacherie. God damn it.”
Liza perceived the sound of his car’s engine revving. “He’s just out running right now. He said he needed to clear his head, but I mean…” She bit her bottom lip. “It might be good if you came by later.”
“I’m on my way. It’ll take me at least an hour to get there.” He growled in the back of his throat. “Fucking A.”
“Well, just drive carefully. He seems okay for now, but I’m sure he’ll need some guy time or something when he’s done. Ophelia said Luke’s working today, so maybe y’all can go over there when you get here.”
“Yep. See you in a bit.”
“Bye.” Liza folded her arms across her chest and continued to look out the window. A feeling gnawed in the pit of her stomach. Something told her this was only going to get worse before it got any better. And she honestly wondered if this time it would get better at all.
* * *
Connor couldn’t hear anything.Couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t feel anything. The only thing he was even marginally aware of was the amount of blood on his hands.
Seventeen soldiers in the squads under his command over the course of three deployments. His best friend. His unborn child. Liza.
Yes, she was still there, but for those three minutes in history, she was gone. And she was only brought back as a result of the expertise of first responders, fortunate timing, andluck. She wasthis closeto being gone forever, and he’d done that to her. He’d managed to pick the exact moment she was driving through that hot mess of highways in Houston, in the rain, in an already compromised emotional state, to drop a bomb on her. A bomb he’d made up because he was a coward and a weak, little bitch.
Up until that afternoon, the low point of his life had been Morales seizing to death because Connor was too drunk to know what to do. When he sat on his ass, crying like a baby while Ophelia coddled him and watching Scott do all the work of trying to save his best friend’s life. Scott was a civilian. Awriter.Not at all what anyone would consider a tough guy by any means, and yet, Scott had manned up while Sgt. Connor Deneau wailed on Scott’s diminutive wife’s tiny shoulder. Even Ophelia, a slight woman of short stature, had managed to be stronger and more in control of herself than he’d been.
And now what?
He’d already bought a ring. Liza agreed to marry him before he’d even asked.
What in the hell was wrong with her? To have lived through all of that, to know he’d caused it, and because of alie, andstillforgave him and wanted a life with him. She was out of her mind—maybe not as much as he was, but damn close—and he just didn’t understand her at all.
Connor’s feet continued to pound the pavement, jarring the inside of his ears with a swift, hardthump-thump-thump-thump-thump. And, briefly emerging from the tumult of his mind, he felt the oppressive humidity in his lungs; the hot moisture in the air that made it seem like he was breathing swamp water. That piqued his limited attention to how bright everything was; bright like staring at the sun, though he was staring at the pavement, which appeared white from overbearing sunlight.
His heart and lungs screamed in protest that, despite his long-time, high level of fitness, even they had a limit, and he was nearing the point of obliterating it. Waves of something like claustrophobia tightened around his chest from the feeling of attempting to draw in oxygen but finding only thick fluid.
A thin shadow of panic set in as an irrational part of his mind told him there was no escape, no finding oxygen, because in New Orleans, therewas no oxygen. There was only humidity. There was only heat. There was only a string of dead bodies who might still be there if he’d only been able to handle up. There was only a father whose standards he’d never be able to reach no matter how much he clawed against the sheer, rock walls. There was only a woman he loved more than his own life, for whom he’d never be able to be and give all the things she so genuinely deserved. There was only a life he’d ruined as a result of weakness.
There was no escape from any of it—except maybe the heat. The bright green of the grass covering the levee somehow broke through the blindness of lack of oxygen. On the other side of that hill was water—alotof water. Water he knew he shouldn’t swim in because of the current. The current, which was yet another thing in the world that was stronger than him and only proved his inherent weakness.
But you know what? Fuck it.
The water was wet, and the current was cold, and Connor was hyperthermic, hypoxic, and a failure.
The last thing he saw as he trudged up the levee was the brown water and the white-hot sky, and then blackness consumed him. But he made it to the water. Apparently, there was a menial amount of physical strength in him after all. The last thing he felt was the cold current. And the last thought in his mind was how he didn’t have to wait for the ferry this time, and he’d been right about drowning.
Sweet relief.
Sweet release.
28
