He shrugs. “It’s already done. I know you don’t need presents, but put yourself in my shoes for a second. Maybe I want to give you presents because it makesmefeel better. Makes me feel more secure in a situation where I have little to no power.”
The emotion swells, a swift assault on my throat. “I understand that.”
“Good,” he replies. “It’s not like any gift I buy you will cost a million dollars. Don’t worry.” He smiles. “I’ll keep it low key.”
I stomp one foot and cross my arms. “I wasn’t worried on that front. You’re so rude,” I tease. “Don’t worry about me is all I was trying to say.”
He pulls me into a hug. “I’ll try not to. We have to get back before my ride gets there. I’m not good with goodbyes. Well, I’ve never really done them like this, but I think I’d like it best if we could say goodbye here. In my almost place.”
Licking my lips, I reply, “Whatever you want.” His embrace is tight. “I’m not sure what to say right here,” I admit. “Have a nice trip? Don’t get blown up? Or shot? Or captured? Or good luck? That doesn’t seem politically correct. None of it does, actually. Tell me what to say?”
“Darlin’,” Mercer rasps, drawing back to hit me with an emotion-filled gaze. “Tell me you’re mine, kiss me on the lips, and make me believe in forever.”
I try to do what he says. I think he even believes it. The kiss feels too short, and his hands go from hot to cold on my waist. The wind whips around us a little too fast. The sand feels a bit more like quicksand as we walk back to the car. Mercer doesn’t look at me while we drive back to the house. He asks me about the salon, gives directions on how to get to the mall, who I can call if I have any problems, he rattles off the precautionary measures of our separation. Like a man doling out custody orders to an estranged wife. Except he loves me. He’s my forever. Mindlessly, without thought, the drive ends as I pull into my driveway and step out of my car. Mercer says goodbye, and his voice is hoarse.
“Be good, Four Leaf Clover. Don’t take over the town before I get back, you hear?”
I nod, tears forming in my eyes. “I hear. Don’t take over the world,” I fire back.
He rounds the car and kisses me one more time even though we’ve already spoken our peace. A pick-up truck rolls up and idles in front of Mercer’s driveway. It’s a black shiny Ford that is jacked up with tinted windows. Not too far off from what the country boys in the south are obsessed with. It’s why I notice the vehicle at all.
He looks over his shoulder, light and charismatic. The Mercer I’ve known my whole life says, “Everyone wants to be a Navy SEAL until it’s time to do Navy SEAL shit.” With a wink, he adds, “Pardon my French, darlin’.”
Smiling, I put up my hand in a feeble attempt at a wave. I’m sure it looks more like I’m Spock, frozen in my signature greeting. It’s fitting that he rides off in a truck. I picture him heading somewhere with Bentley. I can pretend he’s going fishing, or hunting or mudding. Not heading back to the front lines. In another country, far away from me. In harm’s way. To war.
My stomach flips as I reach up and touch a golden Camellia.
Then my cell phone buzzes from inside the purse on my shoulder.
A text from Goldie:Meet me at the salon. I’m here doing stock, and my friend Misty is heading in. She wants a fresh cut. I told her I have a woman for the job.
New life begins now. And I get my period.
Chapter Fifteen
___________________________________
Mercer
Four Months Later . . .
I’M COVERED INsoot, head to fucking toe—I’d wager even the whites of my eyes are black. London, England. The peak of war for this country. The terrorists shift continents and use encrypted web pages to communicate with each other and arrange attacks. We use counterintelligence to track them and try to stop the attacks before they happen, but it’s hard to keep up as they get smarter, wittier, hire new genius-level coders to try to trick us. It’s also hard when the will to destroy innocent life is greater than the ability to stop it. This war has raged on for countless years and while attacks have died down in America, the rest of the world is on fire. Everyone is tired. Maybe that’s the point. Grind the good down until we are a bleak, dull, piece of uncaring flesh. Indifference magnified by horrific monotony. The scene before me is why I needed a break so badly, why I craved the simple nature of Greenton.
Soot rains down as we move through a building trying to evaluate if anyone lived. It’s highly unlikely. What started out as fashion week, which I guess is a real fancy event where models walk runways to show designer’s new clothes, ended in tantamount devastation. The government tells the people to go on with their lives as if it’s any other day and to not give power to the enemy by being afraid to live life, but this is the risk you take. I step over a body. Then another. The corpses are holding hands, both heads have white blonde hair that are saturated in thick blood. Grange stoops to check for a pulse even though he knows they’re dead. An unnatural twist to their limbs says more than blood can. I swallow a lump of bile down and cast my gaze ahead, to the next body, the next casualty, the next person I wasn’t able to save.
It’s quiet now, our officer on the comms talking to headquarters about where to land the Medi-vac is the only noise that cuts the morose silence. We were too late, and if I’m being honest, there’s no way we could have done anything to stop this bombing today anyway. We should have been here days ago when they were setting up the stages and hauling in props for the extravagant sets. That’s how the bombs came in, how the enemy breached such a highly-populated crowd without notice. We didn’t hear the chatter of something awry until a few hours ago. Sifting through the debris and finely clothed bodies is easy. Explaining to the world how this happened? Hard as fuck. I wouldn’t want that job. These people who died today were famous. They had money, influence, and power. Their families will want to place blame. The hunger to avenge their loved one’s deaths greater than the patriotism for their country. The terrorists strive to pull apart nations, turning neighbors against neighbors, and allies against allies. Their end goal is simple: eradicate the world of everyone who doesn’t believe what they do. There’s no stopping that kind of hate. Not with kindness, not with meetings or rational declarations.
“Front left area is where we need to place this group of bodies,” Grange says, standing, fidgeting with the rubber glove on his hand, pulling on it. He’s the trained medic in our team, and at this point, it’s obvious we’re too late to use military skills. This is a clean-up operation and a job for Intel to unravel. We missed another one. The acrid taste in my mouth doesn’t leave as I move out of the building on orders. The scent of burnt flesh is overpowering and even if I’m unaffected by the carnage before me, the smell brings me back to reality and I nearly heave when I reach the fresh air outdoors.
Grange claps a hand on my back, but we don’t meet gazes. The secondary team rushes by us into the building now that we’ve cleared it to make sure there aren’t any more bad guys lurking. Spoiler alert: they weren’t here today. The timed bombs went off seamlessly, activated from a remote location. “What good are we doing? This is so fucked up,” Grange mutters, snapping his gloves off.
I snake a rag that I have tucked into my back pocket out and hold it over my mouth and nose. It has a sweet-smelling oil on it, and it neutralizes the putrid scent still clinging to my nose hairs. Even after we leave, I’ll smell it for days—a phantom reminder of what I saw today. “We don’t have a fucking choice,” I remark, keeping alert, watching the buildings surrounding us. “We needed them when the U.S. was falling apart, and this is how we make good on promises.”
“By not being able to help at all? We are these highly trained machines and we are useless.” My friend has never been big on eating humble pie. “We are no good here. They need to send us back home.”
If I agreed with him, I’d feel like a traitor, but he’s right. There’s nothing I want more than to get back home. But I’m a good guy and it seems the whole world is on a short supply of those these days.
Rexy walks up, hearing our conversation, he says, “Maybe they will send us home. It’s obvious we need to recalculate how we operate. This isn’t getting us anywhere. Showing up after” —he motions to the building behind us— “everything is changing and it’s changing quickly.”
