American Prince

“You okay?” Dag asked quietly as we approached Glein. The smoke plumed up like a black chimney, faint pops and booms rattling the windows. The local militia trying to fight off the separatists and failing miserably.

“My sister is there,” I said, looking down at my hands. They were shaking. “She’s in that place.”

Dag nodded. He didn’t try to comfort me. He didn’t look for reasons why it might be okay.

I appreciated that.

Our convoy stopped about half a mile outside the village, and we got out. The captain was there somewhere, giving orders, but I barely listened. I found Colchester in the huddle of men and pulled him aside.

“Morgan’s here,” I said.

He pulled back to look me in the eyes. “What?”

“She’s here. In the village.”

Colchester’s voice was sharp. “Why?”

For some reason, that pissed me off. “She got tired of waiting around for you, so she went to see the church here.”

I dropped my voice to a mutter, half hoping he wouldn’t hear, half hoping he would. “Maybe if you’d just talked to her instead of ignoring her, she would have gone home or something. She would be safe.” It wasn’t fair, I knew it wasn’t fair, but I needed to blame someone. Hurt someone.

And I felt like shit the moment I did it, because it wasn’t Colchester’s fault at all, none of it was.

“We’ll do everything we can,” he promised, calm and kind despite my shitty outburst. His eyes searched my face. “I mean it, Embry. I’ll do whatever I can to save her.”

It was the use of my Christian name that stilled me, that calmed me enough to step back and pretend to listen to the captain’s strategy. Embry. It sounded strange on his lips, two warm syllables punctuated by the cracks and roars of the village burning behind us.

Was I a bad brother because in that moment I would have delayed going to Morgan’s side just to hear him say my name again?

Actually, don’t answer that.

The captain finished giving us orders; our three platoons split up and began working our way into the village at different angles. I say village, although at that point there was almost nothing recognizable about it. The streets were so covered with rubble that you couldn’t tell what had been a road and what had been a row of houses. Fires burned everywhere, hectically, merrily almost, like we were walking into a happily over-sexed pagan rite instead of a war zone. And the bullets came from everywhere. Fast, popping, chaotic.

We’d been at it less than five minutes when the captain came over the radio. “I’ve got new intel,” he shouted. “There’s a boat in the lake, a stranded boat with children. Who’s closest?”

“I am,” came Colchester’s reply. “We’ll go now.”

“And the church,” the captain said. “The adults in the town have been rounded up into the church. Take care of that boat as fast as possible and get to the church, Colchester. I think the boat’s a distraction.”

The church. Morgan.

I directed my men around a corner, and as we exchanged fire with some separatists across the street, I searched the buildings nearby for any sign of the church, and as I did, there was a massive boom, an explosion so violent it nearly knocked me off my feet. It came from the direction of our convoy, where the captain was. I stared at the cloud of dust and smoke at the edge of the village with a sinking heart.

Which was when Colchester swore loudly on the radio. “Four of mine are down. The boat’s on fire. I can see the children on it waving for help. Captain, we’re going in there but we might need more help. Captain? Captain?”

There was no response.

“Anybody?” Colchester asked. “We need help down here now!”

It was as if there was no one left. No one but me and my men. But Morgan…

I gripped my radio too hard as I pressed the call button, “We’re here, Lieutenant Colchester. We can come to you…but the church is important too.”

There was a pause. “I know, Lieutenant.”

I closed my eyes, took a breath. “What do you want us to do?”

“There aren’t any good choices right now. None of them are good, you understand this?”

It felt like he was asking something different, trying to tell me something else, and I understood. I hated it, but I understood. We all had jobs to do, one job really, to safeguard the civilians here, and on the complicated scale of human life, the children were more important. Even I saw that.

“I understand, Colchester.”

“Good. You’re closest to the church. Send four men there, but the rest down here. I’ll leave it up to you where you go yourself.”

With one last glance at the street, I pressed down my radio. “I’m coming to you.”

I never regretted my choice. Those children would have died if we hadn’t all been there. There were nine of us, and it took all nine to wrangle two boats into service and pluck those children from their would-be crematorium. Whatever the consequences, I knew karmically I’d done the right thing. Logically. Morally.

But emotionally? In that hollow place in my chest where my demons lived, where they nested and told me vicious, evil truths about myself? Those demons told me I’d chosen Colchester over Morgan, gone to his side instead of to her rescue. And although I never regretted what I’d done, I came closest after we raced through the village to the church and I saw four of my men dead outside the burning building. After I kicked down the flaming doors of the church and found Morgan bloody and nearly suffocated under two other bodies. When I heaved the corpses off of her and Colchester easily lifted her thin frame off the floor and carried her out into the fume-choked air. After I sat next to her in the hospital in Lviv and listened to the doctors tell her she would never have full movement in her shoulder again.