Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, Justice’s cell phone went off, and he grabbed it before the noise woke Etta. He walked out into the hall to answer the damn thing, although he was loathe to leave her, even for a few seconds.
Last night they’d slept together once more, only this time he’d wrapped her in his arms and held on for dear life. If Justice had his way, he would never let go of her. But she hadn’t answered his question yet.
“Hey, have you heard from Woolly?” Trick asked without preamble.
Fuck. I’m a shitty friend.
“No, I’ve been callin’ him, but haven’t heard anythin’. I’ve had a couple of busy days, so I didn’t follow up on it.” He’d been so preoccupied with Etta and Mary, it had slipped his mind.
“I was afraid you’d say that. We’re gonna have to go over there. I’ve been tryin’ him and haven’t heard back either. I’m officially worried.”
“Me too. I can make it this afternoon, what about you?”
“Yeah. I’ll pick you up at two.”
Justice hoped they weren’t too late already.
Trick somehow picked up on his mood. “Don’t worry, brother. I’m sure he’s fine. We all go through spells where we don’t feel like messin’ with people.” A tendency toward being anti-social was yet another fun little PTSD symptom they shared.
“You’re right.”
But Justice doubted it.
***
After Etta went to work, Justice pawned off Mary’s guard duty on Ten and headed out with Trick instead. Woolly lived outside of San Antonio, so it was a bit of a trip.
The drive gave him time to think.
A lump formed in his throat. Justice wondered if they’d all settled in Texas because they had a need to be together. All three of them had been discharged at the same time. Trick had the priesthood as a support system, and Justice had the MC. But what about Woolly? As far as Justice knew, he had his job, and the acquaintances he’d met there. That’s it.
As soon as they pulled up in front of Woolly’s house, a sense of foreboding rolled over him, like a dark thundercloud.
Something was wrong.
Woolly’s car, his prized possession, a red Jaguar, was parked outside in the driveway, instead of the garage. Woolly was a real car nut. He washed it every weekend, polished the vehicle until the damn thing gleamed, too.
Justice never cared for cages, cars as civilians called them. He liked the freedom of the open road without metal boxing him in.
One time, the two of them had gone out for a drive. They’d stopped at a hot dog stand for lunch, and Justice had dropped a bit of chili onto the floorboard. Woolly had blown a gasket. He’d even threatened to make Justice walk all the way home.
Woolly would never leave the jag out in the open, exposed to the elements.
When they got up to the front door, Justice smelled something rotten. The hair stood up on the back of his neck.
“No, not today, not like this.” Trick knocked on the door. No answer.
Justice tried knocking. Again, no response.
“No more foolin’ around. Kick it down.” Trick backed up and glanced down the street. Nobody was out and about, because they were probably all at work or otherwise occupied.
Justice planted his foot on the wood with a thud and then hauled off and kicked it. It cracked in response. He repeated the action and the door buckled further, but still remained intact.
This time, Trick had a go, and the wood splintered some more. One last kick and they were through it. When the door swung open, a rush of foul air assaulted their noses. It reeked of rotten meat.
“Son of a bitch,” Trick said.
Justice clasped a hand over his mouth. He froze in his tracks, unable to move.
Once again, he was in the prison cell, Bulldog lying at his feet, dried blood on his hands, and a familiar stench in the air.
He backed away from the door, shaking his head, while Trick charged ahead.
No. This can’t be true. Can’t be.
“Get over here!” Trick ordered.
He forced himself to walk through the door and knelt by the body.
Woolly was sprawled on the living room floor, lying on his back. Two glassy eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Reddish brown blood had soaked into the beige carpet. Flies buzzed in the air, and the ceiling fan overhead rattled.
The handgun lay on the carpet a few inches away from his good hand. He’d lost the other one when a Taliban fighter had sliced it off as part of an intense torture session.
It wasn’t all Woolly had sacrificed.
With a heavy sigh, Trick knelt and closed Woolly’s eyes.
As Trick prayed over the body, Justice staggered into the kitchen and puked in the trash can. Sweat beaded on his forehead and slid down his face. The rush of blood in his ears nearly deafened him.
The next thing he knew, Trick was on the phone with the cops, but he barely registered the words.
And then there were two.
***
“Hi, Justice,” Etta said, answering her phone. She’d schedule a couple hours in the afternoon to catch up on her paperwork, and could use a break from the pile on her desk. He’d left in a hurry this morning, and they hadn’t had a chance to talk.
“Hey.”
“What’s goin’ on?” From his subdued tone, she suspected trouble.
“I meant to call earlier, but I got caught up in…stuff.”
The silence stretched between them.
“Tell me.”
“One of the men in my old unit committed suicide. Now, there’s just me and Trick left.”
Etta gasped. “Oh no.” She didn’t know how he dealt with so much loss in his life.
He’d once mentioned it was nearing the anniversary of their capture. Etta knew from experience anniversaries could be difficult. It had a way of bringing all the buried memories right to the surface.
“Yeah, we came over to visit, and found him…I mean, the body.”
“Is there anythin’ I can do?”
“No, Trick and I got it covered. Woolly didn’t have any family, so we’re gonna take care of things. The upshot is, I won’t be able to stay with you tonight. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”
While the thought of being alone made her nervous, she didn’t want to add to his burdens. Etta wished she was there with him so she could comfort Justice.
“Well, I’m worried about you anyhow. I called Pretty Boy, and he’s gonna be over there after his shift at Perdition is finished, which is around two in the mornin’.”
Her manners warred with common sense.
“I don’t wanna put him out.”
“As a matter of fact, Pretty Boy insisted on comin’ over. You’re welcome to try and talk him out of it.”
She sighed. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Now, I figured you’d be more comfortable with him, than anybody else, but would you like me to send someone over in the meantime?”
“Thank you, but it won’t be necessary.” She could handle a few hours on her own. Etta never much cared for strangers in her place, anyway.
“Fair enough, but keep your gun out, and your cell phone in your pocket.”
“Will do.”
“It’s settled then.” He expelled a long breath. Justice sounded bone-weary, as though he didn’t even have one more ounce of energy to spare.
“Justice?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about your friend.”
“Thanks. Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked.
“Count on it, and give me a call if you need to talk.”
“I will. I’ve missed you today.”
“Same here.”
She could hear the longing and his voice, and she shared it. Sleeping without him wouldn’t feel right. He belonged in her bed, or she belonged in his. They’d only been apart a few hours, and already it hurt.
“Glad to hear it, and I’ve got a proposal for you.”
“An indecent one?” Etta teased. She hadn’t answered his question last night because she didn’t know what to say. Etta had an inkling his proposal was related.
“Maybe a bit.”
“I like the sound of it already. Any hints?”
“No, I’m gonna keep you in suspense.” Etta could hear the smile in his voice. She was glad she’d temporarily lifted his mood.
“Fine, be that way. Bye, Justice.”
“Goodbye, Etta.”
And then neither one of them ended the call.
“Hang up.”
“No, you hang up.” They both chuckled.
Finally, the line went dead.
Etta had the strangest feeling, her answer would be “yes” this time.
***
In the early evening, Justice was seated in front of the fire pit at his place. Justice watched the flickering flames dancing. He felt like a puppet without any strings. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
He didn’t even remember driving home. Nothing felt real right now.
Trick sat next to him, also silent. He took a pull on the beer in his hand.
Justice downed the rest of his. Right now, he was craving a joint so bad, he couldn’t stand it, but he refused to smoke in front of Trick.
They’d spent the day making funeral arrangements as well as dealing with the police department, and the coroner’s office.
“We’re the only two left.” Trick shook his head, as though he couldn’t quite believe it.
He couldn’t wrap his head around it either. Would Justice be the next to go? If he were a betting man, Justice would put money on it.
“Ever think we should’ve died, too?”
It felt wrong, to still be walking around. As if by living, he was an affront to what they’d all sacrificed. Occasionally Justice thought about taking matters into his own hands. Over the years, the option had brought him some comfort.
Whenever he couldn’t stand the pain anymore, he’d hold the gun and think about the bliss awaiting him. One shot and it would all go away—no more terrible memories, no more guilt. Nothing but quiet. Peace. Perhaps Woolly had made the best choice possible. He’d gotten out the only way he knew how.
“Don’t even fuckin’ think about it.” Trick seized his arm. “You hear me?”
“Leave me alone.” Justice shoved him away.
“If you ever… so help me...” Trick’s jaw clenched, and his voice wavered. He could hardly get the words out. “Please don’t.”
“Ain’t gonna, but I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t ponder the option.” Especially on dark days like this—when the anniversary rolled around, or one of the guy’s birthdays. They wouldn’t be getting any older, eating cake, celebrating with their friends and family. All of them gon, like a puff of smoke, as if they’d never been here at all.
“Me too.”
“I thought priests don’t believe in suicide. Isn’t it a mortal sin?”
“Technically, but most priests haven’t seen what I have.” He swallowed. “God is merciful, and I think He would admit Woolly into heaven.”
“Really?”
“I hope so. Woolly’s been in agony for years. What kind of a God would deny him solace?”
“I hope you’re right.”
“We’re also not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but he took the easy way out. It’s a real dick move to leave your buddies all alone.” He looked at Justice pointedly.
“Roger that, but from time to time…”
“I know, but we’re takin’ hard path. What’s the Navy SEAL sayin’?”
“The only easy day is yesterday.”
“You’re damn right, and if we both survived Hell Week, we can take this, too.”
Hell Week in BUDS training was infamous. They’d stayed up all night standing and shivering, in the cool ocean water with a big ass log above their heads, moving it up and down, on command. The idea had been to break them, but they’d made it through. A lot of recruits couldn’t say the same.
Justice smiled half-heartedly. “And hey, the Taliban threw everything at us. Those dicks beat us, cut us to ribbons, lit us up with car batteries, and here we sit.” He didn’t know if it was a miracle, or maybe a curse, but they’d survived.
“Hooyah.”
“The rest of them should be here with us. Tank, Gunnar, Woolly, and Bulldog, too.”
His throat ached. “Especially Bulldog.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? I didn’t say a word.”
“I know what you’re thinkin’. We’ve been over this before. You did what you had to.”
Trick looped an arm around his neck and squeezed. It was somewhere between a hug and a chokehold. They all used to give each other big bear hugs after they all made it back from an operation, like football players basking in the glory of victory.
Until that last time.
“Did I?” Because Justice wasn’t convinced.
“Enough. Talk to me.”
Justice opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t spit the words out. He’d spent so long stuffing all this down, locking it up, not thinking about it, willingly opening those memories was difficult.
“Give me a second.” Justice couldn’t think straight. He kept seeing Bulldog lying on the floor.
No, Woolly. Woolly had died today. Bulldog was long gone, nothing but ashes left.
“You can and what’s more you will. That’s an order, soldier.”
“Shut the fuck up, Trick. You ain’t my commandin’ officer anymore.” Although, old habits die hard.
“Think again. Your ass is in need of a good kickin’. I shoulda done this a long time ago, for both of you. If I had, maybe Woolly would still be alive.”
“Look, I wanna talk it out, but not now.” Justice stood.
His emotions were too raw, and he felt too exposed. If Justice let the walls down, he might break into pieces.
“I can see we’re gonna have to do this the hard way, so let’s go. If you want me to beat it out of you, I will, but we’re doin’ this once and for all tonight. I’m done with your excuses.”
“Think you can take me?”
Trick got to his feet. “I know I can.”
His heart pounded harder, thumping against his ribcage. Most days Justice was raring for a fight. The physical discomfort obliterated the mental kind, gave him something else to focus on.
Today, he needed to be hit. No, craved it.
“I guess we’ll see.”
With a cry, he launched himself at Trick, shoving him to the ground. Trick clipped him under the jaw, sending his head snapping back, then planted a foot on his chest and thrust him backward, so Justice sprawled on his ass.
“Stop this.” Trick grabbed him by the shirt, shook him until his eyes rolled up in his head. “You did him a kindness. We never blamed you.”
“I blamed me. Besides, you weren’t even there. What the fuck do you know about it?”
“Nothin’ until you tell me.”
“I murdered him! Isn’t that what you wanna hear, you bastard? I murdered Bulldog. I slit his fuckin’ throat.”
“That’s not what happened.”
Justice pushed him away. “Fine, you want the bullshit official version? I helped him commit suicide.”
“It was neither of those. You put him out of his misery. Bulldog would’ve died anyway.”
He paced back and forth. “No, I killed him. It shoulda been me instead. Bulldog didn’t get a chance to live. On his first tour, he died. How is that fair?”
“It isn’t. None of this is fair.”
“It’s like he was never even here.”
“We remember him.”
“And when we’re gone?
“Stop deflectin’. Tell me what happened.”
“It won’t change a damn thing.”
“Yeah, it will. You don’t have to keep it to yourself any longer.”
“You know what happened.” Trick had helped him load Bulldog’s body into the helicopter.
“Yeah, I got the facts, but I don’t have the details. I want the nitty-gritty particulars. I wanna know every last thin’ that happened. Start at the beginnin’.”
Justice slumped down on a lawn chair once more.
"Before you begin, give me your cell phone." Trick held out his hand.
"No."
"I mean it, no distractions."
Justice reluctantly handed it over. Trick turned the phone off and tucked it into his own pocket.
Fuck this.
He wanted to get drunk and high and shut all these memories down, but he couldn’t any longer.
Every single minute of the ordeal had been etched into his memory. Like it played on a loop in his mind, and he questioned every decision he’d made, every action he’d taken, searching for a way out of the mess, the thing he should’ve done to save Bulldog.
“Why? Why would you wanna put it in your head?” He wished to God he could forget, rinse it all away, wash himself clean.
“Because it’s in yours and it’s eatin’ you alive. And I’m afraid any day now, I’m gonna get a call from the police, sayin’ your body’s been found in this godforsaken hellhole. And I ain’t gonna let it happen. You ain’t leavin’ me behind, brother. Spill it.”
Justice sucked in a ragged breath. “We were sleepin’ on the floor when one of the guards unlocked the cell. It rattled open, and he went right for Bulldog.” Almost like the motherfuckers had a plan.
“Another torture session.”
“Yeah. I got to my feet, offered myself instead.” He’d protected Bulldog as much as possible. Justice was older and had been in the field longer. He wasn’t as vulnerable.
“Jeff punched me in the gut, and I hit the ground.”
“I hate that dickhead.”
“Me too.”
Justice had a visceral memory of the whole ordeal. It all happened so slowly, every single second had been an eternity.
“Hours later, they dragged him back into the place, and tossed Bulldog onto the floor.” His stomach rolled, the gorge rising.
They’d gutted Bulldog, split him open from neck to knees, his entrails hangin’ out. It took someone a long time to bleed out. A man could last hours, days even. The stench was unbelievable, and the wound sickening. Blood soaked the floor. Bulldog’s lips turned blue, and he’d started to shiver.
He’d tried stuffing his innards back inside, to keep Bulldog alive, but it didn’t work. Justice had nothing to close the wounds or disinfect them. All they had in the corner of the room was a bucket full of filth, and the cups of rusty water the guards gave them to drink.
At that point, they were all weak, half-starved, and injured. All he could do was hang onto him, hold Bulldog, so he wasn’t alone. After a while, Bulldog begged him, pleaded with him, to slit his throat, to spare him the suffering.
“He asked me to open his jugular.” Justice wrapped his arms around himself.
He could still feel the blood on him, like a brand. It ran thick and hot over his hands, sinking into his skin.
“So you did.”
“Yeah.” Tears blurred his vision and slipped down his face. “But I didn’t have a knife, so I had to use a jagged rock.” It hadn’t come easy. Slicing his jugular open had been a slow, arduous process. Bulldog had been moaning in pain, but yelling at him to go on.
So he’d cut, jamming the rock into his neck, until the blood burst forth like a fountain, pumping all over Justice with every dwindling beat of Bulldog’s heart.
Justice wrapped his arms around his head, trying to shut out the memory, but he couldn’t.
“Finally, he bled out.” Those glassy dead eyes, staring at him, accusing him.
Afterward, Justice screamed, and he couldn’t stop himself. It was a prolonged primal shriek which had called the guards over. They’d given him another beating and then pissed on Bulldog’s corpse for good measure. Justice fantasized about finding those motherfuckers, hunting them down, coming up behind them one day with a gun in his hand and a song in his heart.
“I should’ve…”
“There’s nothin’ you could’ve done. Even if the helicopters had gotten to us that night, would he have lived?”
After a moment, Justice shook his head.
“And then you were left with the body.”
“For days.” He shook. And the blood dried on his hands and face, and his clothes, too. He’d tried to sleep, but it was all over the floor, so he’d propped himself against the wall.
“Findin’ Woolly’s body brought it all back?”
“Yeah.” Just like being with all of those corpses in the abandoned house.
“The sight of him. The smell…”
“Why didn’t you tell the shrink all this?” Trick asked.
“I just couldn’t.”
When they’d gotten back to base, they’d been ordered to see a psychiatrist. At the time, he’d been seriously fucked up. Even holding a conversation with another human being, had been difficult, let alone a professional who wanted to pick at all his wounds.
Justice rolled his neck and then sighed.
“Feel any better?” Trick asked.
“No, not really.” Justice was exhausted, wrung out like he’d just been on one of those grueling hikes they used to go on.
He chuckled. “You’re not supposed to. This was the first step, and you’ve got a lot more in front of you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Although, at the very least, he’d made a start. When he saw Etta tomorrow, he vowed to tell her to everything, every single last detail. Then Justice would figure out what she’d been holding back.
And then he was going to ask her to be his old lady.
“Not a problem. Now give me the weed.” Trick held out a hand.
“Oh, come on.” This was a bridge too far.
“I mean it. You’re usin’ the stuff like a crutch. It’s time to go cold turkey.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Hooyah.”
Justice pulled a bag from his pocket. For a long moment, he stared at the scraggly strands of marijuana, before tossing it to Trick.
“Good decision.”
“Fuck you.”
Trick tucked the weed into his pocket. “I know why you’re doin’ this, by the way. This is about the woman you’re seein’, the one you can’t shut up about.”
“I don’t talk about her that much.” Do I?
Trick glared.
“Okay. So what? Etta deserves better than a basket case.”
“No worries, brother, I can think of worse reasons to change. Etta sounds like a special lady.”
“She is. And what about you?”
He chuckled. “I ain’t a special lady.”
“No, I mean, how are you? How’s the whole chastity thing goin’?” Justice was desperate for a topic change, some normalcy.
“Peachy.” Trick scowled.
“Yeah, I can tell.”
“Shut it.”
“You know, we don’t have to let the weed go to waste. We could smoke the rest, just to get rid of it, I mean.”
Trick heaved a sigh. “You’re so full of crap.”
“Yeah, but I know you wanna. After all, you’re the same guy who did ten belly shots off this blond with big—”
“Shut your mouth, and for the record, if I catch you with any more drugs, I’m gonna kick your ass. Again.”
“Understood.” He fired off a mock salute.
“Spark it up.”
Justice rolled the last of the marijuana into a large joint they could share. He lit the end, took a hit, and then passed it to Trick.
“And if you ever tell anyone…”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a broken record.”