Chapter Six
I sat in the waiting room at the VA hospital with Neil at my feet, sipping on my fifth cup of coffee, bundled up in my coat despite the fact that the room was quite warm. Occasionally, a drop of sweat trickled down my back. I wore my hat and my big sunglasses and kept my back to the security cameras the entire time. I didn’t think anyone would recognize me here, but I didn’t take any chances.
It had been a long morning. After innumerable phone calls, a week’s wait and an hour-and-a-half drive, Ash faced a grueling schedule that included multiple appointments with several specialists. I’d nearly told Ash about his visitor at Mario’s a dozen times. But every time I opened my mouth, I thought about how anxious he was about going to the hospital. I couldn’t get the words out.
I’d accompanied him to most of his appointments, including the one with the orthopedic surgeon, where I’d seen the X-ray of Ash’s leg for the first time. The femur had fractured in half, snapped in two as if it was but a toothpick. The tibia and the fibula showed two breaks, healed, thank God. The foot was the worst. It had been shattered in the explosion and rebuilt with plates, pins, mesh and wires. It was a miracle that the doctors had been able to reconstruct it in the first place.
“The marvels of modern medicine.” The doctor had said as he turned from the screen to examine Ash’s leg. “From one to ten, what’s your pain level?”
“Two,” Ash said.
“Eleven,” I put in. “If he were human, he’d tell you. He doesn’t take the pain meds, so he hurts a lot. And by the way, the leg cramps all the time.”
“There’s the honest answer,” the doctor said.
“Tattletale,” Ash mouthed.
“Damn IEDs have done their share of damage,” the doctor said. “It’s like stepping on barbed wire every time you put your foot down.”
Ash snapped. “How the hell would you know?”
I squeezed his hand and chastened him with my best “watch your temper” look.
The doctor sighed and, pushing off from his stool, lifted up the cuff of his pant to display a futuristic prosthesis springing from his shoe.
“Sorry,” Ash muttered. “I’m such an asshole. Where?”
“Fallujah,” the doctor said. “Are we good now?”
“We’re good,” Ash said.
“I gave up the limb to live pain free,” the doctor said. “You may not be ready yet, but remember, you have options. There are no guarantees that your leg—especially your foot—will hold up for long-term daily use. I don’t know that it can stand the additional wear and tear that a full return to the service would entail.”
The doctor went on to rattle off a long list of possible complications that could require surgical interventions and amputation, including stress breaks, faulty calcifications and more infections. The spiel was enough to make me frantic with worry. I started to bite my pinkie nail, but Ash shook his head and I dropped my hand, at least for the moment.
After that, Ash went to do his mental health evaluation. He was now attending the last appointment of the morning with the orthopedist while I got copies of his medical reports. Sitting in the waiting room, I ruffled through the thick folder and took a deep breath. I’d be happy when we got out of the city and returned to the relative safety of my little valley.
A very pregnant woman plopped down next to me. “Husband? Brother? Sister?” she asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you here waiting for your husband?” She pulled out a set of needles and some yellow yarn from her quilted bag.
“Oh, no,” I said. “He’s not my—well—I guess he’s my boyfriend.”
“Aw, how sweet.” The woman knitted as she spoke. “I’m waiting for my husband. Afghanistan. Where did your guy get wounded?”
“Afghanistan too, I think.”
“Helmand, Kandahar or Kunar province?”
I had no clue.
“Don’t take it personally,” the woman said. “It’s hard for them to talk about these things.”
Any additional attempts that I’d made to talk to Ash about his time abroad had been met by silence and gruff. I didn’t push him. His silence seemed fair, since I didn’t want to talk about my past either. Besides, we were getting along. Some days, he didn’t even ask too many questions.
“Is this your first time at the VA?” the woman said.
“Yep.” I folded and refolded Ash’s leather jacket on my lap.
“It’s going to be okay.” She eyed my jittery foot. “Try to relax.”
I tried to repress the impulse. “I’m super caffeinated.”
“If it gets you through the day, caffeine is better than drugs and alcohol.” She knitted furiously. “Our guys, they survived. We’re the lucky ones. The rest is just gravy. Think about all of those who didn’t make it back home.”
My own problems had insulated me from the pain and hardship of families like hers. A war fought so far away seemed like a movie on TV. It was easy to forget the sacrifices of these men and women when one didn’t have to worry about improvised explosive devices in the streets or terrorists in one’s backyard.
“There he is!” The woman put away her knitting needles and, flashing a dazzling smile, got up to meet her husband. He balanced on prosthetic legs, wore dark sunglasses and carried a white cane, but his face lit up when he wrapped his arm around the woman’s waist. She gave me a little wave. I waved back. My gaze lingered on them as, together, they made their way out of the clinic.
“Hey.”
Ash stood before me, wearing blue jeans and a plaid snap front shirt, looking incredibly tall, strong and whole by comparison.
I jumped to my feet and hugged him.
He looked startled, but he hugged me back. “What was that for?”
“For surviving.” I wiped a tear from my eye. “I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for your service.”
His eyebrows drew close together. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I stepped back, a little embarrassed. I was probably PMSing. “Where are your crutches?” I asked, belatedly noting their absence.
“Gone.” He showed me a cane. “I graduated to this plus a brace instead. I’m cleared to drive and I’m cleared for a round of rehab too.”
“Awesome news.” I high-fived him. “I feel like we just won the lottery.”
The smile on his face could have illuminated the whole of the Front Range. There I went again. Rules, I had rules. No ogling or gawking allowed. No dreaming or fantasizing either, and no cheesy metaphors, period.
That was how smart, competent, independent women dealt with inconvenient—not to mention dangerous—attractions. Sure, Ash was cute and he had a strange, powerful effect on me, but he wasn’t part of the plan. Step one, heal him. Step two, send him on his merry way.
I set a course toward the parking lot. “Time to go home.”
“How about pizza?” he said, taking his coat and Neil’s leash from me and leaning on his new cane. “I’m starving.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t have spare change to buy bread, let alone for eating out.”
“It’ll be my treat,” he said. “We got up at the crack of dawn. We’ve been here all morning and you must be hungry too.”
I hesitated, torn between hunger and caution. “I don’t want you to waste your money on me.”
“After everything you’ve done for me, the least I can do is buy you lunch.”
He waited patiently for me to make up my mind. Being out and about wasn’t easy for him. He’d adapted nicely to the cottage, but the city and the clinic put him on edge. His eyes scanned the spaces around him constantly, as if tracking some invisible enemy.
“Are you sure you want to go a restaurant?” I asked.
“The shrink says I need to be out.” He sighed. “She says I need to make an honest effort. So I’ll be damned if I don’t try.”
His determination to get better impressed me. Besides, he deserved the little splurge.
* * *
The restaurant was cozy, but the red silk rose adorning the table had to go. I banished it to another table when Ash went to the bathroom. I hated roses. Roses reminded me of the monster I wanted to forget. I had the sense he was always watching me, reading my mind, monitoring my heart. Sometimes I imagined that if I let my guard down, he would see through my eyes, target the people I liked and strike yet another devastating blow to my life.
Steady. I took a deep breath. Cope.
With the rose gone, I sat down on my chair and struggled to regain my balance. It became easier when Ash came back to the table and filled my senses with his presence. He anchored me to the here and now. Plus, he was nice to look at.
Maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten out in a long time, but the pizza was out of this world. Ash downed several slices at an impressive pace. I nibbled my way through half my slice and kept at it. Wearing his service vest, Neil lay quietly under the white-and-red checkered tablecloth as Ash and I enjoyed our lunch.
“So what’s with the costume?” he said, adding a fresh slice to my plate.
“Costume?” I set aside the slice. My appetite vanished, knowing what was coming.
“The Cold War theme—coat, hat, dark glasses indoors, that sort of thing. You don’t wear those in town.”
“Oh.” I fished the mushroom pieces from the slice. “I’m just cold.”
“Right,” he said. “Are you going to eat those?”
“Mushrooms, ugh.” I crossed my eyes and stuck out my tongue.
“What a face.” He laughed. “May I?”
“Sure.”
He reached over and stabbed the mushrooms with his fork. “I bet the movie-star look explains your aversion to security cameras too.”
Not again. “Ash, I—”
“I remember: no questions.” He wolfed down the mushrooms. “I’m not brain-dead. But you do have to admit that nobody in their right mind would go through all of the trouble you’ve gone through unless they were really afraid. You may not always be forthcoming about the truth, but you don’t lie either. In the last few weeks, I’ve learned quite a few things about you.”
I didn’t want to go down this path, but curiosity got the best of me. “Like what?”
“Well, let’s see.” He wiped his mouth with the napkin and set it aside. “You love those animals of yours more than you love yourself. You don’t mind that they’re sick, lame or old. No one wants them, but you do. You’re hardworking, diligent, punctual and organized. You can’t cook. In fact, you’re a pyromaniac’s dream date, but you’re honest to a fault and you’re fair. Do I have it right?”
“I can too cook.” I faked about half of my outrage. “Okay, only in the microwave, but that’s something.”
“You had no cable or internet service until I arrived,” he said. “You don’t appear on any of the social media sites. You carry the oldest prepaid cell in the history of civilization. You don’t use credit cards, or banks, only cash. Your carbon footprint is almost nonexistent.”
He’d been paying attention. A fringe of unease prickled my sensitive hackles. I wrung the napkin in my hand. “I’m frugal,” I said. “So what?”
“You’re educated,” he said. “I can tell by the way you speak, the paperbacks on your shelves and the way you look at the world. If you had free access to the job market, you’d be running something for sure.”
“Something like what?”
“A company, a program, a classroom, a country,” he said. “The bar is work, but it isn’t your calling.”
Now my hackles were definitively up and sharp as quills.
“My job at the bar pays the bills,” I said. “How about we talk about you instead of me?”
“Sure.” He flashed me the lopsided smirk that said he was on to me. “When we’re finished talking about you. The thing is, I don’t think you like working at Mario’s.”
“I like Mario’s,” I said. “Your grandma got me that job.”
“I bet he pays you under the table.”
I glared.
“I know, none of my business.” He eyed the slice on my plate. “Are you going to eat that?”
I pushed the plate over to him.
“Being at the bar drains you.” He sprinkled a mind-boggling amount of parmesan cheese on the slice. “I can see it when you come home.”
“I get tired, that’s all.”
“I think there’s more to it than that.” He tore into the pizza.
My stomach squeezed. “What on earth are you talking about?”
He wolfed down a mouthful before he spoke. “You don’t like men.”
Now my stomach hurt. “I like men fine.”
“Jordan said you wanted to rent out the room to a female and you don’t have a boyfriend.”
“So what?”
“A girl like you, working at a bar, would probably attract lots of men.”
“Maybe I have a boyfriend and you just don’t know about it.”
“Well?” He set down the crust on his plate and wiped his mouth. “Do you?”
Not in this lifetime. “Can you stop asking all these questions?”
He smirked again. “See what I mean?”
“I told you I like men fine, maybe not all of them, maybe not all the time, but—”
“That’s it.” His eyes lit up. “There’s an asshole giving you trouble at work.”
Was he a mind reader? A drop of sweat ran down my back. I stretched my turtleneck to allow some circulation in there. I had to stop this conversation. It had already gone too far out-of-bounds.
“Those bruises,” he said. “The ones I spotted on your ass the other day when you were wearing those khaki shorts and bent over to clean the fireplace? Are they the work of the creep at the bar?”
I opened my mouth and closed it. “Ashton Hunter, have you been staring at my butt?”
“It’s nice to look at,” he said, “when it’s not covered in bruises.”
I reached across the table and smacked him on the arm. “You pervert.”
“No, ma’am, I’m just a guy grateful to have two working eyes. If you bend over and show me your assets, you can’t expect me to look away.”
My mind spun, engaged in a dangerous game of Russian roulette. I didn’t know if the bullet that would destroy me was the one marked “secretly delighted,” or the one marked “don’t even think about it.”
“We’re done talking about me,” I said. “Turnabout is fair play. What should we address first? Your absent girlfriend?”
“Ouch,” he said. “You’re going for blood today. Not everybody is cut out to hang out at a hospital or to look after sick people, you know.”
“So you’re not mad at her?”
“She knew what she wanted and it wasn’t me. Besides, it wasn’t going to last anyway. We were for fun, not for life.”
“You knew that?” I drew on my soda. “You understood the difference?”
He nodded. “The mission was the most important thing in my life. In between missions, it was just R & R.”
“Wow,” I said. “That shrink you saw today is a magician.”
He grinned. “Maybe you ought to talk to her.”
“She’d have to be a miracle worker to set me straight,” I said, “and even then, I’d still be weird and eccentric.”
“Weird and eccentric is cool,” Ash said. “I could dig weird and eccentric.”
The butterflies in my stomach were off like racing greyhounds and I had little hope to cram them back into the starting gate. And then I remembered a dead man hanging from a gate, a puddle of blood growing at his feet. Just because he’d talked to me.
“What’s the matter?” Ash said. “Did I say something wrong? You’ve got the look.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’re about to bolt.”
“No, no.” I pushed the horrible image out of my mind. “I’m fine, fine and amazed at your grand understanding of all things deep.”
“If you really have to know,” he said. “I’d rather forget my ex.”
I waved my hand in the air. “Erased, moving on.”
He laughed and I smiled like a fool.
“My turn again,” I said. “Inasmuch as I have a lot of respect for the Marines, I’m pretty sure you’re more than your average major.”
“Is that so?”
“You’re not just a foulmouthed, empty-headed hunk either.”
His split eyebrow rose. “You think I’m a hunk?”
“You strive to hide it behind that cranky charade, but I’m not fooled. You’re also well educated. Your grandmother told me you went to grad school and you’ve been sending me to buy The Wall Street Journal for you every day.”
“So?” he said. “A guy can’t be interested in the economy?”
“Gunny Watkins said that you were a highly trained asset and a big-ticket investment.” I plucked the straw out of my drink and, splashing soda all over the table, pointed it in his direction. “You’re a Krav Maga expert. Your powers of observation are impressive. I think you’re some sort of special operations kind of guy. Am I right?”
“How about we make a deal?” He stared at me for a little too long. “I tell you a bit about myself and you tell me about your troubles.”
I twisted on the straw until it broke. “I just...can’t.”
A whimper echoed from under the table. Neil’s face popped up by my side. Ash’s eyes shifted from the dog to the crumpled straw in my hands to my face.
“Something—or someone,” he said in an exacting tone, “has frightened the hell out of you. There’s the shotgun and the fact that you jump ten feet high every time someone comes to the door. You dress like that when you go out of town and you train like a soldier. You’re not on the wanted or missing lists—”
I gasped. “You looked?”
“If you haven’t noticed,” he said, “I’m a thorough kind of a guy.”
“More like scary.”
“The fact that you’re not on the lists tells me that whoever you fear doesn’t want anyone else to know they’re looking for you.”
Out. I needed out. I looked over my shoulder and fought an urge to run for the door. Neil laid his paw on my lap and licked my hand.
“You’ve got no knickknacks.” He kept going like a bulldozer without brakes. “You’ve got no references to your past anywhere in the cottage, no pictures, no mementos, nothing. You never talk about the past. You own very little, your work clothes and the bare essentials. A quick look at your keychain redefines the meaning of self-defense. And then, of course, there’s the go bag. Very thorough. Well conceived.”
My lungs deflated like punctured balloons. “Go bag?”
“It couldn’t be anything other than an escape bag,” Ash said. “A backup prepaid cell, a hundred bucks, two wigs, a few sets of high-quality fake IDs. Those are impressive, by the way. Want to tell me where and how you got them?”
God almighty.
Neil thrust his big head between my hands and tried to lick my face.
“Stop it, boy, she should be able to handle truth every once in a while.” Ash pulled on the leash before aiming his stare back on me. “I must congratulate you on the disguise concept. It’d be hard for anyone to think of you as a boy, never mind a hipster type. It could work.”
My fingers clawed under the table. My nails sank into my thighs. I knew he’d gone through the kitchen cabinets. I suspected he’d looked elsewhere, as well. But my go bag? My jaw ached from clenching it. Who the hell did he think he was?
“You have no idea what you’re meddling in.”
“My point exactly,” he said. “Care to enlighten me?”
I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to accuse him of interfering with my plans and endangering my life and—oh, by the way—his, since he was living with me. Mine wasn’t a great life, it might even be a poor excuse for a life, but it was the best life I’d known, and it was my life, something I’d never take for granted.
“See?” He shook his head. “You leave me to figure out things all on my own. How else will I be able to minimize risk factors and establish factual operational parameters?”
“Listen to yourself.” I squeezed my temples and kept my voice down. “Are you even speaking English? What are you talking about?”
“I can’t ask questions and you won’t tell me who you fear or why,” he fired back. “What other option did you leave me?”
“You want options?” I said. “How about leaving my stuff alone and minding your own business?”
“I tried.” He had the gall to look chastened. “Would you believe me if I said I tried?”
“No.” I pushed my chair back and, bracing my hands and leaning forward, faced Ash across the table. “I’ve tried to warn you. But you’re choosing not to listen. Let me be clear. People die when they associate with me, people suffer. You got that?”
I pushed away from the table and, sidestepping Neil, stormed out of the restaurant. The German shepherd barked and tried to follow me.
“I know, boy.” Ash’s voice trailed after me. “She’s upset.”
I shoved the door out of my way and made it onto the sidewalk. Steady. Breathe. Cope. My stomach ached, my teeth hurt from grinding and fury colored the world with a red haze. But my bluster was for naught. Ash had the keys to the truck and I didn’t have any other way home. Even though he eventually followed me, I had to wait for him to pay the bill.
I paced around the truck in the parking lot. My life must seem absurd to him. Had the situation been reversed, I would have been curious too. But the monster that stalked me had an IQ in the genius range, the looks, charm and sensibilities of a global tycoon, and the soul of a cold-blooded killer. The combination made him lethal to me, dangerous to his enemies and immune to justice, especially considering his multibillion-dollar cash flow. Nobody, not even his fiercest and most able opponents, had ever managed to best him, which is why my only alternative was to run like hell whenever I sensed he was getting near. He’d killed men for just looking at me. I might be furious with Ash at the moment, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.
When he finally came out of the restaurant with Neil on the leash, he opened the door of the truck for me, before limping around and taking his place in the driver’s seat. I flashed him a glare before I buckled my seat belt, crossed my arms and fixed my gaze out the window. Neil jumped in the backseat and settled, caramel eyes shifting between us.
“I’m sorry,” Ash said, driving out of the parking lot. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“Just let it be.”
“How about we establish some new communication parameters?”
I frowned. “Do you always speak like that or is it just me?”
“We can agree that certain parts of our lives are classified,” he explained, braking at a red light. “You set your terms. I set mine. But beyond that, we can talk about the rest.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because we’re two human beings living together?” he said. “Because we’re friends? Because we’re both trying to get better?”
“I’m not sick,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
He flashed me a glance. “Are you sure about that?”
I met his eyes. “What are you saying?”
“That anybody who lives through a traumatic experience can suffer from PTSD.”
The anxiety. The fear. The nightmares. The fact that my world wobbled on the hinge of my nerves like a fragile crystal globe liable to shatter at any time. Was he right?
“You know, Lia,” he offered as the light turned green and he pressed his foot to the accelerator. “We can’t operate out of fear. We must operate out of our strengths. We all have to make an effort to get better.”
Easier said than done. “You think?”
“Hell, that’s what the shrink told me today, which reminds me, do you mind if I stop by the grocery store?”
“You want to go to the grocery store?” I eyed him in disbelief. “The big giant one, here in town?”
“I don’t want to go,” he said. “But I need to do it. Besides, I live with a woman who feeds exclusively on air and sugary cereals. Remember?”
Once again, I didn’t want to sabotage his efforts to get better, or mine, maybe, if I accepted everything he said. I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
He pulled into the parking lot, parked the truck and turned off the ignition, but he didn’t get out. He stared at the store, at the neon sign flashing above the door and at all those people, streaming in and out. Neil rested his chin on Ash’s shoulder. My stomach tightened into a knot. In my own way, I knew how Ash felt.
“Sorry if I pressed you too hard.” Ash’s fingers wrapped around the wheel. “Sometimes, when I’m fixed on something, I can be such a jerk. Now I feel like I owe you some answers.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“You were right,” he said. “In addition to being a marine, I am—was—” His Adam’s apple bounced on his throat. “Hell, I don’t know what I am anymore—I guess I’m in limbo. But before I got wounded, I was a navy SEAL.”
The words came out of his mouth softly, reverently. I got a glimpse of his anguish. It erased any traces of residual anger in me and reset me into my caregiver role. He didn’t know if he could be the person he was before again. He didn’t know if he could exist as someone else either. If anyone in the universe understood his predicament, it was me.
“Did your grandmother know?” I asked.
“Yes, but we decided it would be better if we didn’t tell anyone else.”
“Do you think you’ll go back?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know if they’ll want me now, lame and all...”
I hesitated. “You don’t have to stand the pain, you know.”
“I do if I want the foot and I need the foot if I’m going back.” He gave me a half shrug.
“I saw several guys at the hospital wearing prosthetic limbs,” I said. “They seem to be getting along fine. You saw the doctor. And I met this woman today. Her husband lost both legs and his sight. Despite all of that, they’re getting ready to have a baby.”
“She must be someone really special,” Ash said.
“Maybe he’s the one who’s really special.”
He gave me a probing stare.
“Look, I’m no expert at this, but you have options,” I said. “You don’t have to hurt.”
“Lia, don’t.” He grappled for words. “You’ve been living with me lately. Can you imagine me in a wheelchair for weeks—months—at a time? Can you see me crippled for good, an invalid, depending on strangers for everything? I’d be a total jackass, unbearable, much worse than I’ve been lately, a wretched, miserable ass.”
“You can be a little testy at times, but you’re not so bad.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I could stand it.”
“It’d be a temporary situation.”
“Who the hell knows for sure?”
Pain gleamed in his stare. His brow wrinkled and the lines of his mouth tightened, making him look older, grimmer. All that sadness clobbered me. How could I, of all people, console the inconsolable?
Well, at least I had to try.
I wet my parched lips. “You’re one of the strongest, most determined people I know.”
“Then you’ve been hanging around with losers all your life.”
He was probably right on that one, but I stood my ground. “You’re smart, skilled and disciplined. You’re the original overachiever. Whatever goal you set your mind to, you will reach it.”
He scoffed. “Don’t be so sure of that.”
“What if the best is yet to come?”
“Jesus, Lia, that’s a huge cliché and you know it.”
“Well?” I said. “What if it’s true? What if the life you haven’t lived yet holds as much adventure, challenge and satisfaction as your old life did? What if the future holds the same, or even more, promise than your past? Wouldn’t you want to see the changes through if it gave you the chance to discover your alternative future?”
He rolled his eyes. “What if all of this talking is psychobabble or wishful thinking?”
“What if it isn’t?” I countered. “People get hurt all the time and they still have happy and productive lives, like that guy whose wife is having a baby.”
“He’ll never serve again,” Ash said somberly. “They won’t want him.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said. “But maybe he’ll be happy doing something else.”
He shrugged. “What if he doesn’t want to do anything other than what he did before?”
Ah, now we were getting at the crux of Ash’s worries. “Life is all about change. We all suffer. We all fail. We pick up the pieces and try again. We have to forget about the past and reinvent ourselves.”
He fixed his eyes on me. “Is that what you did?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes, that’s all there’s to do.”
“Well, at least you’re not denying your fucked-up truth, whatever that is.” He exhaled a long breath. “Do you want to come into the store or would you rather wait in the truck? You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to. It’s up to you.”
I considered the supermarket before me. I hadn’t been to one in ages. It was tempting, but there were a lot of people in there, not to mention a lot of cameras.
Was I being paranoid? Surely, after all this time, I could venture out for a few minutes. What were the chances that a random one-time stop at a supermarket could hurt?
I put my hat and sunglasses back on. “Okay.”
We walked through the automated doors together. For a moment, we both stood there like petrified trees, blinded by the fluorescent lights. Neil stood between us, looking from Ash to me. I don’t know who was more nervous, Ash or me, but Ash’s eyes worked the place as if the grocery carts were piled with IEDs and the Taliban waited in ambush somewhere behind aisle three.
The muscles between my shoulders knotted into tight wads, but I offered my hand. Or did I need his hand to tap into his courage?
He seized my hand and clung to it with a grip that surprised me. “Let’s roll.”
It took a few minutes, but as we wandered down the aisles, Ash began to relax. Eventually, after we got a cart, so did I. The store was huge and full of interesting things. Hat low on my brow, sunglasses on, I enjoyed browsing, pushing the cart as Ash filled it with all sorts of stuff.
“Do you like oranges?” he said, grabbing a two-pound sack.
“I love oranges,” I said, “but I’m on ramen until I get paid next week.”
“Not while I’m around.” He dropped the sack in the cart.
I stared up and down the long cereal aisle. “They don’t have this many brands of cereal at Kailyn’s convenience store.”
“They don’t have these many choices in Afghanistan either.” He examined the boxes. “What do you think, Almond Clusters or Honey Bunches?”
I shrugged. “No clue.”
“Fuck it.” He dropped both boxes in the cart. “Let’s go see how many types of milk they can squeeze out of the same cow.”
It was a measure of our respective situations that two really screwed-up people could find such fun at the grocery store. On the leash, Neil trotted alongside, wagging his tail and sporting his red vest and his dog-at-work happy smile. We were at the register, checking out, when the display next to the magazine racks caught my attention.
Small red packets sat by the register in tidy rows. Botanical Incense, big bold letters announced at the front of the display. Catch the Rush. There was something familiar about the little red packets, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
I pulled one out of the rack. On the back, a yellow happy face with crossed-out eyes hovered above a line that said not for human consumption. I turned the packet around. The product was called Red Rush. The stylized Rs in the name were reversed.
My fingertips burned as if singed. The packet fell out of my hand. A shot of adrenaline quickened my pulse. I couldn’t breathe. My knees rattled, my throat went dry, my stomach pitched and roiled. It was as if a black hole had opened beneath my feet. My hand went to the back of my neck, where the same inverted R had once been inked into my flesh. A patch of thickened skin was the only remnant of a time I wanted to forget. I’d hoped never to see that brand ever again.
“Lia?” Ash said. “Why are you upset?”
I squeaked. “Me?”
Ash gestured with his chin to the German shepherd, pressing his body against my legs. “If Neil thinks you’re upset then let me tell you, you’re upset.” He reached out and took my hands. “You’re shaking.”
“I...” A bomb had gone off in my mind. My capacity to think had been shattered. I gagged on the bile that surged up my throat. I wrenched my hands from Ash, squeezed between him and the register, and ran.
“Lia!”
I stumbled out of the store and made a straight line for the trash can in the parking lot. I barely made it. I retched like a drunk after a binge.
What should I do? What could I do? The fact that Red Rush was being sold as incense in a national supermarket chain meant that Red was in expansion mode once again. Red. How I hated to even think of his name. It felt like a knife stabbing at my brain.
I’d been forced to take Red Rush once, when it was but one of many of Red’s “prototypes.” He’d tied me down and strapped a mask over my nose and mouth. It’d been the last time he tried one of his prototypes on me. My heart raced in my chest as if it was about to explode. My blood pressure shot up and my head felt as if it was about to blow. My pupils had dilated until I could barely see. I’d suffered tremors, hallucinations and violent seizures that landed me in the hospital. Afterward, I’d been sick with nausea, vomiting and an excruciating migraine that wouldn’t let up for days.
Red Rush was most definitively not a harmless pack of botanical incense as marketed. It wasn’t a simple variation of marijuana either, but something much worse: a dangerous, powerful, addictive synthetic drug that enslaved its users, ruined lives and was responsible for accidental overdoses, many of which had resulted in deaths. The addictive nature of Red Rush guaranteed Red’s market share. I thought of the kids and families that could be destroyed. My stomach churned all over again.
I couldn’t stop it. Could I? I’d tried before and lost everything in the attempt.
Walk away. Don’t think about it. There was nothing I could do about it. Worry about surviving. Surely someone else could deal with this. If they figured it out before it was too late. If they could. I retched some more.
I spotted Ash and Neil making their way toward me. I wiped my mouth and tried to suppress my emotions. I’d already paid the price. It wasn’t my fight anymore.
Neil shoved his head into my hands. Petting the dog calmed my nerves. Ash parked the shopping cart next to the truck and met me by the trash cans.
He queried me with a grim stare. “What the hell happened back there?”
“My stomach,” I said. “I think I ate too much.”
“You didn’t eat that much,” he said. “Can you walk?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“And I’m Peter Pan, high on Tinker Bell’s dust.” He offered his arm. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.” But I took his arm.
“You’re such an awful liar.”
Ash unlocked the truck’s door and lifted me up to the seat. He grabbed a Gatorade from the grocery bags, opened it and handed it to me. I sipped on the Gatorade, nursing my queasy stomach while he loaded the groceries. My nerves were shot.
“Lia,” he said once we were back on the road. “What happened back there?”
“Nothing,” I said.
I curled up on the seat and closed my eyes, if only to escape his probing gaze. I leaned my head against the window and pretended to sleep. It wasn’t easy. For the entire hour-and-a-half drive, I kept seeing Red’s brand as if it had been seared inside my eyelids.