Reza felt
Emily hesitate before she climbed the hill toward the MOUT site behind him. His
gaze fell to his gloves on her hands, and an unexplained warmth spread
somewhere in the vicinity of his belly as he watched her.
He wasn’t
entirely sure what the hell had happened to him. Not so long ago, he’d gone up
one side of her and down the other for keeping information about a soldier from
him. Not so long ago, he’d told her she did not belong in the army.
Now she was
out at the range with him, wanting to know about the world he lived in.
A world he
didn’t want her to know. The scars on his body were testament to the ragged
ugliness of war.
She’d watched
movies about combat. He’d led men in combat. Bled with them.
What on earth
had possessed him to bring her out here?
He knew what
it was and it pissed him off. If she was going to deploy, maybe something she
learned today would save her life later. He hated to think of her in a bunker
with rockets landing all around. His stomach twisted hard. He wouldn’t be there
to keep her safe.
People like
her simply didn’t recognize the world for what it was: a cruel, hard place that
would crush the best of them. It was a world that required exactly what they
were about to do: train.
If he
couldn’t protect her, he could train her. At least a little. A little was
better than nothing.
If she backed
away from the shoot house, he wouldn’t let her go. She needed to do this, to
see this in training where it was safe. No matter how much he wanted to protect
her from the smoke and chaos of war—even a mock war like they were getting
ready to wage today—the simple fact was she was going to deploy. Better to
learn what she could here today rather than head to the desert with zero
training. The threat of violence was a very real thing in his daily life and if
she was going to deploy, she needed to understand that.
He watched
her as she approached, careful to keep his expression neutral.
Part of him
wanted her to run, to turn away from the violence of his life.
But another
part of him, the dark part, wanted her to join him in the muck and the mire.
That darkness held a powerful lure, a quiet shame mixed with the pride: he was
good at what he did.
She flexed her hands in those gloves and his guts clenched.
Down, boy.
“You ready
for this?” he asked as she stopped next to him.
She peered up
at him intently through her army-issued protective glasses. They were at least
three sizes too big. “Is one ever really ready for something like this?” She
didn’t look nervous but he heard the stress in her voice.
“Would it
help you to know that I’m looking forward to this? This is the fun stuff I
signed up for.” Not the killing parts. No, not those. But the force-on-force
mock fights? That was the fun stuff.
“Fun? Are you
serious?”
“Hey, Sarn’t
Ike, check this out!” One of his old lieutenants, Miller, ran up from the
entrance to one of the blown-up windowless buildings of the mock city. He
lifted his shirt, showing a brilliant purple and red welt on his side.
“That shit’s
going to hurt like hell tomorrow,” Reza said with a low whistle. “Did the
medics check you out?”
“I’m not fu—
Nah, I’m good,” Miller said, stopping himself once he realized there was an
officer present. “Ma’am.” He saluted and Emily returned the courtesy.
Reza almost
shook his head at the sharp perfection of her salute. She obviously hadn’t
learned the half-assed officer salute that so many officers passed off as real
customs and courtesies. He watched her expression change from horror to pure
curiosity.
“Is that—”
“Some of the
guys were screwing around, Ma’am. Doesn’t hurt that bad.” Miller had turned
about as red as the bruise on his side.
“How did that
happen?” she asked, peering closer.
Miller
glanced at Reza for permission and Reza nodded. Unless he was mistaken, that
bruise had come from an epic case of fucking around and he didn’t mind Emily
hearing that. She needed to see the fun side of the guys in addition to the
fucked up stuff inside their heads. Maybe if he could get her to see them as
people, she’d stop thinking of them as victims.
“Couple of
the guys cornered me. I let my guard down and well…there you have the results.”
Reza grinned,
feeling the warm comfort of familiarity slip around him as Miller ran back
toward his boys. This, Reza knew. This was the only thing that kept him from
crawling back into the bottle. A chance to lead his boys again.
He wasn’t in
charge today. No, that day was still a long way off. But he wanted—no, he
needed—to be back with guys like Foster and Miller. With captains like Teague.
“Just follow
me and stay close. It might get a little loud.” Reza watched as she tried to
get her bearings over the sounds and the movement and the noise.
People who
had never been to combat didn’t understand the chaos on the battlefield. It was
oh so easy to second-guess the actions of the men and women on the ground when
the videos captured everything, but in the thick of the fight? Yeah, it was
never as easy as the video games and armchair quarterbacks made it seem. There
was too much smoke, too much yelling, far too many people.
One wrong
choice and the squeeze of the trigger ended a life. It might be fun, what they
did in the shoot house, but that fun ended the minute they rolled with real
rounds in the chamber.
“A little
loud?” She was shouting. “I’m not sure it can get any louder.”
“If you’re still talking to me in a few months, I’ll take
you out on an op in the tunnels. You want to talk about loud.”
“Tunnels?”
“We do tunnel
training because we never know when we have to go below the cities, or
literally in tunnels.”
Her eyes
widened slightly as though she was only just starting to grasp the variety of
situations his boys faced. It was fascinating watching the scales fall from her
eyes. She took everything in. Watched with a fascination that told him she
wasn’t missing anything.
Her brows
drew down in a slight frown. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing.
You’re just…You’re different out here.” She tipped her chin at him. “More
intense. You really do enjoy this stuff, don’t you?”
The strange
feeling in his belly unfurled completely, spreading warmth wide through his
blood. “There is nothing better than leading men in combat,” he said over the
noise.
Nothing until
he held that experience up next to the possibility of touching Emily again.
What would he
give up for a few more minutes alone? To touch her the way he wanted, to feel
her soften beneath his mouth and his fingers.
An explosion
ripped through the noise and he ducked, more on instinct than anything else.
When he looked over at her, her jaw had tightened in determination.
And Reza fell
a little harder.
USA Today bestselling author Jessica Scott is a career army officer; mother of two daughters, three cats and three dogs; wife to a career NCO and wrangler of all things stuffed and fluffy. She is a terrible cook and even worse housekeeper, but she's a pretty good shot with her assigned weapon and someone liked some of the stuff she wrote. Somehow, her children are pretty well-adjusted and her husband still loves her, despite burned water and a messy house.
She's written for the New York Times At War Blog, PBS Point of View: Regarding War Blog, and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. She deployed to Iraq in 2009 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn and has served as a company commander at Fort Hood, Texas.
She's pursuing a PhD in Sociology in her spare time and most recently, she's been featured as one of Esquire Magazine's Americans of the Year for 2012.
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