Above and Beyond (Twist of Fate 4)

I busied myself with trying to check his vitals, but when I put my fingers to his wrist to check his pulse, he surprised me by twining his fingers with mine and pulling my hand up to his chest. He was staring at the ceiling.

I shifted my body so I could rest my head on my hand as I leaned over him. His other hand was covering mine where it was resting against his chest, so I took the opportunity to just rub circles into his skin in the hopes of soothing him. "It's the storms, isn't it?" I asked. "The lightning and thunder triggered an episode."

"Among other things," Zach murmured. I thought back to the night in my room when he’d attacked me. I thought it had been the physical contact, but in fact, it had been the light that I'd inadvertently turned on when I’d been reaching across his body. In the process, a book had fallen off my nightstand. "Not just thunderstorms," I said as understanding dawned. "It's the combination of sudden light and loud sounds."

Zach was quiet for a moment, then let out a harsh laugh. "I sleep with the lights on in the hopes of preventing it from happening again. Some hero," he drawled. "You think they give out medals to guys who come back from that hellhole and are too afraid to sleep in the dark?"

"Will you tell me about it?" I asked.

Zach let out a soft sigh, but at the same time he began running his thumb up and down the back of my hand. "I fucked up," he said. "I fucked up and three good men are dead."

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I didn't believe any of that, but I managed to keep my mouth shut. I had no doubt that if he’d told anyone the story already, they'd responded with the typical argument that whatever had happened wasn't his fault or that he couldn't have known what would happen. Zach didn't need to hear any of that from me. He needed to talk, and I needed to listen.

"Tell me what happened," I urged.

"We were sent in to rescue some journalist who'd been taken hostage. There’d been a lot of stories on the news about American citizens being captured and beheaded. That shit doesn't make for good TV, if you know what I mean. The kid who'd been kidnapped was the son of a senator. Didn't matter that he’d gone willingly into the lion's den in the hopes of being the first journalist to snag an interview with the very terrorists we’d been fighting for years. Our orders were to go in and get him, no matter what the cost. I knew as soon as we landed outside the city he was being held in that the intel we’d been given was wrong. It was just a gut feeling, but I knew in my heart it was a setup. I tried to pull the plug on the mission, but the orders came from higher up. Doesn't matter if you're Army or Navy or whatever, in the military the only thing that keeps you alive is the rules and you follow them to a T." Zach fell silent for several long beats, but he continued to toy with my hand.

"They broke us into smaller teams to clear the buildings surrounding the one the kid was supposedly being held in. It was just me and three other guys sweeping the building. There should've been at least a dozen of us clearing it. Everything inside of me was screaming at me not to go in. Kaminski, Teller, Mac, they followed me without question because that was their job. Just like it was my job to follow the orders of the guy above me. I ignored all the warnings in my head and proceeded. I had dozens of chances to turn us around and get us out of there, but I had my orders."

Zach practically spat the word "orders." I could feel his heart pounding beneath my hand. I rested my head on his shoulder and sidled up close to him in the hopes that feeling my body next to his would bring him some comfort.

"Intel had said it was just a small group of rebels holding the journalist and that they had limited weaponry. But it was all bullshit. They had the tech needed to jam our comms so we couldn't call for backup. All I remember is being outside this room, this nothing room, and wanting to just turn around and get out of there. But we went in, sweeping it like we were supposed to, even though the comms were down. There was no electricity in the building, so it was pitch dark. We were using our night vision goggles to see. One second there was nothing but silence, then there was this boom and flash of light. It blinded us because of the night vision tech we were using. Kaminski and Teller got the worst of it because the flash bang was detonated between the two of them. I turned around just in time to see an insurgent run his knife across Kaminski's throat. I gave the order to retreat, but it was too late. The assailants didn't use guns because they didn't want to alert any of our team members. They cut up Teller too. I didn't see what happened to Mac but I saw his face…" Zach’s voice dropped off.