Quadruple Duty: All or Nothing

Next thing I knew I was outside, standing alone in the cool morning air. The sun was up now but it was still freezing outside. I laughed manically, wondering how the desert could be so fucking hot and yet so fucking cold at the same time.

Sammara!

I realized I was no longer breathing. The dam burst and I dropped my head into my hands. Inhaling deeply, I took in a shuddering, ragged breath.

It’s okay, I tried convincing myself. Everything’s going to be okay.

I took a second breath, then a third. Then too many more, and I was practically hyperventilating. Still, this is what I’d wanted. This is what Dakota and Markus and I needed to happen.

Like it or not, this was what we’d come here do.

I jumped up all at once, determined to pull myself together. Suddenly I didn’t even know which tent I’d come out of. In the smooth, sand-blasted avenue surrounded by a great beige sea of canvas, everything looked the same.

“Kyle?”

I peeled back a nearby flap, only to find more canvas. Another flap in a similar tent opened into nothing but darkness.

I whirled, panicked, and suddenly there he was. His face was stoic and unreadable as he stood before me, leaning only slightly on his crutch.

My heart dropped into my feet. I couldn’t read him at all! Couldn’t tell what had happened, only that he was here instead of inside.

“Is… is everything…”

“We don’t know,” Kyle answered. “We lost the feed. Lost the radio too,” he sighed. “Something must’ve happened to the portable transmitter.”

I examined his expression carefully. “But you… you were watching.”

“A bit,” he said. “Yes.”

“And?”

“And we don’t know Sammara,” he shrugged. “It was fuzzy. Dark. Everything was crazy, and then it just got crazier.”

I wondered if he were telling me everything. My gut feeling told me he was. But something else told me Kyle would protect me from the truth as long as he could, especially if that truth should be hard to swallow.

“What do you think?”

He stood there a moment longer, then hobbled another step forward. His closeness felt good, reassuring. I felt his hand go around my waist, pulling our bodies together.

“I love you no matter what happens,” he murmured into my ear. “But I know they’ll come back. Dakota, Ryan, even Briggs. All of them…”

I felt his hot breath as he nuzzled my neck. He did it for comfort. For reassurance, both for him and for me.

“But if…” he hesitated, choking momentarily on the sentence. “If anything doesn’t go the way—”

“Don’t say it.”

“I—I mean...”

“KYLE!”

I flashed him a dangerous look. One I’d never given anyone, and certainly one he’d never seen before.

“I said don’t even say it.”

His nostrils flared, but he refused to look away. Lowering his head slightly, he nodded.

Silence descended over the camp. It wasn’t just us, it was anyone around. It was like being at a funeral parlor, where nobody knew anyone else and everyone was in simultaneous mourning.