But we got here first, and I can’t wait to get set up and go live. I have Rafe on standby waiting to patch me in.

My mind wanders to Omid and how his intel was wrong. I wonder whether he was protecting me or playing me for the opposition, except I can’t give it much more thought once the edge of the bomb zone comes into view. Beaux and her camera are back in action as we step into the scene of destruction, the steady sound of the shutter click a reassurance because when I hear it, I know she’s okay.

Piles of concrete rubble with trickles of smoke ascending from them lie before me. American soldiers comb through the piles, putting items I can’t quite make out into sacks to bring back to base and turn over to the CIA. Black bags are laid out here and there to signify deceased victims who appear to be high-value targets waiting to be DNA tested and identified. Such a mechanical set of procedures for the manmade loss of life.

And no matter how many years I’ve been on the job, how many scenes like this I’ve come to report on, I’ve never gotten used to the sight or the scent of lost lives. Quickly, I turn to look toward Beaux, to make sure that she’s okay; she doesn’t have many situations like this under her belt, and I know how tough it can be to process it all. She stands a few feet beside me, camera up to her cheek as her shield to make the reality seem far away even though, in all irony, it brings her closer to the destruction.

She seems as fine as one can be under these circumstances, so I turn my focus back on Sarge’s communications, all the while getting more perspective on the enormity of the operation. I begin to work out the wording of my report in my head, ears tuned in to Sarge’s voice and Beaux’s shutter, and eyes darting at the debris field stretched out in front of me.

I collect as much information as possible – the destruction of buildings, the emotional devastation on civilians, gauge the hostility versus the willingness to help the soldiers, anything and everything to add to my report and allow the viewer to understand the magnitude and importance of this campaign. I take it all in, filter through the things I have to be vague on now and details to clear with Sarge later before I can give an in-depth report. All that matters is I find a place to set up right now, get the feed up live, and file a story before anyone else gets here.

So you’re the one.

I chuckle to myself, my mind flashing back to the first night I met Beaux and the comment she made that’s never been more true than right now. Yep, I’m the one that every reporter hates and wants to be all at the same time. I find a setup that I think will work to report from just as loud shouts break out across the square. Soldiers are physically coercing three men from a house who are not cooperating. The soldiers have their guns drawn on the locals as shouting escalates from both sides, hands gesticulating wildly to try and bridge the language barrier in an attempt to mediate an already volatile situation.

“Thomas?”

I look up to find Rosco bearing down on me. “Yeah?”

“We know it’s not your first rodeo, but Sarge wants to make sure you’re vague. No location. No confirmed hits on high-value targets. No —”

“I know the routine, Rosco. I’ll play by the rules,” I confirm, irritated he’s even saying anything as I look back down to my computer to finish setting up my connections.

It’s a split second that lasts a lifetime for me. So many things happen simultaneously, but at the same time feel like they are their own individual moments: I swear I hear “BJ” called somewhere behind me at the same moment I realize the constant comforting click of Beaux’s shutter is gone. I snap my head up just as Rosco’s eyes widen at something over my shoulder.

And I know in an instant that it’s something to do with Beaux. That gut instinct I’ve spent my career honing picks up on something, and my heart plummets to my feet.

“Beaux!”

We both call her name as I whirl around to make out what he’s seeing. She doesn’t hear us, too damn preoccupied with her camera in one hand and that big heart of hers that she wears on her sleeve. She’s walking toward a dog lamed by something wrapped around his hind quarters. He whimpers, tries to walk, and stumbles.

Everything clicks into place at once for me. Snapshots that play together to show what’s about to happen minus the sound of her shutter.

Pure, unfettered terror steals my voice as I move on instinct – fight-or-flight – and knock everything over, my only thought to get to Beaux.

Rosco’s shout rings through the chaos around us and adds to the riot of fear screaming in my own head.

Beaux stops a few feet from the dog before her body jerks at the absolute commanding terror in Rosco and my voices even though I swear no sound even came out of my mouth.

Her face. I know before anything further happens that the look on her face will forever be scarred in my mind. At first it’s confusion, parted lips, widened eyes, as she ever so slowly lowers her camera.

One second. All it takes is a split second for the confusion to morph into a perfect visual of her panic-stricken fear that is like a vise grip on my heart.

My feet feel like they are wading through concrete, legs seizing up and not moving nearly fast enough to get to her.

She drops her camera. I don’t know why I focus on that, the sight of it falling and then stopping and recoiling back up like a bungee jumper when the strap around her neck loses slack.

Her body contorts, arms pumping, legs pushing, eyes locked on mine pleading with me in an apology I never want to accept.

C’mon, rookie, I call to her silently, urge her, beg her to put as much distance between herself and the dog caught in the improvised explosive device.

C’mon, baby.

The explosion rocks me to the core. The earth beneath my feet is nonexistent as I’m thrown into a spin cycle of smoke and sound and the complete unknown before my shoulders end up finding the ground again.

I’m stunned, shell-shocked, paralyzed. Unable to speak, can’t think, can’t hear anything except for a high-pitched ringing in my ears, and I am terrified to see.

Beaux?

Beaux.

Beaux!

My mind screams with fear; the horrific images of war in my memory mix with the thought of Beaux producing visuals I don’t want: her small body impossibly contorted, soft skin marred, long hair matted with blood. I hear the sound of Stella screaming in pain, but I’d swear it’s Beaux’s voice this time around.

Then the pain that radiates throughout my body and the sensation of my skull feeling like it’s beneath the wheel of a car rolling at an excruciatingly slow pace drown out everything else.

So you’re the one, huh?

Panic ricochets, and my head swims in a viscous haze that grows thicker by the second. My body is so heavy, and all I want to do is roll onto my stomach and crawl to find her. But I can’t move, can’t think beyond the dust and particles raining down around me, the staggering scent I winced at earlier now becoming a part of me.

“Tanner! Tanner!”

Voices shout from every direction, hands touch me and minister to my injuries and wave in front of my eyes. Sarge and Rosco and a soldier. A medic, I think. But I don’t know anything for certain because my focus wanes, fades to black momentarily before coming back, a little fuzzier, a lot more confused.

I don’t know much, can’t make anything I see stay still, but I do know one thing: There are people around me, trying to help me – everyone but the one I want to see there the most.

Bubbles. I close my eyes, my head feeling adrift like the bubbles we were blowing last night. Was it last night? I can’t pinpoint anything because I’m fading. Slowly. I welcome it because when it pulls me under, the pain stops momentarily.

“He’s in shock!” someone I can’t focus on shouts over the deafening ring in my ears.

Well, no shit. The observation is so odd that I want to laugh, want to tell them to stop looking at me and get to Beaux. She was closer. She was closer.

I couldn’t get to her.

I couldn’t save her.

Beaux.

My world spins, blackness seeping into the fringes of my consciousness and bleeding from the edges in, closer and closer, darker and darker.

Until there is nothing left.

Beaux.

You promised you’d always come back to me.

Chapter 21




I struggle to swim above the water. I claw my way to just beneath the surface with lungs burning, the sky in sight, only to be yanked back down. And I struggle against it less and less because when I’m swallowed by the darkness again, I can go back to the rooftop with Beaux, blowing bubbles, making love. It’s so much easier to be here in the warmth of the hot sun and the sweet taste of her kiss than to endure the ache in my head when I try to open my eyes.

I can’t keep track of how many times I resurface, but the penlight in my eyes and the cool burn of something like ice being injected into the top of my hand are annoying enough that I promise next time I’ll wake up.

Next time.

But then the minute I’m firmly ensconced back in the depths of my subconscious, the look on Beaux’s face as she realized what was happening flashes before me.

I never told her I loved her. It’s on constant refrain in my mind when I come to and the only thing I know for sure before the darkness steals my thoughts from me once again.

The void of sound and pain is so soothing that when I reach the surface the next time, the beeping that’s muffled in my ears confuses me for a moment. The bright light that hits my eyes as I break free from the weight of the water holding me down causes me to squint and then blink rapidly as I try to focus on the room around me.

“Tanner? Can you hear me, Tanner?”

I feel like I’m on the wrong end of a megaphone, sound siphoned through a pinhole, but at least the roaring pain in my head has dulled to a nagging ache behind my eyes and at the base of my skull. My eyelids are heavy, wanting to droop back down, but between my name being called again and my sudden awareness of everything, I force my eyes open as confusion gives way to worry.

And dread.

“Beaux. Where’s…?” My voice breaks as I try to make the question sound as urgent as it is in my head, but I know at best I sound groggy.

Patient brown eyes assess me as I look around and place myself in the military combat hospital on the forward operating base. “Tanner, do you know where you are?” I start to nod and stop immediately as the pain radiates through my head. “Don’t move. The pain will ebb slowly. You took a pretty big hit to the head. Have a slight concussion. So much better than we’d expect with the blow we were told you took,” he says as he writes something down on the chart in his hand. “You’re a lucky man. We gave you some sedatives to allow your brain to rest for a bit, so it may feel like you’re having a hard time waking up.”

I don’t care about me, I want to yell. How is Beaux? Where is she? Tell me she’s okay!

“You’ve been here a little over a day with a concussion and some minor scrapes and stitches. You’re likely to be sore with how close you were to the blast zone, but you’re lucky those are your only injuries.”

I try to process that I’ve been here over a day. At least twenty-four hours. A lot can happen in twenty-four hours. And while his words are delivered in a soothing Southern accent, they make me even more upset because if I’m lucky and I was that close to the epicenter, what the fuck does that mean for Beaux? Emotions riot through me, so many of them that I can’t pinpoint one to grab and hold on to other than my need to know that she’s all right.

“Where is she?” I ask, trying to sit up. All I can focus on through the stabbing pain in my head from my sudden movement is that I need to see her.

“Whoa! Lie back down, Tanner,” he says with his hands on my shoulders, pressing me back down as I continue to resist, unable to accept that he’s not answering me. “You need rest.”