Quicksand Page 4

  “Stay safe… Raid,” I whisper, wishing he could stay on the line just a little longer.

  He just breathes, “Elli,” as if he were saying a prayer. Then the line goes silent and I mourn the loss of his voice, and the comfort I didn’t realize I craved.

  I roll onto my back looking up at the dimming glow in the dark stars that right now, look brighter to me than they have in two whole years.

  ~Raiden~

  I’m lying in my cot, staring up at the ceiling of the tent I call home out here in the desert and I can’t sleep. I need to be up in a couple hours because we’re going out on a mission. I need to be focused, I need to be alert, keep my brothers safe, bring us all back in one piece.

  But every time I close my eyes, I can’t think of anything but how Elli’s voice made me feel. Made me feel like I would do anything to protect that voice, anything to keep her safe from harm. I don’t honestly know that I’m comfortable with this feeling.

  I get lost in my own thoughts listening to the wind rushing around outside, the weather oblivious to my moral dilemma and confusion about a woman. Not just any woman though, she’s a survivor. A fighter, like me. She fights every day a fight she doesn’t know if she’s gonna win. Just like me.

  I let out a frustrated breath and sit up. Swinging my feet off the bed, leaning my elbows on my knees my fingers tugging my hair, I sit there and think. I have this insatiable need to know what she looks like. It’s eating at me, how can I already be drawn to someone just by their words on a page, their voice through a shitty global phone connection.

  She likes my laugh, she called me Raid, fuck I liked it when she called me Raid. When she first answered my call, she sounded quiet and unsure of herself, like she didn’t think she should be talking to me but then she spoke again and I heard a confident sexy woman. Her voice was the equivalent to silk running through my fingers.

  Listening to her talk, knowing she was listening to me, letting me get out what I needed to say and not shutting down on me when I approached it by scolding her dead husband… That got to me. She didn’t get pissed, she seemed astonished I would blame him and not her. That’s something I have to make her understand, this, everything around me, everything that happened to Garrett overseas, doesn’t have anything to do with her.

  She’s the one that brings a man home, the one that gives a man hope at the end of the day when he has sand in his boots, dirt on his face and his muscles are achin’. She’s the woman that gives a man something to take his mind off this fucking place.

  I’m coming to realize now, that I didn’t have anything to keep me rooted in the states, something other than my mama to come home to. And it makes me feel incredibly lonely.

  Garrett had that, but will I ever have it? Meaningless sex is fun, I never really wanted more than that. I’m a ghost when I’m stateside, because this is where I belong, next to my brothers. I can’t imagine having something real and passionate and then having to leave her behind to go on a mission. She wouldn’t know if I would come back, when I go dark it’s hard. My mama worries about me and it’s sketchy, having to put her in that position in the first place. For the first time in my life, I’m left questioning my path. What always was so concrete, so set in stone is now crumbling into questions I never knew I needed answered.

  Sitting up and tugging my boots on, I get up and walk outside into the dry night air. I look up at the stars and know I can’t let all this go. I might have been able to before this afternoon even when I got back, I was going to end it. I was going to save her from becoming attached to me. How arrogant that sounds. Really, I’m starting to think that it’s myself I was trying to protect. No strings meant I wouldn’t hurt anyone if I get blown up over here.

  Now I just know too much, after finding out what Garrett did, and how strong Eli is, I think I might need her more than she needs me.

  This was supposed to be advice from someone who has spent time overseas, someone who can relate to her Navy SEAL husband. Now it’s turning into me satisfying my need to hear her sweet voice, take her sweetness and make it my own. I know I’m being a selfish bastard, but fuck if I can stop.

  Walking over to a low wall, I sit down and lean back, once again staring into the stars searching for answers. I let my eyes travel through the darkness of space, concentrating hard, hoping that maybe if I do it long enough, her face might be there looking back down at me.

  I’m still wallowing there outside, as it approaches two am, thinking about this faceless voice I can’t let go when an explosion rocks my body a little too close for comfort.

  Then I hear the distinct crack crack crack of automatic weapon fire. “FUCK!” I sprint into the tent, yelling at Weston to wake up when another explosion lights up the night nearly blinding us.

  I yank my gear on and Weston does the same.

  “What’s happening Raiden?!”

  “I don’t know man, but we gotta get out of here.” I rush out of the tent with Weston coming in hot behind me just as more gunfire sounds and we are shoved into the fray.

  ~Elli~

  “More bad news from the front lines of Iraq tonight. A group of insurgents hit a military base on the out skirts of Baghdad early there this morning. Reports say there are three dead and several soldiers wounded. We will report more on this attack as the information comes to us. Thank you, Tom, in other news…”

  I stay frozen, facing my television. My jaw is trembling and my heart is filling with sickening dread. My ears refuse to filter in anything further.

  “Military base…Baghdad…Three dead, several wounded…” Raiden. Oh God, Raiden.

  I hear Jen in my kitchen talking to Dahlia, but I don’t go to them. When I finally realize what’s happened I sprint to my purse, my socks sliding on the hard wood floor. In my haste, I knock my bag to the ground, and everything spills out.

  I snatch my phone up and go through my email, nothing.

  I check my call log for missed phone calls. Nothing.

  I dial the global cell Raiden called me on, but the call doesn’t go through.

  I sink to the floor surrounded by the contents of my purse, my phone sitting heavy in my hands. Raiden.

  My sluggish mind finally processes that he might really be one of those wounded or dead and the first tear spills over my lashes and splashes down to the screen of my phone, followed by the second that hits my hand. The third and the fourth fall and then as if I’m being strangled by grief so hot and fresh, I stop being able to catch my breath.

  I don’t know if he’s okay, I don’t know if he’s dead or wounded or captured. I just don’t know. Once I finally shudder in a breath, despair wrapping its claws around my heart, I start sobbing. Not quietly, but loud body racking sobs.

  Jen skates around the corner between the kitchen where I’m rocking myself back and forth on the floor, almost stepping on me, confusion marring her face at my sudden meltdown.

  “Omg Elli, what’s wrong? Honey, what happened??” I feel her hands on my back trying to soothe me and I start sobbing harder, close to the point of wailing as if my heart is dying, as if it’s Garrett all over again.

  Jen is doing her best to calm me down and find out what happened but I’m slipping further and further into darkness, the pain blinding me and holding me hostage.

  I can’t stop hearing his voice in my head, his bourbon deepness, the way he laughs, the way he said my name. How it rumbled through his lips like a reverie, a prayer.

  I lean into Jen and she cradles me like a child knowing I need to find a way to stop hysterically sobbing or I’ll slip into an anxiety attack.

  No one can help me. I feel helpless not knowing if he’s okay, this is some kind of twisted fresh hell.

  Raiden.

  Please call me, please email me. Please be okay…please be alive, sweetheart, I can’t lose you too.

  Please, I just found you.

  Someone to listen to me and to understand where I’m coming from, I send my prayers up to heaven, hoping Raiden isn’
t already there staring down at me.

  These thoughts keep playing over and over in my head. I can’t do this, not after losing Garrett, I can’t lose someone else to this fucking war.

  I won’t survive it.

  I don’t even let myself even think about what’s happening to me right now, feeling like this over someone I’ve never met.

  Someone I’ve never held.

  Someone I’ve never kissed.

  Never had the pleasure to love.

  My phone rings suddenly, crashing through my sobs and I flinch in Jen’s arms.

  I grasp my phone and wipe my eyes to check the number, praying to God that it’s him. Praying this is something good, praying that I can hear his voice again.

  The anguish inside only ripping me apart further at the thought that this phone call could be the opposite, it might be too late.

  I answer the number I don’t recognize.

  With tears in my throat, I say, “Hello?” The line crackles, but then I hear it. Like it was heaven sent I hear his voice.

  “Elli, sweet girl.”

  A fresh wave of tears cascades down my face, my smile coming through wobbly.

  “Raid, Oh God.” I sniff.

  He breathes into the phone what sounds like a sigh of relief.

  “I needed to hear you,” he says it quietly. What he doesn’t realize is that I feel the same way, tears still making their tracks down my cheeks.

  “I needed to hear you too, I was so terrified, they said on the news that soldiers had died and others were wounded, I didn’t know what to do, Raiden.” I sniff back more tears, my voice sounding watery but so relieved.

  Jen is sitting there confused, her eyebrows pinched together and her head tilting to the side.

  His voice comes through to me again and it’s a voice I never want to take for granted.

  “I can’t talk long but I needed to let you know I was okay,” he pauses. “I think it’s more for my sanity but I couldn’t not call you.” It’s almost like he’s embarrassed.

  “Raiden,” I pause, “whatever your last name is,” I say firmly. “You never feel embarrassed for calling me, you have no idea how much I needed you to get ahold of me. Hearing your voice right now is bringing me back to life.”

  Jen makes a noise next to me and her jaw pops open. I smile waiting for Raiden to respond. When he does, I swear my heart stops. His voice is so clear and deep it does something to me.

  “Sweet girl, I had to get to you. I won’t ever leave you in the dark if I can help it. I promise you that. I have to go now but I will email or call as soon as I can, we have some shit going down here we need to take care of.”

  Sweet girl, those two words light my soul on fire. I didn’t realize words could do that to you.

  “Okay, just be safe.” I close my eyes soaking up my last minutes with him on the phone.

  “And Elli?” he starts.

  “Yeah?” I whisper.

  “My last name is Michaels.”

  Then the line goes dead. Oh, Raiden Michaels what are you doing to me?

  I take a deep breath, the first real breath since hearing the news this morning.

  Jen clears her throat from beside me.

  “You gonna tell me about this juicy development or what?

  I giggle, my heart fuller than it has been in so so long it’s almost bursting.

  Two bottles of wine later and we are sufficiently drunk, at four in the afternoon. Whose idea was this again?

  Jen is caught up to speed on my little friendship with Raiden and proved to be intensely supportive of it, which kind of caught me off guard.

  I suppose I’m so used to being regarded a certain way, the broken damaged way, that I find it odd when people don’t treat me like that.

  Raiden doesn’t and Jen never has, which I needed to remember.

  When you’re shattered into a million little pieces it doesn’t matter if the love and support has been there along. At least not until you are picked up enough to notice who is standing there in solidarity beside you.

  In my drunk state, listening to Jen humming along to Ellie Goulding I bob my head, for the first time in what feels like an eon letting myself be free from the burden of Garrett’s death. Something that is always with me is suddenly a lot easier to deal with.

  I’m getting up to get another bottle opened when Ellie just speaks to me singing about having someone on her mind.

  I spin around nearly falling down, shouting “OMG Jen, this is me right now. Like I don’t even get it, he’s on my mind all the time! It doesn’t make sense!”

  I’m badly slurring my words but who cares?

  I’m happy and drunk and Ellie Goulding is telling me exactly what is going on in my head right now.

  We start scream-singing the lyrics until we end up in a pile on the couch, our sides aching from laughing so hard. Jen props herself up, all pink cheeked and wide eyed, looking like she is going to spill out a revelation.

  “Oh no, what are you think…thinking you sneaky lady.” I level her gaze as best I can but there are two of her where there should be one.

  “Okay, so like Raiden doesn’t know what you look like…right?”

  I narrow my eyes at her, or her general direction anyway.

  “Uh, yeah and I don’t know what he looks like either.” Still narrowing my eyes, trying to follow her train of thought. She holds up her hands almost falling over in the process.

  “Hear me out…let’s take a selfie.”

  My eyes get big and my face splits into a huge grin, how had I not thought of this sooner! Best drunk plan ever.

  I grab my phone and click the camera app, aiming it at us I take four pictures. The first two were blurry, of course, due to the drunk.

  The last two were okay but looking between them I find the one I really like. My hair looks good, my face is bright, a little pink but I am smiling so hard I almost can’t believe it.

  I haven’t seen myself look this…alive since before Garrett died. I don’t know who this Elli is but I think I love her.

  I attach the photo to an email titled “Ellie Goulding” and all I say is, “Cause I got you on my mind” and click send.

  Descending into wine drunk madness we delight in our perfect drunk selfie and relax into a pile on the couch.

  ~Raiden~

  Base is still a mess. I’ve been working non-stop with the guys trying to get it put back together but we were hit really hard.

  The news reported that “Three were dead and several wounded.” The several wounded part was correct, there were, however, none that died.

  They showed pictures of “fallen soldiers” when in reality they were fucking insurgents dressed in uniform.

  Anyone could see that those were not our men, but America needs its daily dose of carnage and gore.

  I was beyond pissed when I found that shit out because I know now that Elli saw it and it worried her. I was okay, but of course she hadn’t known that and she…she cried for me. She didn’t tell me so, but I could hear it in her broken voice that she had been crying. This beauty, crying over a poor sap stuck in the desert. I have to be the luckiest guy alive.

  I run my hand up and down the back of my neck. I’m covered head to toe in crusted dirt and sand. I need a shower badly, but I need to check on Elli more. It’s been two days since I was able to get in touch with her and I swear hearing her voice was like heaven calling me home. I thought I had truly died and gone there just hearing her answer, her concern for me doing something to my stomach, making it do some kind of backflip. Hearing something like that come from that sexy silky voice, I got rock hard. Zero to one hundred in about two nanoseconds.

  This woman does shit to me I can’t even control it.

  What’s more is I don’t want to.

  I sneak into the damaged but functional comm tent and boot up the computer, anxiously bouncing my leg up and down, wanting to contact my girl.

  Fuck, mine?

  I know she isn’t yet but I
’m gonna make her mine, how can I not with how I feel?

  Not after all this, it has only been a couple weeks but it feels like I’ve known her a lot longer.

  I know such intimate damaged details about her. It just feels like more. So much more.

  Opening my email, I sigh a happy full breath seeing I have one from her. The title gives me pause, not quite understanding it. But shit, I’m too excited to dick around about opening it so I click open.

  It asks me if I want to download attachment.

  Attachment?

  Oh, I hope it’s her, I want to see what I’m sure is the most beautiful angel.

  Please, please, please.

  Feeling like these twenty seconds are taking twenty years I clench and unclench my fists on my thighs.

  It opens and I lose all sense of my surroundings.

  I can’t hear anything, I can’t feel anything and I can’t see anything but her.

  My body fills with a white hot fire starting in my toes, brushing past my rock hard cock and settling deep in my chest like it’s found a home and wants to burn there forever.

  I knew she was gonna be a beautiful angel but she is… absolutely beyond words.

  She is without a doubt the most fucking perfect, literal breathtaking woman I have ever seen.

  She has long white blonde hair, the bluest eyes and the most adorable and sexy pink cheeks. Her teeth so white and straight, her lips just slightly pouty, enough to make my cock pulse in my pants thinking sinful thoughts about what they would feel like wrapped around me.

  It’s like white noise in my ears and I can’t focus on anything but how unbelievably gorgeous she is.

  Pausing, realizing I didn’t read what she wrote along with the picture, I scan through the only sentence she wrote, “‘Cause I got you on my mind.”

  I get fist punched right in my chest, knowing this heaven sent woman is thinking about me. All my previous thoughts come thundering back, practically knocking me over.

  My sweet girl.