Commodity (20 page)

“Why did you?”

I can’t deal with this now.  My head is still throbbing.  I probably do have a concussion from that elbow to the face.  I need sleep.

“Would you rather be out there alone in the woods?”

“No.”  She’s quiet for another minute.  “What are you going to do with me, then?”

“I haven’t gotten that far.”

“Are you going to sell me?”

“Katrina, shut up.”

She tenses beside me, and I feel bad for being so harsh—God knows what’s going through her head right now—but I can’t take any more.  I shove myself up from the small bed and climb over her.  In a cabinet on the other side of the room is a bottle of vodka.  I pull it out and take a big swig.

It’s cheap stuff and burns my throat as it goes down.  It warms my stomach and clouds my head, too, which is the desired effect.

“Who is she?”  Katrina’s words are barely audible.

“Who is who?”

“The girl.”  She sits up and looks up at me.  “The reason you aren’t fucking me now.  What’s her name, and what happened to her?”

I still as images rush through my head again but worse this time.

She was leaning against the concrete wall of a parking garage.  Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail, but most of it had escaped, and the wind was blowing it all around her face.  The last time I saw her—exhausted and so sure she would be fine—was when I glanced over my shoulder right before I entered the half-destroyed hospital building.  I was supposed to be gone for only a few minutes.

I never should have left her.

“Hannah,” I finally say.  “She was taken from me.”

It’s the first time I’ve said her name out loud in months.  I don’t even like to think it.  Every time I do, I’m reminded of our first meeting when she told me to call her by her first name, and I had refused.

How could I have called her that?  I’d been following her story since I read the first article about her turning in
the
Tyler Hudson for embezzling, kidnapping, and running a human trafficking ring.  She didn’t have just an inkling—she had tracked down solid evidence.  She had enough on him that a prosecutor had to do something about it.  Hudson was a king in both industry and politics, and some barely-out-of-college woman was willing to take him on.  It was something no one else, not with money or power, had been willing to do.  There was no way I could have referred to her in such a familiar manner—I was in awe of her.

“Will you tell me about her?” Katrina asks.

I take another long swig from the bottle, but I don’t answer.  There’s gooseflesh appearing on my arms, and I can’t seem to stop my right leg from jiggling up and down.  I remember calling her by her first name when she would start to panic and how it would calm her.  I remember whispering it in her ear as I made love to her.  I remembered screaming it over and over and over again when she was nowhere to be found.

“She must be really important to you.”

“She was.  She
is
.”

Katrina shifts on the bed, pulling one of the pillows into her arms and fluffing it.  She props it up against the wall behind the bed and leans against it.  She looks at me as if she’s waiting for a bedtime story, but I don’t have a “happily ever after” to tell her.

I remember when Hannah told me about Hudson’s assault on her.  It had taken everything in my power to keep myself calm and to stop myself from getting out of the bed and completely destroying the room.  I’d asked her to tell me, and I knew I needed to keep my cool so she could tell me everything without breaking down, but I hadn’t really been prepared for the look in her eyes.  Afterward, she was drained, but she also seemed relieved and more focused.

I glance up at Katrina.  She’s still just sitting there, watching me.  As far as I can tell, she’s genuinely interested in hearing me tell my story.

Maybe I should.

“I was her bodyguard.”  Just the word makes my chest hurt.  I can’t believe I’m actually speaking out loud.  I haven’t told anyone exactly what happened.  “I was supposed to protect her.”

I slide down to the floor, bottle still in hand.  Pulling my knees up to my chest, I lean my arms over them and take another drink.  I put extra pressure on my right leg to stop it from bouncing around so much.

“I guess that didn’t work out so well.”

I shake my head.

“We had just gotten away from the group we were in.  There were people there…men who wanted to hurt her.  I got her away, but then…”

I feel the pressure behind my eyes again as the vodka works its way through my system.

“We stopped at a hospital to get a few things,” I say slowly, focusing on my breathing and trying to remain calm.  “Hannah was exhausted.  She wasn’t up for climbing through all the destruction to get to the supplies.  She wanted to stay outside and rest.  I didn’t like it, but she…she had a way of convincing me to do shit I didn’t want to do.  She was always so confident and independent; it was hard to argue with her sometimes.  I left her there while I went inside.”

I let another gulp of cheap vodka burn my throat.

“I never should have left her alone.”

“Did those guys take her?  The ones you were trying to get away from?”

I nod before continuing.

“I was in a hospital building.  We were running low on gauze and antibiotic cream, and I didn’t know when we’d get a chance to find some again.  The place was a mess, and though I found the storage area, I had to dig into it to find the supplies I needed.  I was making a lot of noise throwing shit around—I was pissed it was taking so long to dig it out.  I should have been quiet.  If I had, maybe I would have heard them.

“I heard a sound behind me, and I knew exactly what it was.  My back felt like I’d just been punched hard or maybe hit by a baseball that should have made it out of the park.  I looked down.  My shirt had a huge hole in it, and blood was seeping out.  Then there was another blast, and I felt a sharp pain in my leg.  I turned around and saw him—Caesar.  He was the guy trying to get Hannah.  He had a grudge.”

I stop and try to catch my breath.  All my words are coming out rushed, mimicking the way the thoughts are flowing through my head.

“There was another guy with him—Brett.  I think he fired the second shot.  I had the chance to kill him days before that, and I should have.  I should have just fucking killed him the first time he touched her, but she…she wouldn’t have liked it.  She always thought the best of everyone, and she didn’t realize what kind of person he was.  Not then, anyway.”

I shake my head.

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“What happened then?”

“I fell backward onto all the medical supplies.  My whole side felt like it was on fire.  I couldn’t move at all for a moment.  I think I knew I’d been shot, but it took me a few minutes to really comprehend it.”

“He shot you?”

“Yeah.  Right in the back.  The bullet came out in the front.”

I reach down and place my hand over my left side, sliding it down and grabbing the edge of my shirt.  I pull the fabric up enough to show her the long scar between my ribs and my hip.

“Holy shit,” she mumbles.  “That’s...”

“Pretty ugly.”

“Yeah.  At least.  How did you even survive?”

“I’m getting to that.”  I breathe slowly, trying to say the words without actually reliving the experience, but it’s not easy.  “So I’m lying on all these boxes of bandages, pills, and ointments, just stunned.  I could still see Caesar’s face in my mind—he was smiling at me right before I fell—but I was having a hard time piecing together what had just happened.  There was blood all over my shirt, and I also hit my head on something in the pile of supplies.  I couldn’t move at all.  I don’t know if it was shock from being hit, a concussion, or what, but I couldn’t move for what felt like the longest time.  He must have thought I was dead, because he didn’t shoot again.”

“What did you do?”

“When I looked down, my shirt was covered in blood, and I could feel it bubbling out of me.  The box of gauze I had already set aside was still right next to my hand, so I grabbed it and ripped open the hole in my shirt even wider so I could see the exit wound.  I nearly puked, and I’m lucky I didn’t just pass out at that point.”

I have to stop and take another swig from the bottle.  It’s strange how comforting the burning liquid feels.  I’ve never been much of a drinker.

“I could see…”  I stop again, taking a deep breath.  “There was a lot of blood, and it was still seeping out, but there were also bits of tissue mixed in with the blood, and I could see part of my intestines sticking out of the hole.”

Katrina gasps and places one hand over her mouth.  Her eyes are wide, and she looks a little sick.

“I was sure I was dead.  It burned so bad—like someone took a hot metal pole and shoved it right through me—but I couldn’t...I couldn’t
die
.  Hannah was still out there, and he was going to go after her next.

“I pulled my shirt out of the way and used my fingers to push…to push everything back inside.  I could feel everything shifting around in there, and I had to fight the urge to throw up.  I used a wad of gauze to put pressure on the wound to try to stop the bleeding, but I knew it wasn’t going to be enough.  I could feel the blood seeping through even as I piled more gauze on it.  I was trying to run through all the shit medics would do in combat, but I was getting lightheaded, and I couldn’t think clearly.

“I felt pain in my back, too.  At first, I thought I had landed on something that cut me, but then I realized it was where the bullet actually entered.”

“That’s good though,” Katrina says.  “The bullet wasn’t still inside of you.”

“No, it wasn’t, but it was a hollow-point bullet.  They’re designed to do more damage coming out.”

“Shit.  What about your leg?” she asks.

“Give me a minute—I’ll get there.”

I reach to my thigh and rub at the scar before I go on.

“I’d been wounded before,” I tell her.  “When I was in Iraq, I was hit with shrapnel.  Lots of small wounds but nothing like this.  Actually, I’d never been shot before—seen it a lot, but it hadn’t happened to me.  All I could think was that I needed to stop the bleeding.  I had to stop the bleeding and get back to Hannah, so I started looking around.

“I guess if you’re going to get shot, get shot in the middle of a hospital supply closet.  As I saw all the stuff lying around me, I started thinking a little more clearly, but I knew that wasn’t going to last.  I was losing a lot of blood.  I had to crawl to get everything I needed, which made the bleeding pick up again, but I found a box of curved needles and suture thread.”

“I don’t know how you could even think after being shot,” Katrina says, shaking her head.

“I had to get back to her.”  I look up at Katrina for a moment, wanting her to understand.  “I knew they were heading for her and that they were going to hurt her.  She was depending on me to keep her safe.  I had to get back there.  So I grabbed a bottle of alcohol and poured it over the wound, which made it hurt even worse.  My hands were shaking, and it was hard to get the thread through the needle, but I eventually got it.  I almost passed out after the first stitch though.”

“You stitched yourself up?”

“I didn’t have a lot of options.  I was bleeding too much.  Even if I could get the bleeding stopped with pressure, it would have started again as soon as I started walking.  I didn’t know if the bullet had hit an artery or a major organ or anything or if I was going to just keep bleeding internally.  I knew I couldn’t actually perform surgery on myself, and I did what I had to do to get myself moving.”

“Shit.”  Katrina wraps her arms around her legs and lays her chin on her knees.  “That had to have hurt so much.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had anything hurt more,” I say.  “It was a big wound, and I had to use one hand to pull the skin together so I could get the needle through.  I barely made it.  Nineteen stitches total.”

“Wow.”

“Once those were done, I tried to reach around to the wound at my back, but there was no way.  It wasn’t bleeding as bad as the exit point, so I found some Dermabond and did my best to spread it around.”

“Dermabond?”

“Glue.”

“Glue?”

“Surgical adhesive, yeah.  It’s like superglue for skin.  It’s better for smaller cuts, but I couldn’t stitch myself in the back, so it was the next best thing.  I held it closed as much as I could, and spread the adhesive over it.  After that, I got it covered with gauze and taped up both of the wounds.”

I turned a little and lifted my shirt again.  I can’t quite see it myself, but I’ve looked at it in the mirror a few times.  The scar is round and still a little red where tissue grew over the hole.  It’s ugly, no doubt about that.

“I tried to get up then,” I tell her.  “All I could think about was Hannah.  I wasn’t really sure how long I had been gone, and I was still a good five hundred yards from where I’d left her, and the whole area was covered in rubble.  As soon as I tried to stand, I fell again.”

“Because of your leg?”

“Yeah.  Honestly, the belly-wound had me distracted enough I hadn’t thought about my leg.  When I looked at it, it wasn’t bleeding much.  The bullet grazed my leg pretty deep but didn’t really penetrate.  It burned and itched, but I didn’t have time to stitch it up.  I applied more glue, a bunch of surgical tape, and wrapped it as tight as I could.  Wrapping it that tight made it hurt worse, but I could put some pressure on my leg then.”

I rub at the spot on my thigh.

“Does it still hurt?”  Katrina nods toward my hand on my leg.

“Sometimes.”  I take in a long breath and take down another long gulp of vodka.  “Once it was taped up, I still couldn’t walk well, but I was moving.  However, I was stumbling and falling every couple of steps, which jarred every wound.  At that point, I didn’t care about the pain.  I was just pissed it was taking so long to get anywhere, and I needed to move faster.”

“I found a crutch in the rubble.  There was only one of them, and the end of it was broken.  It wasn’t long enough to use properly, but it was enough for me to pick my way through the rest of the rubble.  I made it outside, and I could see the parking garage where I’d left Hannah, but I didn’t see her anywhere.

“I kept telling myself that she was hiding inside the garage somewhere, that she had taken shelter in one of the abandoned cars.  I was screaming her name over and over again, but I didn’t get an answer.”

I stop.  I can hear my own voice echoing in my head, crying out for her and getting no response.  I can feel the sense of dread and panic as it threatened to overwhelm me.

“Are you okay?”  Katrina’s voice pulls me back to the present.

“Yeah.”  I grip the top of the bottle but don’t drink.  I need to keep going.  “Then I looked out into the street, and I saw these grocery bags.  They looked weird just lying there, right in the middle of the concrete.  I didn’t think they had been there before, so I made my way over to them and found some canned food inside.  I also saw some other bags near a body, and I think they belonged to the guy lying there.  The stuff that had gone bad was left beside him, but the good stuff was what I found in the street.  I figured Hannah had seen the bags and went to see if there was anything useful in them.  That’s when I saw…”