Divine (10 page)

Cadence stared at her cell. “A yellow compact
car with a taxi magnet on it,” she said and lifted one side of her
mouth. “Hey, at least you’ll be losing your taxi virginity.”

“Har, har,” she said sarcastically, but
couldn’t stop the smirk from spreading across her lips. “Thank you
for making tonight better.”

“Hey, what are best friends for?” Cadence put
an arm around Trina’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “It will be
okay. You’ll see. Give it time.”

She shivered and prayed her friend was right.
“It’s cold.”

“There it is.” Cadence pointed to a small,
yellow compact car with an identifying magnet on the trunk.

Once Cadence verified the details of the car
with the information she received on her cell, she greeted the
driver and they climbed in.

The driver already had their destination from
Cadence’s reservation, so they relaxed as he drove down the city
street.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll get a hold of
Matt and work this all out.”

“What is he doing?” the driver boomed and
swerved.

She collided with Cadence.

An SUV swerved into their lane then jerked
back into the other one.

The rancid taste filled her mouth. Her
forehead and hands grew damp, her armpits even wetter.

“Seat belt,” Cadence shouted, hurrying to
buckle hers.

“Son of a bitch!” The loud growl came from
the front and snapped her attention to the windshield.

Cars lined each side of the narrow street,
not giving them much room to maneuver.

She clicked the buckle a second before a loud
crash, and her body lurched forward. The seat belt dug into her
stomach. Her back slammed against the seat.

The car spun in a circle, her body weightless
on a merry-go-round. Adrenaline mixed with panic shot through her.
She was helpless as the scene unfolded in slow motion. Images
flashed in her mind—Matt at the river. Matt smiling. Matt saving
her.

Another jolt, her head bobbed and banged into
a window. Glass broke. The feeling of hot knives impaled her head
as a smashing noise echoed in her ears.

She grabbed the seat in front of her. The top
of the headrest filled her palm. She gasped, grimaced then cried
out. The pain intensified. She tightened her hold on the seat.

Out the window, the horizon filled her vision
as the ground disappeared. Metal crunched. The car vibrated and
stopped.

Blood rushed to her head. Trembling, she
squinted through the pounding in her head and took in her
surroundings. Her hair curtained her face and shoulders.

I’m upside down!

Her heartbeat erupted into an outburst of
rat-a-tat-tats
. “Cadence?”

Her friend moaned, the sound weak, almost
nonexistent.

Crashing metal blasted her ears. The car
jolted and her world spun as the car went airborne.

No-o-o-o!

The effects of a fast-moving ride slammed her
body sideways. Her vision swam as she glimpsed red brick. Feeling
helpless, she dug her fingers into the seat, held her breath, and
braced for impact.

Chapter
Five

Bullets flew. With every passing second, more
holes littered the outer brick wall beneath Matt. Lying on his side
atop a roof, his gun perched on the short wall bordering the edge,
he breathed in Afghanistan’s dirt-filled air.

Somewhere on the hillside hid an enemy
sniper, killing Americans.

Sweat that had showed his nervousness at one
time vanished. No more blackout incidents, this was it. He lived
the life of a sniper. Living what he thought his dad would want him
to do.

“Son of a bitch!” Another American, an angel,
fell.

The enemy sniper had the perfect vantage
point. The men were sitting ducks, as if they paraded back and
forth in a carnival game. The ping of bullets blasted the wall.

Off in the distance, more men approached. Not
Americans.

“Shit! Any sign of the sniper?” he asked
through his earpiece and stayed low.

A loud bang pierced his ears; a blinding
flash followed. An American stun grenade.

He shuffled and rose a few inches to peer in
the rifle’s scope, past the enemy the explosion took out, to the
hillside.

More gunfire polluted the air.

“Take cover,” Gunny ordered, his voice
strained.

Fuck!
He ducked, flattened to the
surface, and waited. Blasts shook the ground and rocked the
building under him. Men groaned.

Then a lull, an eerie quiet encompassed the
air. The sound of death.

Matt’s blood pressure spiked, as it did every
time the enemy closed in.

Climbing the stairs to find a place to setup
wasn’t hard. Shooting the enemy to protect his comrades didn’t
require a debate. Waiting idly for the enemy to make a move was
excruciating. He returned to position.

Several bodies scattered the area. One
Marine, a gunshot to the gut, held his side as he stood dazed in
the middle of the chaos.

“Keep cover,” Gunny ordered. “Savages in the
vicinity.”

He always obeyed, but this time if he didn’t
hit the target he’d fail the men. He secured his hold and kept his
focus on the other end of his scope. Several meters out, a light
flashed. “Bingo!”

“Stand down, Sergeant,” Gunny demanded, his
voice firm. “Enemy on attack!”

“No can do, sir,” he said, eyeing the enemy
sniper wearing a Ghillie suit, the camouflage clothing to hide in
heavy foliage. “Target in sight.” Gunny’s groan echoed in Matt’s
ears as he pulled the trigger.

The Ghillie suit dropped.

“Got him!” He bowed his head, letting his
chin rest on top of his rifle. Now, his comrades had a chance to
fight without the fear of being plucked off one by one. Tension
lessened in his shoulder and neck muscles. They had a ways to go
before getting out of this clusterfuck. Overhead the hum of
reinforcements approached. Maybe they’d be out of this quicker than
he thought.

Combat medic jeeps arrived. Navy Corpsmen
peeled out and raced toward the wounded. He aimed at the enemy on
the street blasting bullets trying to stop the rescue, and shot off
a couple rounds.

An explosion sent raging, hot metal slicing
through his leg. He flattened to the rooftop, rested his back on
the short wall, and sucked in a deep breath, then another. Fire ran
through him. He puffed out another breath toward the sky before
peering at his leg.

A piece of shrapnel protruded out of his
skin, right below his knee. “Son of a bitch!”

“You good, Sergeant?” someone other than
gunny asked.

“Affirmative,” he lied. Sweat beaded his
forehead and neck. His hands trembled, but that was the least of
his troubles. He wobbled, his eyes heavy and mind fuzzy. His head
dropped against the rough surface of the wall.

Trina’s pleading face appeared, begging him
to talk. Events from the past raced in his mind like a movie
reel.

The reoccurring notion he should have stayed
at Molly’s Café to talk with her, instead of running like a wounded
puppy to chase tail, replayed in his mind.

“Hey!” Someone yelled, penetrating his
fog-filled brain. “Get up!” Strong hands clutched his bicep and
shook.

He roused and took in the blood soaking his
fatigues. The burn lingered. His body had grown cool, numb.

He took in the face of someone he’d seen
before but didn’t recognize.

“I’m Private First Class, Bruce Driscoll.
I’ll carry you.” The private grabbed Matt’s gear.

“No,” he said. “Give me a shoulder,” he
groaned to a standing position. Circulation slowly returned to his
body, warming it. “I got this.”

Using the private for a human cane, he
dropped his arm around the man’s shoulders and hobbled toward the
stairs. “Fucking steps.”

“You got this,” the private said.
“Remember?”

The private’s earnest expression stopped him
from calling him out for his sarcastic tongue.

At the bottom of several flights of stairs, a
first aid truck waited. He nodded his thanks to the private. “Tell
the gunny, I’m okay.”

The private’s face revealed all he needed to
know. His close friend, who’d lived the war with him day in and day
out, was dead. “Fuck!”

“Sorry, man. The rifle squad was ambushed. We
lost some good men, including Gunny Sergeant York.”

His throat and eyes burned. He slumped to the
rear of the truck. A corpsman tugged underneath his arms and
dragged him, until he stretched out on a board.

Nothing during the war had affected him so
much as losing the men and his mentor. “Damn!”

“It sucks,” the medic said.

If only he’d been quicker on the trigger,
hadn’t listened to Gunny when he’d said to take cover. He stared at
the cloth-covered ceiling and listened to the hum of the engine as
they rode the rocky dirt road toward base. Marines listened to the
chain of command. He had no choice, yet when the second order came
across the radio, he couldn’t. Every instinct said shoot. He’d take
the repercussions. With his injury, he was heading home anyway.

His leg throbbed and burned with an ache so
intense, it took his breath. Yet the injury didn’t compare to the
pressure seizing him from losing his gunny.

The interior of the truck faded. Voices
waned.

The scent of antiseptic filled Trina’s
senses. Cold air touched her skin. She reached for the sheet to
cover her shoulders and couldn’t.

Panic plowed over her nerves.
Am I
paralyzed?
Her pulse quickened.
Where am I?

Darkness surrounded her with flashes of
bright light streaming in at all sides. She lifted a hand to rub
her head, but it wouldn’t move!

No!
Am I blind? What happened? Am I
in a closet? No. Can’t be. The air smells clean, like
chemicals
.

Fragments rushed to her: a red rough surface,
someone screaming, a deep voice groaning, and the deafening sound
of metal crumpling.

No-o!
I was in an accident! Someone
had screamed. Who?
Gosh!
I can’t remember. “Someone help
me!
” She yelled, but didn’t hear her own voice. Was she deaf
and blind?

Emptiness rocked her soul. Tears that should
have escaped didn’t warm her face. Breathing grew difficult. A
jumble of sounds flooded her ears as if a man spoke. She could
hear. Not deaf.

Who’s talking? Bradley? Dad? Matt!

She couldn’t see!
I’m in a
nightmare!

Alarms sounded. She flinched, yet didn’t
move. What was happening?

“She’s okay,” a woman said. “Her body reacts
involuntarily, sometimes.”

Who’s she talking to?

Chatter encroached; she couldn’t make out the
words but recognized the timbre in the voices.

Mom, Dad, and Bradley. They sounded close, so
close.

Mom!
Again she didn’t hear her own
voice. She couldn’t tell them she was okay, that she loved
them.

“The family needs to prepare themselves.
Katrina may come out of this and start talking tomorrow, then
again, she may not,” a man said with the air of a doctor, his voice
deep and sympathetic. The same empathy she’d learned to give toward
members of a patient’s family. “The longer your daughter stays in a
comatose state, the greater the chance of unforeseen brain
damage.”

Comatose?

“It’s been three months,” her father’s voice
cracked. “Can you tell if she has any permanent damage?”

What? Three months?

“Dr. Lovett, as you know, the brain is
tricky. There are no signs of lasting damage.”

“I used to understand.” He sighed, defeat
lacing his words. “You’ll have to excuse me for asking such a
fundamental question, Dr. Fitzgerald. I can’t—”

“No need to explain,” the doctor responded.
“When it’s a family member, it’s hard to recall your
teachings.”

Nothing was wrong with her brain. She could
think, decipher, and knew an incorrect diagnoses, if she could only
tell them.

“There’s hope since her other injuries have
healed quite well,” the doctor said.

Other injuries!

“Any news on her friend, Cadence Duvall?”
Bradley’s voice rang weak, exhausted.

Her mouth grew dry, along with the urge to
cough. Inside the cocoon of her body, she could do nothing, but she
remembered Cadence screaming before the silence. She focused hard,
waiting for the doctor’s response.

No one answered.

A warm hand touched her arm, the touch soft
and gentle. She could feel! A wet sponge-like thing pressed against
her lips, a trickle of moisture slid over her tongue and throat.
“There,” her mother said. “You should feel better.”

How’d her mother know she was thirsty? Did
she read her mind? Had she moved?

“Sweetie, please wake up,” her mother sobbed.
Something pressed against her belly.

I’m okay, Mom.
She wanted to place a
hand on her mother, to soothe her as she’d done for Trina when she
was small.