Never Let It Go(3)

Up ahead, the lead vehicle came to a halt, the rest of the convoy following suit. Without the engines, the air seemed too quiet. Too still.

Sergeant Sutherland jerked his head in a clear indication for everyone to take up a guard around the vehicles—apparently they weren’t moving anytime soon. The reason for it jogged by just as Will stepped out onto the road: one of the Ordnance Disposal guys.

Will glanced down the line of vehicles and saw Ade looking back at him. He nodded, a quick jerk of his head, and Ade nodded back, already turning away to watch the empty roadside.

Too quiet, too hot, too still. Will focused and didn’t let himself think about how they’d be late back to camp now.





WILL WOKE himself up screaming, trying to pull free of the wreckage of their vehicle, searching desperately for Isaac and shouting for help.

All the fighting threw his balance off, and he fell from whatever he was lying on and hit the ground hard. Pain sparked lightning bright up his arm. He scrambled for something to catch hold of with his free hand. He was in the apartment, in the living room, the dream receding as he came all the way awake, but he couldn’t make sense of where he was, everything distorted and shadowy.

His hand collided with something, so he latched on and held tight, trying to force his breathing back to normal. He tried closing his eyes, but all he saw was his weapon, and beyond that, the road, shortening his breath all over again.

Slowly, Will was able to make out the shape of the coffee table and then the couch. He’d fallen asleep there and must have rolled off, landing badly on his broken arm. He unclenched his hand from where it was curled in the couch cushion and slowly eased himself up until he could lean against the couch and focus on breathing.

Will didn’t remember anything between standing at the side of the road and waking up in a hospital bed. He’d read the reports of what happened—the shot and the explosion, how he’d been thrown away from the vehicle by it—and Isaac and Ade had given him the basics of everything between the explosion and the helicopter airlifting him away for treatment, but it was still a blank. Even when he dreamed about it, the dreams always ended with him on the side of the road and then him awake and screaming, usually trapped in a way that hadn’t even happened in real life.

His therapist said that meant the memory was probably in there somewhere and that it might come back to him but probably wouldn’t. She didn’t seem too concerned about that, and Will was quite happy not to have it. Just the pieces that he got when he dreamed were bad enough.

He didn’t have much hope for sleeping again, but it had to be worth a try. He hit Play on the answering machine as he walked past, just to hear Isaac’s and Ade’s voices once more.

Just for the promise that they were coming home.





ADE’S MOM was the only one who really got that the three of them were together and committed to each other. Isaac’s parents generally acted like they were just roommates, and Jenna always teasingly asked who was with who when they spoke, like the three of them were trading partners. It meant Ms. Drew was the one who called Will on Saturday afternoon to let him know her flight would get in a couple of hours before the others were due to land, and to ask if he wanted a ride to the base.

“Um—” Will rubbed at his eyes, trying to wake all the way up from the lingering aftereffects of the sleeping pills he’d caved and taken the night before. “I don’t—I’m not sure I’m going.”

He should. Members of the unit who were local and already home were pretty much expected to turn out for homecoming, but he had the excuse of being injured, at least. And he’d never been home before Isaac and Ade. He could barely even imagine seeing them again for the first time in weeks, surrounded by other people.

“They’d like to see you there,” Ms. Drew said gently.

“Yeah, I….” Not going would mean waiting at least an extra few hours to see them, after they were on US soil—maybe longer if the flight came in late and they were kept on base.

“Will, honey, you still there?”

Will blinked, fuzzy-headed and unsure, for a moment, who was on the other end of the line. “Sorry.”

“Oh, Will,” Ms. Drew breathed out, full of sympathy. “I wish you would have come to stay with me when you got home.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” It would have been easier in so many ways, but the only way he’d been able to hold onto Isaac and Ade had been by staying in the apartment they shared. Ms. Drew lived a four-hour flight away from them, and Will couldn’t have gone that far.

She sighed again, still just sad, not disappointed in him. Will closed his eyes and let it be comforting. Isaac and Ade would be home Tuesday. It was less than four days. He could make it four more days.