He grunted.
I put my clothes on, gave Roger another quick pet, and—
Crap. I had no way to get home.
I sat down on the bed again and nudged Talon. “Talon, can you drive me home?”
He didn’t move his arms. “Just take the Mustang. The keys are in the little ceramic pot in the kitchen where they always are. I don’t mind you using it, and I know Marj doesn’t.”
“Really, I don’t want to impose.”
Eyes still covered. “Look, I wish you were still staying here, okay? I asked you to come back. At least take the car. You need transportation.”
I swallowed. He was right. I did need transportation. I was spending way too much on cab fare, although George was probably deliriously happy.
“All right. Thank you. That’s very generous.”
He grunted again.
I went to the kitchen, grabbed the keys, and left.
Before heading back to my apartment, I decided to stop at Toby’s. Maybe I could find a different image, one that wouldn’t upset Talon so much. Haley was at the front desk.
“Haley,” I said, “I’m really sorry I had to dart out of here the other night.”
She looked at me oddly, biting her lip, playing with the dangling hoop. “Let me go get Toby.”
“What for?”
She didn’t answer, just walked to the back and returned with a young blond guy.
“This is Toby. Toby, Jade, the woman who was in the other night wanting the phoenix tattoo.”
“Hi, Toby,” I said. “I wanted to look through the books and see if I could find a different image for my tat. I had some…issues with the first one.”
Toby shook his head. “I’m sure Haley explained things to you.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Haley didn’t say anything to me. What do you mean?”
Toby cleared his throat, his features uneasy. “I’m sorry, Ms. Roberts. We can’t.”
“Can’t what? What do you mean?”
“What I mean is…we can’t help you with a tattoo here.”
Chapter Nineteen
Talon
Roger curled up next to me, his warm little body a comforting presence. I missed Jade. Why hadn’t I asked her to stay? I wanted her here all the time, with me. I wanted to take care of her.
But who was I to take care of anyone when I couldn’t take care of myself?
She’d be after me with more questions—about the tattoo, about the news article that wasn’t released anywhere but here, about why I had wanted to…
God, I hated going there. Hated it so much.
Iraqi insurgents had ambushed us. Caught after dark in a copse of trees adjacent to a small northern village, I was one of the officers in charge of two Explosive Ordnance Disposal units, all enlisted men except one nurse. The other officer was my superior, Captain Derek Waters.
Shells began exploding all around us, the blasts deafening, and enemy fire erupted from the mountainside. The whoosh of the blood in my veins overpowered the explosions, turning into white noise. I yelled at my troops to run, my voice vague and far-off, and I ran like hell.
Once I escaped the woods and the gunfire, I looked back. No one was behind me. Why the fuck hadn’t they run?
More to the point, why had I bothered to run? Fuck, why had I done a lot of things in my life when I’d have been better off dying?
Why hadn’t I just stayed, stood stock still, closed my eyes, looked to the heavens…and gotten my ass shot off?
An end to all my problems…
But here I stood. Like a fucking imbecile.
Waters and two troops rushed at me.
“Steel! You okay?” Waters asked.
I nodded. Waters and the two troops crashed to the ground, panting. Still, I stood.
And the answer hit me.
I would go back in.
I would go back in under the guise of saving my men and hope that I got shot to hell. I bolted in, instinctively dodging fire. The first troop I came across was one of my enlisted men, Clancy Brown. He was screaming, his foot having been shot. He couldn’t get up, and blood was spurting from his lower limb. I grabbed him by the shoulders and got him onto my back, running like hell to get him out of there. When I finally cleared the copse of trees and the enemy fire, I put him down and went running back in, ignoring Waters, who was now sitting up, yelling at me to stay put.
I charged back in and found my sergeant, Jensen, my second-in-command. I grabbed him and pulled him out, and he too begged me not to go back in there.
“Lieutenant, we need you! You’re fucking crazy! Don’t do it!”
But I ignored him as well, darting back through, again instinctively dodging the fire when I should’ve been putting myself in harm’s way. All told, I got four more out, including a woman, Cline, one of the nurses who had been with us.