Beyond the Past Read Free Page B

say to them ? Somewhere in the future, you will die, so it would be a good idea to make some changes in your life?
    Yeah, he didn’t see that flying too well.
    He’d spent countless hours thinking about death, wondering if there truly was a plan for everyone, and even questioned his own belief in God.
    He had seen the death of a member of his unit, Corporal James Freeman. In his vision, James had been executed with a bag over his head. To this day, Lucas had no idea if James still lived, or if he had died, and he hoped to God the man hadn’t perished in the way he had seen. James had been the youngest in the unit, an Alabama kid with an accent so thick, it had taken Lucas a week to understand a word he said. As they’d grown closer, he’d always thought of James as a little brother.
    What hurt the worst in all of it—he couldn’t share anything with Gabby. The more he thought about his ability and its ramifications, he became more convinced he needed to put a lot of distance between them. She didn’t need to be caught up in his mind-fuck.
    So one day, he’d simply left.
    He sat up, having to take a leak, and peeked around the showroom for a restroom. Not that there would be any running water in the building, but he had to at least adhere to basic standards of civility, even though his life resembled anything but that.
    As he walked around, the question rolled inside his mind. How much longer could he live on the streets? He’d met some people who had lived the life for more than a decade, but he didn’t have it in him. Living on the streets required a mental fortitude he didn’t possess. He found nothing romantic about his current situation. He didn’t suffer from mental illness as many of the homeless men and women did, and he often viewed their disconnect from reality as both a blessing and a curse; a blessing because they didn’t really understand reality, and a curse for the same reason. They had no idea what they missed.
    Others he’d met had simply wanted to drop out of society. They’d wanted nothing from no one, and they didn’t want to give anything, either. These people found the life on the “open road,” as they called it, a good place to be, and they were also the ones who romanticized the lifestyle.
    For Lucas, it had become a matter of survival, and keeping the woman he loved alive. If she didn’t know his location, they couldn’t hurt her.
    He listened as he relieved himself into the dry toilet bowl and didn’t hear any howling wind. The storm must have passed.
    Another thing he hated about being homeless—he never knew what the weather would bring. There could be two feet of snow covering the streets of Reno, but because he’d chosen this life, he could never be certain what he’d wake up to, especially during the winter. By his calculations, he’d been homeless about six months, and he’d arrived in Reno in the spring, which proved very pleasant. The summer had been hot, but in all honesty, he’d been through worse temperatures in the Middle East and the jungles of Guatemala. At least in Reno, it was a ‘dry heat,’ while in Guatemala, the warmth had been wet and sticky.
    As he made his way to the loose plywood, he took a couple hits of his flask, the rum burning as it hit his gut. A craving for coffee and a Denver omelet set in, but he ignored it.
    He pushed on the plywood and took a glance around before stepping outside. The cool, fresh morning air stung his face, but at least the sun shone and the wind had died down. Huddling in his jacket, he headed for the church down the street that fed Reno’s downtrodden every morning without fail. He needed a meal, stat.
    His bones creaked, his head ached, and he couldn’t wait to suck back a cup of coffee. He’d actually had dreams of Starbucks since living on the street, and if he were lucky enough to actually get a cup of brew on this cold morning, it wouldn’t be anything close to the goodness Starbucks offered.
    Rounding the