(Wrath-09)-Spiders From The Shadows (2013) Read Free Page B

good hunk of flesh. He tried to dress it himself and keep it quiet, but it started to get infected, and the boss sent him down to Kandy to the field hospital. They told him they were going to keep him there a couple weeks and then send him home. He’d have none of that. He tried to check himself out of the hospital. They wouldn’t let him. So he packed up his gear and took off. Got a ride with a couple Navy Seal pukes heading north and showed up back here at our unit. The guys down at the hospital thought he’d flipped out and headed home. Put out a huge search party. The boss finally had to call them and tell them we had their guy up here. We all thought it was so funny.” Her husband started laughing. “He’s the only guy I know who went AWOL to get back to his unit!”
    Caelyn laughed too, but inside her mind was racing. “Why did he do that, babe?” she finally asked when he quit laughing. “He had a ticket out. No shame in being wounded. He could have come home.”
    Bono hesitated, uncomfortable with the sudden change in the tone of her voice. “He said Lieutenant Horace owed him from the poker game the night before. Said he had to come back to get his money.”
    Bono wanted to laugh again, but Caelyn’s voice was serious. “I don’t get it,” she repeated. “He could have come home.”
    After a long moment of silence, Bono said, “I don’t know, babe. Guess someone’s got to do it.” He hesitated again. Both of them knew they were no longer talking about Peter Zembeic. “Someone’s got to do it,” he repeated. “And they probably won’t do it as good as me. I’ve got my brothers back here, Caelyn. None of us went looking for this fight—”@F28
    “Every one of you is a volunteer.”
    “Yeah, but what I said is true. None of us asked for this. All of us would just as soon be home. But the situation is what it is, and since it is, we might as well try to do a little good. And as long as my guys are here, I’ve got to be here, too. If something goes wrong—and it will—no one else can take care of them like I can. I want to be beside them. There’s not much more I can say. If I don’t stick with them, what will they think of me? What would you think of me?” He paused. “What would I think of myself?”
    Caelyn had thought about that conversation many times through the years. Somehow, it made it easier.
    * * * * * * *
    The rain slowed to a heavy mist. Both of them were wet now, their clothes, their skin, their hair. Caelyn felt the warm heat of his body and pressed against his arms. “I’m so glad you’re here with me,” she whispered. “I needed you right now.” He only held her tighter, and she turned around to face him. “If you die, I’m going to kill you.” She punched him on the arm. “I mean that, Lieutenant! If you die, I’m going to kill you. Don’t you leave me here alone! I don’t care what you have to do! You stay here in this world. You stay here with me and Ellie. Even if you’re never home, as long as I know that you’re out there somewhere, I can handle it. As long as I have the hope that you’ll come back to me, I know I’ll be OK.
    “And remember, we deserve you as much as anyone does. Ellie needs her daddy. I need my husband. My life would remain forever bleak and empty if I couldn’t know that you were somewhere in this world. I have to know that when I look up at the night sky, you are out there, too. So promise me again. I want to hear you say the words.”
    Bono looked down at her. She felt him breathe in deeply; then he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I swear to you with everything inside me, with every fiber of my soul, with every authority I have been given, I will find a way to come back home.”
    He reached down and took her hands, holding them tight. She looked up into his eyes, their faces only shadows in the darkness. Then she felt a single teardrop fall from his cheek and rest upon her eyelid. She brushed away its warm, wet