Fraternizing (52 page)

“He’s done. You’re
going to fucking kill him. Get over there and take care of your girl. We’ve got
this.”

In that moment,
it dawned on me that Cassie was still in the room, huddled up in the corner,
looking completely dismantled and crying her fucking eyes out. My right mind
came back to me, and I turned around and watched her sad, defeated, eyes meet
with mine. My heart broke all over again.

I should have
been there for her. I should have been with her, and none of this shit would
have ever happened. Nothing else mattered anymore, so I rushed over to her,
dropping to the ground and taking her in my arms. She lazily dropped her head
to my shoulder and began to sob as I held her, holding the back of her head and
running my hand down it, trying my best to console her.

“Shhh… I’m here,
babe. Everything is going to be okay.”

She didn’t let
up. Her sobs only grew heavier and deeper, her tears soaking my shirt. I placed
my arm around her waist, my hand resting on her ass as I tried to shield her
body away from the onlookers in the room. When I looked up, the firewatch was
watching me quizzically, but I didn’t care. My care for anything except for
Cassie was long fucking gone by this point.

“Get me a towel
or something for her,” I lowly told Ruiz, who swiftly got up from her position.
She brought me a towel that I placed around Cassie,
then
positioned her in my lap and gently swept her hair away from her face, placing
soft, consoling kisses on her cheek.

“Uh… Sergeant
Cruz, I had the A-duty call for the MPs. They’ll be here any minute.”

I didn’t even
look at the firewatch as he spoke, just simply nodded my head and continued to
console Cassie, whispering how much I loved her in her ear.

“Hey, man. You
want me to stay? The MPs just got here,” Riley asked, looking concerned and
worried.

“Do whatever,
man. I don’t fucking care.”

Four MPs and two
EMTs ran up to the room, stopping in the doorway where Allen lay, painfully
breathing in his own blood. They surveyed the scene, mentally putting the
picture together before asking any questions. One of them pulled Riley aside
and asked him a few questions as I continued holding Cassie. She had finally
stopped sobbing, but was moaning from the aches and pains that asshat had
ravished on her body.

“What did he do
to you, Cassie? Please tell me. Please.”

She stilled,
growing silent as I waited, hoping she would tell me exactly what had happened
to her. She never said anything, just clung tighter to me as the tears began to
fall once again. With every tear a piece of me died, fearing the worst and
knowing that there was absolutely nothing that I could do to erase it, or to
take her pain away.

“Um, Sergeant
Cruz, I’m Sergeant Nicks. The EMTs here would like to take a look at Pfc.
Bennett.”

“She isn’t
dressed,” I grumbled, not wanting to let her go.

“I—I know
that, Sergeant, but they’ll need to check her out.”

Riley walked over
and placed his hand on my shoulder, looking sympathetic.

“Man, just let
them do what they’ve got to do. They’ll take care of her.”

I stared into his
eyes for a few seconds longer, seeing the sincerity pouring through them, but
still not wanting to let her go. I finally looked back down to Cassie, who I
knew needed medical attention, then I turned to Ruiz.

“Get me some
goddamned clothes for her. Get me something.”

She quickly moved
to Cassie’s drawers, pulling out a pair of panties and some mesh shorts. I took
them from her, picking Cassie up and moving her over to her bed before dressing
her. A big bruise was beginning to take shape on the side of her face, her nose
was bleeding, and she had marks on the sides of her neck. Tears stung my
eyes
as I looked down on her, feeling helpless and drained. She
held up her wrists, mouthing, “It hurts,” as I wiped a tear away from my face
and then hers, taking her back in my arms.

Two more EMTs
came into the room and loaded Allen up, wheeling him out of the room. I turned
to Ruiz and told her to get dressed since there would surely be more people
coming to investigate what had happened in this room. She nodded her head, and
for the first time since I had met the girl, I saw decency in her eyes. She
looked sad, scared, and concerned.

She looked human.

The EMTs came for
Cassie. Riley walked behind them to try and get me to let her leave with them,
but I didn’t want to let her go. I was too afraid that she would break, or I
would break, or one of us would break if we were pulled apart. This traumatic
fate had sealed us. She was my lifeline--the air to my fucking lungs, the blood
to my fucking heart. I knew that there was nothing else in the world more
important than her.

“Hey, Alex, they
need to take her, man,” Riley cautiously stated, once again putting his hand on
my shoulder. I didn’t budge, I felt like any second that she wasn’t in my arms
was a second too long. “Alex—“

“I fucking know,
Riley. Fuck!” I yelled. My frustration was mounting as a few large teardrops
rolled down my face. I finally let her go and the EMTs carefully loaded Cassie
up on the stretcher as she winced from the pain of merely touching her body. I
sat on the bed looking as they held her in place, not strapping her too tightly
for fear of hurting her even further. I sat with my hand over my mouth as a few
more tears trickled down, the saltiness mixing with blood as it fell onto my
hand.

Once they were
done loading Cassie up, they began to push her out of the room, prompting me to
follow. Sergeant Nicks stood, standing before me and saying, “If you don’t
mind, Sergeant Cruz, we’d like for you to stay behind so we can get a
statement.”

I looked at him
through the gloss of my eyes and then over to Cassie.

“Get my statement
at the fucking hospital,” I answered back, not even bothering to look at him as
I followed Cassie out of the room. Riley walked out behind me, throwing his arm
around my shoulder as I tried hard to hold back more fucking tears. It hurt too
much to see her in this state, and to know who the culprit was—and what
that animal was capable of doing to her—flooded me with an inane amount
of visuals that did nothing but make me sicker with each step I took. When we
made it to the bottom, I saw Allen’s dick in my head again and I fucking lost
it, violently throwing up as I prayed to anyone who would listen to please not
have allowed that sick, demented bastard to put his shit inside of her. My head
was
spinning
as I grew weaker with the thought, making
me dizzy and unable to swallow.

“You okay, Alex?”
Riley asked, steadying me on his arm. “I’m not letting you drive like this.”

“Fuck off, dude. I’m
going to the hospital.”

“You’re not
driving yourself. Here, Private Jacobs is my A-duty, he can take you in my
truck.”

Riley tossed the
keys to Jacobs, who looked stunned but quickly walked out to the parking lot,
not saying anything to anyone. I looked around at the mass amounts of
spectators who had formed around the area, my eyes landing on Dalton who looked
about as sick as I was, and had been crying as much as I had, if not more. Our
eyes met and he nodded, letting me know that he was right there with me. Ruiz
was there as
well,
the same broken look I had seen in
the room was still filling her face.

I waited for the
EMTs to load her up in the back of the ambulance before Riley pushed me off in
the direction of his truck. Once I was there, I hopped in and Jacobs took off
for the base hospital, gunning it to get me there without a lag in time between
our arrival and hers. I jumped out as he came to a stop, still feeling my
stomach churning from my earlier thoughts, but finding enough resolve to brush
past the people moseying along near the entrance. I rushed to the front desk,
sweating and breathing hard, nearly scaring the nurse who stood there to help
me.

“I’m here for
Pfc. Cassie Bennett,” I breathed, nervously running my
blood
riddled
hands over the back of my neck.

She stared at me
for a second before typing something into the computer, then warily looked back
up to me, politely saying, “She’s just being brought in. It’ll be a while.” She
typed something else into the computer and then looked back at me and asked,
“Are you family?”

The question
froze me. I wasn’t Cassie’s family. I wasn’t anything to her. As far as
everyone knew, I was just an instructor and she was just a student.

“No. I’m not.” I
answered, hoping she would look beyond it and allow me to see her.

“Well I’m
sorry—“ she stopped and I slid my ID card to her before continuing,
“Sergeant Cruz. You’ll need to take a seat in the waiting area and we’ll let
you know when the doctor has examined her, and if she can have visitors.”

I slowly turned
away from the counter, feeling bogged down with overly sensitized emotions. I
was certain that she was scared, hurting--emotionally and physically--and right
now, all I wanted was to see her…to hold her…to console her… to just let her
know that I was here and she was safe. That wasn’t going to happen, so I sat
down in the first open seat I found, blowing out a heavily lodged breath, then
dropping my face in my hands as I choked back a new set of tears that were
threatening to spill. My phone buzzed, pulling me out of my overwhelming
sadness and giving me something else to focus on.

Riley: Hey! First Sergeant O’Hara was up
here. He’s speaking to EVERYONE about what happened. He’ll be at the hospital
either tonight or some time tomorrow.

Me: Good shit. Did you speak to him?

Riley: Yeah! I told him exactly what
happened.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Me: Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

Riley: I’ll see you first thing in the
morning. Go home, try and get some rest.

Me: I’m not fucking leaving. I’ll sleep in
this goddamned waiting room if I have to.

Riley: Well in that case, I’ll be at the
hospital as soon as I’m off duty. I’ll bring you some clothes and shit.

Me: Thanks!

Riley: No problem, brother!

I laid my head
back on the seat, the pain from my hand beginning to take hold as my head
filled with a throbbing ache. I didn’t care. I closed my eyes and slowly
drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up,
the nurse from earlier was standing over me, calling my name while holding an
icepack to my hand. The cold compress up against my warm and sensitized skin
intensified the sting that came with the touch. I tried to focus as she asked
me to please follow her, standing and stretching as the pain from my hand was
now filling my body. She led me into a treatment room and asked me to sit on
the examination table.

“What am I in
here for?” I asked, wondering how I had somehow become the patient.

“Your hand is
swollen and it needs to be looked at.”

She took her
blood pressure cuff and wrapped it around my arm, then placed a thermometer in
my mouth, and watched the time.

“You’re all
good,” she said, unstrapping the cuff and taking the thermometer out of my
mouth. “The doctor will be in to see you shortly.”

I stopped her,
gently grabbing her arm as she turned to walk out of the room. She looked back
to me, her eyes wide, almost sympathetic.

“Please just let
me know how Pfc. Bennett is doing. I just need to see her. I need to know she’s
okay.”

Her look
softened. She pressed her lips together, contemplating if she should talk or
not. Her compassionate side won out as she blew out a breath and began talking.

“She is going to
be okay. She was battered pretty badly, but her scans showed no internal
damage. She has a slight concussion, a bruised nose and
cheek
bone
, and sprained wrists. She was lucky. It could have been much
worse.”

I closed my eyes
as I listened to the nurse read me what felt like a fucking laundry list of
things wrong with Cassie. But after thinking about how much worse things could
have been, I finally settled down, knowing that she was hurt, but that she was
going to be
alright
.

“Can I please see
her? I’m not family, but I need to see her. I’m begging you.”

She thought about
it for a minute. “Let the doctor examine you, and get your x-rays because
you’re going to need them. Then I’ll take you to see her.”

A smile touched
my lips. I finally had a reason to feel some sort of happiness.

The doctor came in, an older gentleman with a head full of grey
hair.
He took one look at my hands and immediately said I had broken a
knuckle, but that he wanted x-rays to confirm and pinpoint it. I didn’t argue,
just followed everything they wanted to do so that I could get back to see
Cassie. I wouldn’t rest until I could drink in her beautiful face.