Fraternizing (54 page)

I was a bit
surprised but overall happy to see her sitting there. She’d walked out of the
shower, dressed in nothing but a towel, and had hit Allen a few times, trying
to get him off of me when the firewatch came in and finally removed him.

“I don’t even
know what to say,” I replied, uncertain how to respond to her confession.

“You don’t have
to say anything. I just wanted to apologize. When I walked out and saw what was
happening to you, I didn’t think of anything else except getting him off of
you.” She stopped and looked into my eyes. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst
enemy, Cassie.”

“I appreciate it,
Angelica.”

“And then, I saw
Sergeant Cruz go crazy on him, then scoop you up and nurture you. It was so
beautiful. He didn’t give a shit that he was laying it all out on the line.” She
stopped again, taking my hand and smiling. “I knew you two were an item, but I
couldn’t exactly prove it. It’s out for the world now. But you know what? I saw
the love he has for you. It’s amazing.”

I blushed and
felt a little squirrelly inside. It was out in the open, and surprisingly, I
felt so much better about it.

“I’m not going to
stay forever. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry for everything.” She let
go of my hand and stood. “You take care. And good luck to you and Alex. First
Sergeant O’Hara questioned me for a while last night.”

I swallowed the
hard, suffocating lump in my throat. First Sergeant O’Hara was going to be
digging, and as much as I was relieved to no longer be living in the shadows, I
wasn’t sure how I would react to the imminent fallout. I put on a happy face
anyway, not wanting to give away my apprehension.

“Thank you for
coming by, Angelica. It means a lot.”

“You’re welcome. Enjoy
North Carolina.”

She turned and
walked out the door, leaving me in a mess of emotions. I didn’t want to give
North Carolina a second thought. I was just so glad to have escaped
Allen— and have Alex out in the open— that my orders were more like
an afterthought. I wasn’t ready to face that heinous reality. I felt like Alex
and I had just made a great stride, and now my departure would be taking it all
away.

She walked out
without a second look back. I knew we were probably never going to be friends,
and that was fine by me, but the fact that she came by meant something, so I
took it for what it was worth.

Alex walked back
in the room, but Dalton and Riley nowhere to be found. His walk was
smooth…sexy…
confident
, but his face showed nothing but
worry.

“What did she
want?” he gruffly asked.

“Surprisingly,
she wanted to apologize.” His eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t say anything. “She
says First Sergeant O’Hara questioned her for a while last night. I’m wondering
what all she told him.”

“I don’t give a
fuck what she told him. I don’t care if she told him she found us fucking on
your floor. I just don’t care anymore.”

“But there’s so
much—“

“It doesn’t
fucking matter, Cassie. I’m done hiding. If the Marine Corps
wants
to punish me for not being a fucking robot, then punish away. I love you, and
I’m done hiding it.”

I reached for
him, bringing him close to me so I could plant a kiss on his beautiful, yet oh
so foul mouth. I kissed him, trying to go hard, but he wouldn’t let me. “Don’t
rile me up because I can’t fuck you right now, and teasing me would just be
cruel.”

I sucked my
bottom lip and smiled as he pulled away. The words coming from that mouth,
filthy or not, always did have a way of making me tingle.

“By the time you
can, I’ll be on the opposite end of the country.”

“We’re not even
thinking about that right now. We’re nursing you back to health. No more talk
about orders.”

There was a knock
on the door, and Riley came walking in.

“Hey. Just wanted
to let you know that Dalton is in with First Sergeant O’Hara—again. He
had him last night, and he has him now. He wasn’t around when all of this Allen
mess started was he?”

I sat up in the
bed, seeing the urgency on Riley’s face. Alex didn’t seem to care, but the
reality of it all was making my stomach turn, and I couldn’t be as calm.

“No. We split off
after the gym. He went to his room, and I went to mine.”

“Okay. Just
wondering.”

“Riley. If First
Sergeant uncovers anything, then we’ll deal with it,” Alex chimed in, standing
and patting him on the shoulder. “I’m no longer concerned with what may be. It
is what it is.”

Riley seemed to
accept what Alex was saying and dropped it. They both sat down in the chairs,
chattering about who knows what as I dug into my breakfast that was now
lukewarm at best. It didn’t matter. I was hungry. After eating as much as I
could, I laid back and fell asleep, feeling the medicine finally take hold.

When I woke, Alex
was asleep in two chairs next to me, and Riley was gone. I looked at the clock
on the wall, finding that it was well after noon. I leaned over and drank more
water. It was freshly filled and had a nice, cool, feel going down my sandpaper
throat. Soon I was out of water, and my throat didn’t feel better. I pressed
the button for the nurse and asked for more when she poked her head in.

A couple of
minutes later, there was a knock on the door, but instead of the nurse walking
in, there stood First Sergeant O’Hara, dressed in uniform and looking like the
bulldog that he was.

“How are you
feeling, Pfc. Bennett?” he asked, his voice stiff and dry. His eyes surveyed
the room, stopped on Alex,
then
swung back over to me.

“I’m doing okay,”
I answered after clearing my throat.

Alex stirred,
then woke and sat up in his seat, looking at First Sergeant with nothing in his
eyes. They looked at one another, causing the room to collapse around me. It
was so uncomfortable, yet neither wanted to relent.

“I wanted to come
by and get your official statement on what happened last night with Private
Allen. I spoke to the nursing staff and delayed my arrival for today in hopes
that you could get a little more rest,” he said, after turning away from Alex.

I nodded my head,
staring him dead in the face.

“Sergeant, I’d
like to speak to her alone.”

I looked over to
Alex, feeling the need to keep him nearby since my nerves were fraying by the
second. He nodded his head then stood, giving me a covert smile as he made his
way out of the room. I had never felt so vulnerable.

First Sergeant
O’Hara watched Alex leave the room,
then
turned to me.
I told him everything from the beginning—how Allen had blindsided me, to
the attack, to Angelica, and then to the firewatch.

“And how did
Sergeant Cruz factor into this?” he asked. His beady eyes looked suspicious.
 

“All I remember
is hearing the firewatch, and him pulling Allen off of me. Then after their
fight, Sergeant Cruz coming in.”

He was dutifully
note taking, looking up every so often to gauge my expressions, which only made
me melt more. His eyes were like an incinerator to my soul, and I was slowly
being burned with every passing second.

“Alright. Because
this is an on-going investigation, with the potential for brig time, we will be
canceling your orders. You will be staying in Twentynine, where a new set of
orders will be issued to you.”

For the first
time since he had come and sucked the life out of the room, I had a reason to
smile,
only I couldn’t because that would have been
inappropriate in his presence.

“Okay, First
Sergeant,” I managed to croak out, still under the intense heat from his stark
gaze.

His eyes closed
in on me, locking me down like I was about to be viciously devoured. It made me
slink down in the bed a bit, afraid of what was coming next. “I told you sexual
harassment was a big deal with the Corps, and
its
turning into quite the shit storm. I have been digging through everything with
Private Allen, and I have come across some very eye opening information
involving you and another Marine.” My throat suddenly closed, and it became
hard to breathe, like my lungs had been doused in gasoline and lit on fire. “So,
I am only going to ask you once—is there anything you would like to tell
me, right now before I dig a little deeper? I don’t plan on taking this shit
lightly.”

His lifeless eyes
continued to rip through me, sending my guilt to the surface. It almost made me
come out and remove the weight of it all from my shoulders. A second thought
quickly came to mind, and I shoved it back down with the bile that was slowly
rising as I almost released it all, surely destroying Alex and me for good.

I managed to keep
my mouth shut, simply shaking my head and trying hard to look back into those menacing
eyes, hoping to pacify him even for just a short while.

“Alright then. I
will continue to dig through this cesspool. But if I find more shit, and I
fully expect to, hell is going to be paid. You understand that?”

My lip began to
quiver, and I made a conscious effort to stop it, not wanting to show any signs
of guilt or weakness.

He turned and
walked out of the room. I could hear him speak to Alex, grumbling, “I’ll need
to see you in my office in ten minutes, Sergeant.”

“Roger that,
First Sergeant,” Alex replied, then strolled back into the room.

First Sergeant
O’Hara stalked away from the room, hitting the ground hard as he set off on his
mission to destroy everything that we had tried to conceal. My stomach hurt
more than any other part of my body. I felt as if I were trapped inside of an
ever expanding
balloon that was nearing its bursting point. The
walls were closing in, and I felt it deep down in my gut—we were so close
to being busted.

The nurse walked
back into the room. There was no doubt in my mind that she had deliberately
stayed away until First Sergeant left. She sat the water down, looking
curiously at me. I thanked her and turned to Alex, hoping to get a sense of
what he was feeling at the moment.

He wasn’t feeling
anything. He was just as nonchalant as he was before First Sergeant had
arrived. I wanted to understand it, but I couldn’t. The thought of whatever was
about to go down in that office terrified me, and I wanted him to be even a tad
bit concerned.

“Hey, why do you
look like your cat just died? You get to stay in Twentynine, did you hear
that?”

My frustration
couldn’t be contained any longer. I didn’t understand him. I was losing my shit
on the inside, and he was calm as could be.

“Alex. You are
about to face the man that could very well destroy us—
destroy
you.”

He moved swiftly
over to me, staring those engulfing honey colored eyes at me.

“First Sergeant
O’Hara is a man of great integrity, so he’ll do whatever it is he has to do. If
that means he destroys me, then he destroys me, but he will never destroy us. Ever!
You understand that?”

His vigor and the
passion burning through his eyes calmed me, making me realize that his concern
was not in what could happen to him, but what could happen to us. I reached up
and wrapped my arms around his neck as he leaned down. Tears trickled down my
face as I watched this man, who was so dedicated to the Corps, cast it aside
because of his blinding love for me. It was overwhelming, and at the moment,
too much to take.

“You better get
over there and see what he wants.”

He pulled back,
wiping my tears away. He kissed me, then turned and walked out of the room,
leaving me in a conflicted and convoluted mess. I was thrilled that Alex was
devoted to me and willing to put everything on the line, but I was also
depressed that having everything with me meant having so little with the Corps.
I lay back in my bed and turned on the TV to try and drown out the damaging
thoughts. There was no way that Alex would escape this meeting unscathed, and I
only hoped that our love was enough to overcome the outcome of it all.

Chapter 33

Alex

The
drive over to First Sergeant’s office was short and quick. I didn’t give myself
much time to think about whatever it was that he was going to say. When I got
out of my truck, I was ambushed by one troubling thought that hadn’t factored
into my thought process since all of this had unraveled—Cassie. I knew
that the gauntlet would be brought down on me, but I didn’t know how far they
would push it with her, and the only sickness I could feel since all of this
started was where she would be when all of the dust settled.

I walked up to
his office, confidently striding through the corridors, almost eager to know
what he wanted to do about all of this. There was no way I’d be coming away
unmarked, and I was ready for it, but I was also ready to lessen the blow for
the girl that meant more than anything to me. I knocked on the door,
then
turned the knob and walked in, coming face to face with
a steely eyed, First Sergeant O’Hara.

“Come on in,
Sergeant Cruz,” he greeted, his voice low and clipped.

I walked in,
standing at attention as he stood and walked around his desk, standing in front
of me.

“At ease,
Sergeant. Take a seat.”

I sat down in the
chair situated directly in front of his desk. He took his seat, pulling out a
notepad and skimming over some notes before looking up to me. The ice from his
cold, hard stare began circling the room, knocking my hardened demeanor and
concerted effort to remain unfazed by all of this off of the high horse I had
placed them on.

“I’m very sorry
to have this happen within your class. Private Allen is currently in the
hospital, on twenty-four hour watch, and as soon as he is better and
discharged, he will be transferred to the brig awaiting court martial and
subsequent discharge. You have my word on that.”