Prisoner (Werewolf Marines) (26 page)

Roy hadn’t fully understood DJ’s offer,
either. If DJ had taken the time to explain, Roy would have died.
DJ had been so frantic at that thought that he’d broken the most
important law of the pack.

DJ had been certain that any life was better
than death. Now he had to admit that there were some
exceptions.

The last video clip he’d seen of Roy had been
just like a bunch of others. Roy lying in bed, staring at the
ceiling, lonely and haunted. Despairing.

He isn’t dying
, DJ told himself
fiercely.
And he isn’t beyond hope of recovery. He isn’t
beyond
hope
. I just have to find him and tell him
so.

“Torres, you did what you had to do,” Mr.
Dowling said. “Anyway, Match is no great loss. Good work, you two.
Good teamwork.”

He asked Echo a question, but DJ’s attention
drifted. The doctor had said that his arm would heal quickly and he
had no other injuries, but DJ felt feverish, hot and cold at once.
His upper arm was numb, but his hands tingled. Both hands, so it
couldn’t be from the injury. Sitting still was making him feel
trapped. Smothered. He had to move.

DJ got off the bed where he’d been sitting.
He wanted to pace, but he had the feeling that if he started, he
wouldn’t be able to stop.

Sweat trickled down his back. “It’s hot in
here.”

The words rang strangely in his ears. Every
sound was simultaneously shrill and grating. Thoughts banged
against his skull like a swarm of bees, each one demanding to be
spoken, immediately. He was burning up, every nerve ending on fire.
His clothes made his skin itch. His skin made his muscles itch. His
muscles made his bones itch. He wanted to climb out of his body and
run. The floor was sliding out from under his feet.

Oh, shit,
DJ thought.
Here we go. I
can’t let them see what’s happening. Dr. Semple will strap me to a
table. And if I say one more word, they’ll know.

He clamped his jaw, shoved his fist against
his mouth, and fixed his gaze on Echo. Her eyes were blue as water,
her hair was white as snow, and her hands were strong as an
avalanche. She could cool his fire. She could pick him up and carry
him to safety. She could be the eye of his storm.

Help me, Echo,
he thought, and prayed
that she wouldn’t need words to understand.

Chapter Twelve: Echo

Hope

“It’s hot in here,” DJ remarked.

The hospital, like the rest of the base, was
air-conditioned to within an inch of its life. Echo stared at him.
DJ shut his mouth so fast that she heard his teeth click. His
throat bobbed as he swallowed convulsively. He pressed his knuckles
to his lips and said nothing. But his gaze met hers, imploring and
desperate and trusting.

Echo realized that he was afraid to speak.
More, she suspected that he was on the verge of a breakdown. She
had to get him out of there before Dr. Semple figured it out too.
Luckily, she and Mr. Dowling had turned away to confer with each
other.

“I’m tired,” Echo said. “The mission’s done,
and you got our report. I’m going to bed.” Casually, she added,
“Come on, Torres.”

She turned and walked out before they could
reply. Echo was crossing her fingers that Mr. Dowling and Dr.
Semple were tired too, had gotten all they’d wanted from her and
DJ, and wouldn’t think hauling them back was worth the effort of
making a fuss.

Sure enough, she made it out without being
challenged. DJ followed her. Once the door slid shut, Echo put her
hand under his elbow and steered him down the corridor. He was
walking fast but jerkily, without his usual easy grace.

“Echo— I have to tell you—” His voice, too,
was quick but off-rhythm.

“Don’t talk,” she muttered.

“But I—”

“You’re still in combat. Keep it
together.”

That seemed to get through to him. He kept
quiet until they reached their apartment and the door slid shut
behind him. Echo looked around. To her annoyance, she found several
new bugs.

“It’s all—” DJ began.

“Still in combat,” she reminded him, pointing
at the walls. “I think you’re dehydrated. Drink this.”

She poured a glass of water and shoved it
into his hands. To her relief, he obediently drank it as he paced,
which at least kept his mouth occupied. She hurriedly swept the
apartment and destroyed the bugs. By the time she was done, the
glass was empty, though a fair amount of water had spilled down the
front of his shirt.

“That’ll teach you to drink and pace,” Echo
said.

He followed the direction of her gaze.
“Couldn’t keep my hands steady. Thanks for the water. I put a
handful of dirt in my mouth.”

“Did you really?”

“Had to get rid of the taste of blood.” DJ
scrubbed at his lips with the back of his hand. “Blood and dirt.
I’m pretty sure I swallowed some of both. I’m lucky I have a strong
stomach, or I’d probably be throwing up all night. I ripped Match’s
throat out with my teeth. I was licking his face when he died.”

Echo tried to put her hand on his shoulder,
but he was moving too fast, pacing in tight circles around the
living room. “DJ, what happened? Was it really like you said?”

“No, that was bullshit.” DJ noticed the empty
glass in his hands and went to put it down on the counter. His hand
moved too fast, and the glass shattered. “Fuck, sorry. I’ll clean
that up.”

“Don’t,” Echo said, hastily moving him away
from the sparkling fragments. “You really want to be messing with
broken glass right now? I’ll take care of it. You tell me what
happened.”

As she got some wet paper towels and cleaned
up the glass, she listened to DJ’s explanation. It was out of order
and kept going off on tangents, but she knew enough of the context
to follow it.

She’d known that even wounded and taken by
surprise, DJ would have been able to subdue Match without killing
him. She’d known, too, that he wouldn’t have killed without a good
reason. And she’d known something terrible had happened when she’d
seen him crouched shaking on the bloody sand. But she hadn’t
imagined anything like the story he told.

He’d acted with honor and compassion,
disregarding the cost to himself, for the sake of an enemy. And
he’d made that decision all alone. It wouldn’t have made any
difference to the outcome, but she wished she’d been with him.

“So Justin…” Echo began.

“Collateral damage,” said DJ, running his
hand through his hair. It came away wet; he was sweating in the
chilly room. “Match was pack. They were protecting him, but he
didn’t want their protection. They were trying to save his life,
but he didn’t want to be saved. I understand why they did it. But I
don’t know if I can ever forgive them. I held Justin’s hand. I
slapped his face when he was already dead.”

“Oh, DJ…”

“I ripped Match’s throat out with my teeth,”
DJ said again. “I was licking his face when he died.”

“You did the right thing. I wouldn’t have
wanted to live like that, either.”

“The closest I’ve ever been to anyone I
killed was across the room, and it was a big room.” DJ was speaking
in quick bursts and breathing in between. “I’m a rifleman, you
know, we fight from a distance. We train with bayonets but I don’t
think anyone’s used them in combat since Vietnam. The maximum
effective range of an M-16 is eight hundred meters if you’re just
trying to hit an area, and five hundred fifty meters for a specific
target. For the SAW, it’s thirty-six hundred meters. Or seven
hundred for a specific target, but a machine gun is kind of
inherently an area weapon. I wonder why we use meters to measure
firing range, but feet and yards and miles for everything else. The
lieutenant used to say—”

“DJ!” Echo said sharply.

He glanced at her, but didn’t stop pacing.
“What?”

“How fast is the ground moving right
now?”

DJ tried to smile. “Pretty fast. Sorry. I
know it’s annoying, but I’ll lose it if I stop. Seriously. I’ve
never had a panic attack, but that would do it. If I even slow
down, I feel like something terrible is about to happen.”

“You don’t have to stop.”

“I ripped Match’s throat out with my teeth.”
DJ spoke with the same incredulous horror as the other two times
he’d said it, turning his disbelieving gaze to Echo as if he hoped
she’d reassure him that he’d done no such thing. “I was licking his
face when he died.”

“I know, DJ. You said that before.”

“Sorry. Sorry. I can’t think straight.”

Echo stepped up beside him, falling into the
rhythm of his rapid footfalls. “Let’s go to the gym. It’s got more
room to pace.”

“Okay. Sounds good.” DJ took a step toward
the gym, then clutched at her wildly, still stumbling forward.
“Shit. Hold on to me, will you? I just got really dizzy. I don’t
want to fall and hit my head. I think I’m breathing too fast.”

“Then slow it down.” Echo tried to hold him
steady, but it was hard when he wouldn’t stop moving. “Take a deep
breath for the count of three. One… Two… Three.”

He didn’t even make it to two. “Can’t do it.
Makes me feel like I’m choking. Forget it, I can roll with it. I’ll
get off the carousel when the music stops.”

Echo gave up on trying to talk him down. That
clearly wasn’t happening without a sedative. She moved in closer,
putting her arm around his shoulders. His back was heaving as he
panted, his body trembling.

“I’m holding you,” Echo said. “I won’t let
you fall. Just come with me. You’re going to knock over the
furniture if you stay in here.”

He let her lead him into the gym, talking in
rapid-fire sentences and half-sentences. Echo walked with him,
steadying him when he stumbled, as he went on and on about the duty
of a wolf and how worried he was about Roy, the technical specs of
an M-16 jumbled in with descriptions of the taste of blood and
dirt.

He repeated sentences over and over again,
word for word and with the same inflection every time. Occasionally
he spoke in Tagalog, which Echo recognized because of his Gloc-9
playlist. After a while, she realized that he was repeating those
sentences too. She stopped paying attention to what he was saying
and simply stayed with him, keeping her arm tight around his
shoulders.

They paced like that for over an hour. Then,
without warning, he sagged against her. She caught him and held him
up. He managed to regain his footing, though he still leaned
heavily against her.

“Sorry.” His voice was raw, but he sounded
more like himself. “Ran out of gas. That was quick.”

“Want to lie down?”

“Yeah, I think I’d better.”

She helped him to his bed. He collapsed on to
it, then grabbed at her when she started to straighten up.

“Don’t go, Echo, please.” He was shaking like
he had a fever. “I’m fucked up, and I’m really scared.”

Echo sat on the bed and held his hand. His
grip was tight enough to hurt. She’d only meant to go to her own
bed, but she realized that even that would have been too far for
him. “What are you scared of?”

“I’m scared it won’t stop.” DJ swallowed.
“That I’ll feel like this forever.”

“It’s combat stress,” Echo reminded him. “It
wears off.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you fall
into a pit and you just keep falling.”

“That won’t happen to you. You’re immune to
PTSD.”

“An evil mad scientist thinks
maybe
I’m immune,” DJ corrected her. “I can’t bank on that.”

He seemed rational enough to be reasoned
with, so Echo said, “You’ve felt like this before, right?”

“Yeah, a couple times.”

“And it’s always gone away on its own?”

DJ nodded, his trembling subsiding. “By the
next morning.”

“Then you’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“I hope so.” DJ coughed, then rubbed at his
throat. “I need to shut up occasionally. I keep wearing out my
voice. I should carry cough drops.”

“I don’t know if there’s any cough drops
here, but I could get you some water.”

“No, thanks.” His mouth twisted wryly. “I’d
rather have a sore throat while you’re here with me than have you
leave for thirty seconds to get water. It’s a wolf thing, just go
with it.”

“Your call.”

“God, I feel awful.” DJ turned from side to
side. It reminded Echo of how he’d struggled against the restraints
when he’d had heat stroke, as if moving was painful but not moving
was unbearable. “My jaw hurts. My arm hurts. The room’s spinning so
fast, I feel like I’m going to fly off the bed. And my thoughts are
so fucking loud. I wish you were a wolf, then I could be one too
and you could lie down beside me and chew on my ear.”

Echo laughed, and was surprised that she
could. “Does that feel good?”

He managed to smile. “It does if you’re a
wolf.”

Don’t say it,
Echo told herself.
Holding his hand is plenty. Holding
him
is...
irreversible. It’s a not a step on a path that you can turn back
from, it’s throwing yourself off a cliff.

“I’ll lie beside you,” Echo said, controlling
her voice so she sounded casual. “If you want.”

“You’d do that?” DJ’s eyes widened in
startled hope.

Echo lay down and put her arms around him.
His body jerked as if he’d been shocked, every muscle snapping taut
and quivering.

“Goddammit,” DJ muttered. “I didn’t mean to
do that. I’m locked out of the control room. Everything’s gone to
some fucked-up autopilot. This is the worst it’s ever been. I don’t
know how to turn it off.”

“Let me try something.” Echo pulled him close
and began rubbing his back.

“Oh— You don’t have to—”

“I want to.”

“Okay.” DJ curled into her, nestling his head
into her shoulder. She could feel the rapid thrum of his heartbeat.
At first his flesh was rock-hard, unyielding. But slowly she felt
his tension ease.