Shadows Have Gone (20 page)

Carly pressed a quick kiss to his lips and slipped away to the bathroom. Justin must have dozed off, because he jolted to wakefulness when she climbed back into the bed.

She’d turned on the lamp, and the room was flooded with the bluish-white light of the LED bulb. He watched as she ran a brush through her hair and whipped it into a braid before climbing into the bed. He eyed the elastic tie at the bottom and wondered how to distract her so he could pull it out. She cursed in the morning when she saw her hair had come loose again, but he loved burying his face in it in the early morning hours, snuggling against her half-asleep.

She laid her head on his shoulder and traced her fingers over the tattoo on his chest, slipping over each letter. A. D. S. N. C. T.
 

Anthony. Dane. Shawn. Nate. Chris. Troy.

“Who were they?” she asked. “You never told me. You said you would one day.”

He had. He sat up and took a deep breath, and then the secret didn’t feel so buried within. It felt like something he could share with her, something he could show her so she would see what he carried with him and maybe understand a little better why he acted the way he did.

“This is what happened.” Justin rubbed the back of his neck, then dropped his hand in a sharp, helpless motion. “We were on a mission, four others and myself. We were supposed to eliminate a target and get out, fast. And I fucked up. Because of that, the four men with me were captured. I got out. Barely.” He touched one of the scars on his ribcage. “Dug the goddam slug out myself.

“I got back to base. I don’t really want to talk about the journey, because those are really hard memories I’ve tried to put out of my mind, but I made it back. After I was debriefed, I learned they weren’t going to go back for them. I was enraged. That word doesn’t even cover it. Lewis just looked at me and said we all knew what could happen. Every mission we went into, we knew if we didn’t get out ourselves, no one was coming after us. We didn’t even officially exist. As far as the US government was concerned, we were rogue mercenaries. I knew what would happen to them. We were trained not to break. Which was worse for us, to tell you the truth, because people can be very . . . determined.”

“You mean torture?”

“Seems like a small word for it. I had to go back for them. I had to. I couldn’t . . . Lewis said he wouldn’t stop me, but he wasn’t going to sanction it, either. I asked for volunteers and got some. He said we were doomed to failure. He was right. I
knew
he was right, even as we were gearing up to leave, but I had to. I made two mistakes. Two mistakes that cost six men their lives. That’s what this is.” He touched the tattoo over his heart. “Their initials. Six letters. Branded into my skin, into my memory. It’s something I’ll always carry with me. Something I should always carry with me. Six initials that proved Lewis was right about me—my emotions were my weakest point. That weak point got exploited, and it cost the lives of all those men.”

“Justin, I don’t know what it was you were doing. I don’t think I want to know, really. But I think I can say with confidence that it wasn’t your kindness that killed those people. It was the evil of those who wanted to hurt them.”

“You’re very kind, you know that?”

“I think you deserve a little kindness. Especially from yourself, Justin. At some point, you’re going to have to put down those burdens and forgive yourself. Do you remember what you told me after I confessed what happened to my father?”

“Carly, he was out of his mind with fever, and you killed him by accident.” She’d told him the story during their travels, and he knew that she still carried the guilt with her to this day. She hadn’t meant to do it. Carl Daniels had been delirious, and he’d attacked her. When she shoved him away, he’d struck the wall at a bad angle, and his neck had snapped. Justin had never had the heart to point out to her that Carl would have died soon anyway from the Infection. She had to know that, but instead she focused on the fact she’d hurt her father, no matter that it was unintentional and to save her own life.

“You told me even if I had done it intentionally, I’d have to forgive myself and vow to do better from now onward. Do you remember that? Well, you feel like you owe a debt to those men. You have a chance in this new world to pay it back every day. Every time you save a life. Every time you make someone’s life better in this new world. That’s what I told Pearl today. If you’ve made mistakes, you make up for it by doing the right thing in the future.”

“What were you and Pearl talking about?”

“She told me the story about why she doesn’t want to be responsible for anyone.”

Carly pressed a kiss to his tattoo, and he lay back down with her, staring up at the dark gloom of the ceiling.

Carly drew the sheet up over them. “Long story short, she’s carrying the burden of a mistake, too. I told you she’s like the girl version of you.”

Justin chuckled. “And did she listen to you any better than I do?”

“Probably not, but we’ll see.” She snuggled against his side. “Have I told you today that I love you?”

“Likely, but I never get tired of hearing it. If I could say I love you with every breath, it still wouldn’t be enough to tell you how I feel, and nothing—no one—is going to take me away from you.”

He turned off the lamp and stared up into the darkness. He listened to her breaths slow and soften into sleep.

Sleep was long in coming for him, because he knew if it was Lewis, ignoring him wouldn’t end the matter. Lewis wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted or—

Justin didn’t finish that thought. It was a road his mind didn’t want to travel. Not yet anyway. He slipped the elastic band from the end of Carly’s hair and spread it out on the pillow so he could lay his cheek against the silky waves.

Justin found himself staring up at the roof of the tent. He tried to sit up and fell back when a bolt of agony shot through his arm. What the hell had happened? He had been walking along with Carly and then—

Pain. He lifted a hand to his chest and felt a thick bandage covering his upper pectoral, shoulder, and part of his back.

Carly lay curled up on her sleeping bag beside him, fully dressed down to her tennis shoes. Her face was almost colorless, except for the dark shadows beneath her eyes. Her hair was a tangled mop that didn’t look like it had been brushed in days. She looked like hell.

He peeled up the edge of his bandage to peek at the damage and winced. Fuck, that was one ugly mess. It didn’t appear to be a gunshot. It was more of an oblong slit, no shredded edges, very little subcutaneous hemorrhage. An arrow wound, likely. He could see where it had been badly inflamed, but it looked like it was starting to heal and the redness was subsiding.

Well, he’d live, anyway. He patted the tape back down. He glanced over at Carly. She was obviously exhausted, and he hated to disturb her, but he needed to know what had happened. He said her name and she responded, though he didn’t think she was fully awake.

“Carly, are you alright?”

She sat up, eyes wide. “Justin?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “God, I feel like shit.”

“You got shot,” she said, and her eyes filled with tears. “You’re awake. Oh, thank God, you’re awake.”

“How long was I out?”

“Days and days,” Carly replied. “I don’t know. A long time.”

His bladder was happy to point out how long he’d been out of action. He tried to get up, but couldn’t, and was painfully embarrassed to have to let her get him a bedpan. She gave him a little privacy to use it, and both Shadowfax and Sam took the opportunity to come and greet him. Their enthusiasm for seeing him awake confirmed, if nothing else, that he’d been out of it for a while. They seemed very glad to have him back.

“Seems everyone was worried about me,” Justin said when Carly returned to the tent with a bottle of water for him.

“I was so worried you were going to die. I didn’t know if I was giving you the right antibiotic, or if I was taking care of you properly or—”

He felt terrible for her but was impressed at what she must have done to save him. Without training, she had followed her instincts and somehow managed to do the right thing. “You did just fine. Now, tell me what happened.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember riding down the highway after we crossed the border, and that’s all.”

“We were ambushed. A woman and a man were hiding behind a wrecked car.” Carly stopped for a moment and closed her eyes. “The woman had a crossbow. She shot you first, and you fell like you’d been . . . like you’d been—”

“It’s okay,” Justin said. He reached up to stroke her shoulder.

Carly was shaking, but she took a couple of hitching breaths and continued. “I . . . I shot them. Both of them. Sam attacked, and it made her miss with the second arrow. I shot them both. Double tap, like you said.”

“Good.” Justin kept his voice low but firm.

She looked up for a moment to meet his eyes, then gave a soft exhalation of a breath she’d held, almost a sigh, before she went on.

“I moved you here with the wagon. We needed to get somewhere safe. Somewhere off the road.”

“How did you move me into the wagon?” Carly was less than half of his size, and while she used to exercise regularly, she wasn’t used to lifting over two hundred pounds of dead weight.

“I don’t know. I just did.” Carly shook her head. “It’s weird, but my memory of it is a little foggy. I guess because I was so scared and concentrating on getting it done, I didn’t really stop to think about how it
couldn’t
be done. Does that make sense?”

He gave a soft laugh. “For you? It makes perfect sense.”

“I got you into the wagon and drove here. It’s off the road, behind a burned house. I didn’t think anyone would be interested in this place, so it was a good spot to hide until you’d recovered.”

“Good thinking.”

“And then I had to try to help you.” She took another shuddering breath, and tears spilled from her eyes. “I put out tarps to lay you on. I was trying to protect you from dirt and germs as best I could, even though our conditions aren’t exactly sterile, you know? The arrow had gone through. I poured alcohol over the clippers and snipped off the point before I pulled out the shaft. I knew there wasn’t any other way, and so I—”

He heard the increasing strain in her voice. “You did amazingly well, Carly. No training at all, and you figured out what to do.”

“Movies.” She gave a small embarrassed laugh and used her wrist to wipe away some of the tears. “Then I bandaged it and just prayed I’d done the right thing.”

“It sounds like you did.”

“You had a bad fever, and the wound started festering. You never said you were allergic to anything, so I chose an antibiotic that I had heard of and hoped it would work. I hated that your life was in the hands of guesswork, but I didn’t know about the other ones.”

“You did well, Carly. I’m fine. See?”

“I remembered what you said about following the land to the lowest point to find water, and I found a little stream. I boiled it to purify it, then used wet towels to try to bring down your fever. You were burning up. It was almost as bad as people who had the Infection. You were out of it, muttering, yelling . . . and I was so afraid if I couldn’t get the fever down that it would kill you.”

“You did the right thing,” he said again, but it was like she didn’t really register his words. Maybe she thought they were platitudes, but he really was amazed at how well she’d done. She’d remembered his off-hand remark about finding water. He couldn’t even remember telling her that, but she’d remembered it and used it to survive.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. He had known she had a core of steel the moment their eyes met. He just had a feeling he didn’t know how deep that strength really went. She was like a pool of clear water with a visible bottom, but when you stepped in, you realized the clarity had created an illusion and you were in over your head before you knew it.

But when it came to Carly, he had been in over his head for quite a while.