Requiem (9 page)

“
Claire is a Hybrid, Bex!
That’s an unfair basis for comparison and you know it.”

Bex giggled. The little boy in him was
showing. “You’re much more fun when you’ve had some sleep. I can’t
pass up a chance to give you a hard time when you’re coherent.”

“
Not a good time, Bex,” I
said, staring at my plate. The one day I could have eaten, and
Ryan’s letter eliminated any appetite I might have had. “You really
think it’s a mistake?”

“
Yeah,” Bex said. “No way
could that happen. It would take at least three years for someone
like him...no education, no connections.”

Jared opened the door with an apologetic
smile. “Hi, Baby.”

“
Not even a note?” I asked,
wadding up the letter in my hand and tossing it in his general
direction.

He playfully ducked, as if it were possible
that I could have hit him. “Bex was here. What’s up? I’m three
blocks away, and I’m getting all this irritation from you.”

“
Did you know about Ryan?”
I asked.

“
He’s still alive, I know
that,” Jared said, peeling off his coat. He hung it on the rack,
and then walked to me, kneeling beside me on the floor. “You read
the letter?”

“
He said he’s going into
the Special Forces.”

Jared thought for a moment, and then shook
his head. “No, the shortest time anyone has been accepted is
eighteen months in. That can’t be right.”

“
That’s what I told her,
but she doesn’t believe me,” Bex said, rolling his eyes. He walked
over to the wadded letter and reopened it, scanning the words. “But
that’s what it says. Maybe he’s trying to impress her.”

Jared immediately pulled out his phone and
dialed Claire’s number. Her angry tone carried into the room.

“
He’s a maniac!” Claire
yelled. “He has zero respect for his limited lifespan and tries to
throw himself on grenades for his buddies every other day,” she
huffed.

“
Claire…keep your voice
down,” Jared chuckled nervously. He noticed my horrified
expression, and turned his head. “You’re not serious?”

“
I’m exaggerating, but not
by much. The grenade part is true, but that was just
once.”

I wrapped my arms around my waist and walked
over to Bex, waiting for more bad news. Bex put his arm around me
with a light hug.

“
He’s saved every man in
his company in one way or another. He walks around with explosives
on his back while the enemy is shooting at us. You thought your
detail was bad, this is impossible!”

“
Great,” I said, throwing
my arms up and letting them slap to my sides.

“
It still doesn’t explain
how he made sergeant in an impossible amount of time,” Jared
said.

The other end of the phone was silent, and
Jared nodded, whispering something so quickly I could barely
discern his reply at all. “Okay. Watch your six,” Jared said,
flipping his phone shut. He watched me for a moment, and then
sighed. “He still has Claire, Nina. You know her…it’s like he’s in
military day care.”

“
How did he get sergeant so
quickly?” I asked.

Jared peered at Bex for a moment before
speaking. “It appears Colonel Brand pulled some strings. The
Special Forces guys are more familiar with how we do things, and it
made it easier for Claire to protect him.”

“
Sending Ryan on more
dangerous missions will protect him,” I deadpanned.

“
Well, since everyone has
bad news….” Bex said.

“
Bex, don’t,” I said
through my teeth, but it was too late.

“
What is it?” Jared asked,
his eyes bouncing between the two of us.

“
Nina slept all night. She
didn’t budge until seven this morning.”

Jared let his words sink in. It was several
moments before he moved, and then nodded. His hand searched for the
closest chair to pull beneath him. He fell into it, and stared at
the floor. “So that’s it.”

“
Jared, that doesn’t mean
anything,” I said, reaching for him.

He looked to his younger brother. “Now we
just have to see how far away I have to be to keep the dreams
away.”

“
This is ridiculous!” I
said. “It’s happened three times, that isn’t a definitive trial by
anyone’s standards!”

“
So we’ll test the theory,”
Jared said. “Starting tonight.”

“
No,” I said, shaking my
head. “Absolutely not. I didn’t move in with you to have to sleep
alone every night.”

“
It’s just until we figure
this out,” Jared said.

“
No.”

“
Yes,” Jared said, his tone
final.

The air was knocked out of me. I couldn’t
believe what he was saying, but I was too tired to argue. Tears
welled up in my eyes, and I looked away from him.

“
Nina….”

“
I get it…it’s
okay.”

“
Let’s just try it. See if
it works. I’ll start out just outside town, and then come a bit
closer every half hour. If you have the dream, we’ll
know.”

“
This is ridiculous!” I
said. “How are you going to find the damn book if you’re
experimenting with my dream?”

“
She has a point,” Bex
said.

Jared frowned. “I have to know.”

We tested his theory. The first night, I lay
in bed for what seemed like an eternity, waiting to fall asleep.
Being alone in our bed felt so cold and depressing. My fingers
traced the wrinkles in the sheets, remembering the first time I
woke in his bed. That perfect morning, after the night he told me
who—and what—he really was, seemed like light years away. A tear
formed in the corner of my eye, and slipped over the bridge of my
nose to the white fabric beneath me.

Jared began just on the outskirts of
Providence. When he felt I was asleep, he made his way to the loft,
a block at a time, every ten minutes or so. He was just over two
blocks away when he felt my anxiety. In Shax’s building, it was
apparent the moment Jared backed off, because my surroundings
blurred away, forming into the halls of my old high school.

The alarm bleated, and my eyes peeled open.
Two full nights of sleep. My body felt a bit closer to normal.
Jared walked in the front door, trotted up the stairs, and crawled
into bed beside me, wrapping his warm arms snugly around me. We
didn’t speak, we were just still, letting reality sink in.

“
Why would Dad do this? It
doesn’t seem fair,” Bex said from the first floor.

Jared didn’t answer. He simply pressed his
forehead against my temple and sighed.

Night after night, I slept alone. Jared used
that time to harass every connection he had, and pursue every lead
to learn the location of the book. Seconds after I woke in the
mornings, he was at my side.

The days slowly returned to normal. Lectures
in class were written down, and my hours at Titan were used for
work instead of naps. Beth gladly decreased the number of times she
fetched coffee, and excuses to Grant.

One afternoon she brought me a file and sat
in the plump, green leather chair in front of my desk. She had
bought new clothes, and her auburn hair had a new shape to it.
Still short, but different. Embarrassed that I had no idea how long
it had been that way, I took the file from her and sat it to the
side.

“
I love the shoes,” I
said.

“
Thanks,” she said, picking
one foot off the floor to bring the yellow stilettos into view.
They boasted a big bow on the side, and the heel, sole and strap
were black. “It’s a lot easier to dress for work when you have
money. Thanks again, Nina. Things at home have been a lot better
since you hired me.”

I shook my head. “You know I don’t mind.
You’ve been a huge help around here.”

“
Things seem to be better
for you, too.”

“
I feel better.”

“
Have you heard from Ryan?
No one’s heard from him since he joined that special
thing.”

My mouth turned to the side. Most of the
time I tried not to think of Ryan, the sand, or the bullets flying
every where while he carried his his pipe bomb backpack.

“
No,” I said.

Beth nodded. The desk phone rang and she
stood, pushing Line One and answering without hesitation. “Nina
Grey’s office…no, that file is in the…oh Lord, Sasha, I’ll just
come find it for you. How long have you worked here?”

Beth hung up the phone, and I smiled. “Don’t
let her take advantage of you. Do you want me to say
something?”

“
No. I do plenty of that,”
Beth said, winking.

“
I’m heading home. Will you
lock up for me?” I asked.

“
I always do,” she said,
waving behind her.

Jared stood beside his SUV with a smile,
waiting with arms wide. He had let me fall asleep in his arms the
last few weeks and then left sometime after. Jack and Gabe stayed
out of my head, and I slept through the night, never realizing
Jared was gone. He was getting so good at pinpointing when I would
rouse he usually slid next to me just before I awoke. Once again,
life was semi-normal.

His hand slid over mind as it rested on the
console of the Escalade. “Something came for you today.”

“
A letter?” I asked,
nervous.

Jared let go of my hand, pulling an envelope
from his jacket pocket. Ryan had finally written again.

Nigh,

I still think about you
every day. Sometimes whether I want to or not. Things have been
pretty busy. The new company I’m in is a whole new breed of
soldiers. I like it, but I miss you. When I get a chance, I sit and
watch the sunset, and think about our game, and the pub, and your
stupid temper tantrums. I miss it all. Tell everyone I said
hi.

Ryan

I folded the paper back to its original
shape.

“
Do I have to remind you
that this isn’t your fault?” Jared asked.

Ryan’s sudden departure was too much of a
coincidence to believe that it wasn’t my fault, but Jared, Kim, and
Beth all assured me quite regularly that his reasons were purely
financial.

He didn’t write again after that, and I
relied on Jared’s intermittent phone calls from Claire to hear of
his whereabouts, and that he was okay.

Claire still had to pull a multitude of
strings to keep a close eye on Ryan. She called home frequently to
complain of Ryan’s lack of self-preservation, which helped to get
him accepted so quickly into the Special Forces in the first place.
Claire’s phone calls were reason to fear; for Ryan and for her. I
chewed my thumbnail each time Jared answered the phone, waiting for
him to assure me that Ryan’s commando behavior hadn’t gotten him
killed.

As our small, but close group of friends
waved goodbye on the last day of our sophomore year at Brown, Ryan
came to the forefront of my mind.

“
He should be here,” I said
to Beth.

She held my arm as we walked to the parking
lot. “I know.”

“
No, he’s in the middle of
nowhere, prone on a sand dune, trying not to get shot so he didn’t
have to watch me be with Jared. It’s not fair. He should be here
with us.”

Josh and Tucker were heading to their dorm
to pack and head home, and Kim walked with them, punching Josh in
the arm. The opening of Summer Break was bittersweet, and we all
knew why.

Beth walked me to the Escalade, and after a
warm embrace, left me to find Chad. They would all meet at the Pub
that night to celebrate, and I would stay at home. It didn’t feel
right to have fun when Ryan was fighting for his life.

Jared was unhappy with my mood. He didn’t
ask what it was, but I assumed he knew. I didn’t enjoy talking to
him about Ryan. It was unfair to him, and didn’t make me feel any
better, so I didn’t see a point.

The loft was immaculate, and the summer sun
lit the beige walls, making every corner of the room glow. It had
been nearly a year since Shax had been in our living room, since
Jared threw the book at him that Gabe so desperately wanted us to
have. It had been almost a year since I was shot. I rubbed my thigh
where the scar still remained.

Jared flipped through the mail at the
kitchen table. “What do you want for dinner, Sweetheart?”

“
It just doesn’t seem to
get better,” I said, shaking my head. “We can redecorate, and fill
the bullet holes in the walls, and pretend life is normal…but
you’re gone every night, and we aren’t any closer to getting the
book, and Ryan is gone. It’s been a year and it doesn’t feel like
it’s gotten better. We’re stuck.”

Jared raised an eyebrow. “Bad day?”

I sat on the arm of the couch. “He’s going
to get killed. Every day that he’s out there, Claire is in danger.
We should bring him home.”

“
You’re suggesting that we
go to the Middle East and abscond with a member of the Special
Forces?”

I puffed. “It’s not right that he’s not
here.”

“
You’re just letting the
guilt eat you alive. You have to let it go, Nina. You have to let
him go.”

“
I know what you’re
thinking,” I said. “This isn’t about me having feelings for him.
Maybe it is about guilt, but I can’t stand it anymore…how Josh and
Tucker and everyone else look at me. That’s why I don’t hang out
with them, anymore. That’s why I don’t go to study group. I have
been sleeping through the night for months, and I can’t go back.
The looks on their faces—they blame me.”