18. Dane

18

DANE

A dark tower billows acrid smoke as I stagger along the blasted street, cradling Selene’s broken body in my arms.

“No, how did this happen?” I cry to the smoke-drenched heavens.

“You know how it happened.”

I snap my gaze around to the sound of the voice. Hans Klaus stands there, staring at me with a mix of pity and contempt.

“You let yourself care about her. That put a target on her back. You should have known the universe has been waiting to punish you, Dane. But first, you had to have something to lose…”

“No,” I sputter. “No, this isn’t real. I have to wake up. Please, let me wake up.”

“You can’t wake up from reality, boy,” Klaus says. “And the reality is, you’ll never be able to keep anyone safe. You couldn’t keep those women and children safe from me, and you won’t be able to keep Selene safe from the Moreno family. Face it, Dane. You’re not up to snuff. One of the real agents at Platinum Security would be a better choice.”

I hang my head. Maybe he’s right. I fucked up with Klaus, and now, apparently, I’ve gotten Selene killed. I never should have let myself care about her.

“You killed me, Dane.”

My jaw falls open as I stare at the corpse in my arms. Her head turns to face me, eyes full of accusation.

“You were supposed to keep me safe. Why didn’t you protect me?”

I sit bolt upright in bed, chest heaving with heavy pants. I blink away the stinging sweat from my eyes and peel the sheets off me, all the while trying to be careful not to wake Selene.

Stumbling into the bathroom, I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face. My breathing slows as I focus on my surroundings. The softness of the bathmat under my toes. The sound of the wind in the trees outside. The minty smell of toothpaste. All of these things are real.

Selene’s not dead. A giddy laugh struggles to escape my mouth. She’s not dead. It was a fucking dream. Not real.

I stare at my haggard reflection in the mirror. Selene and I might just have something here. But having something means having something to lose. I really don’t want to lose her.

Even more, I don’t want her death to be my fault.

I return to the bedroom, flicking off the bathroom light. Darkness bathes Selene’s slumbering form. The curves of her body show through the thin sheet covering her. For a moment, I consider waking her.

That’s the healthy thing to do, isn’t it? Wake her up, tell her about my dream and how it made me feel. I know this, logically. I’m willing to wager that Selene would even be more than willing to lend a sympathetic ear.

But standing there, looking at this amazing woman, I can’t bring myself to do the smart thing. Maybe I don’t want to dredge up those feelings any further, those feelings of failure and regret. Or maybe I’m a coward and just can’t bear to face the truth, either about myself or my feelings for Selene.

In the end, I turn my back on her and drag on jeans and a T-shirt. After stepping into my boots, I stuff a pistol into the waistband of my jeans and step outside. The moon peeks out from behind rumpled, deep purple clouds as they skitter across the night sky. The breeze carries a hint of the sea to my nostrils. Night insects chirp merrily, uncaring about my problems or anyone else’s, for that matter.

It should fill me with a sense of peace. I can’t get the dream out of my head, though. It seemed so damn real. An unfortunate side effect of having fought on the battlefield is knowing exactly what it looks and feels like when someone is shot right in front of you.

I saw too many of my fellow sailors fall lifeless to the ground. It was even worse when they didn’t die right away, and their screams tore into my heart as much as my eardrums. How many times did I watch as someone I knew by name bled out in front of me? Once would be too many.

I’m upset that I don’t know the exact number. Either I’m a callous ass who doesn’t value human life, or there were so many it was impossible to keep accurate track. I don’t much care for either option.

My legs start moving, taking me off the porch and out onto the surrounding grounds. The feel of soft earth under my boots normally soothes me. But the dream and the dark thoughts remain stubbornly adhered to my psyche.

People die in a war, whether it’s been declared by the powers-that-be or not. The men and women I served with signed up for it. They knew that they might have to make the ultimate sacrifice.

But Selene’s not a warrior. She wasn’t meant to be on the battlefield. She’s meant to be on a film set, working her magic to give people creative worlds to explore. Because without things that take us to other worlds, how can we stand to suffer through this one?

It occurs to me I’ve been so focused on keeping Selene safe, that I haven’t thought much about what exactly the Moreno family wants with her. I can only assume it has something to do with her brother.

Disturbing scenarios go through my head. I quickly dismiss the idea of sexual slavery. It’s disgusting to think about, but Moreno could get women a dime a dozen, and he never showed any signs of being obsessed with Selene specifically .

So he’s not likely out to impress or abscond with Selene. What does he want, then? My blood runs cold when I consider a terrible thought: What if Selene has the right blood type to be an organ donor for some relative of Moreno? Or even Moreno himself?

Again, I dismiss the theory. The black market organ trade is a real thing, if perhaps less sensational than movies would have you believe. Most of the time, the donors sell their organs rather than having them forcibly removed.

Moreno has both the wealth and the contacts to get whatever he needs in terms of medical care. But what other purpose could he have for Selene? She’s not a safecracker, or a computer hacker like my sister.

In the end, I decide keeping Selene alive matters a whole hell of a lot more than Moreno’s motivations. Getting her brother back is also an objective, but I’ve known from the get-go it was never the main objective. I’m pretty sure Jax understood that, too.

Selene’s brother kind of made his own bed with the Moreno family. Selene, on the other hand, is innocent. I’m not much for judging who deserves to live over someone else. If I were, I would have been an officer instead of an enlisted man. My job was not to judge, it was to pull the trigger…

My lips twist into a bitter, sardonic smile. I didn’t exactly do my job very well, now did I? If I had done my job, if I had pulled the trigger on Klaus, a lot of people would still be alive today.

Then it hits me, the thought I’ve been trying to avoid ever since I took this damn assignment: What if Selene’s life is in danger, and I’m the only one who can help her…and I hesitate again? What if when it’s time to act, I can’t? If I freeze up, and Selene gets hurt, I don’t know if I’ll be able to live with myself.

My chest tightens up. It’s hard to breathe, and my arms are going numb. Shit, am I having a heart attack? A stroke? Did some chemical agent I ingested on a battlefield somewhere finally take its toll?

My knees turn to water. Stumbling, I catch myself on a tree. The roughness of the bark gives me something to focus on other than my spiral. I try to keep on breathing, even though it feels like a futile gesture. No matter how much air I drag into my lungs, it still seems like I’m drowning.

I sink to one knee, and rest my forehead against the bark of the tree. Nausea grips my belly, so intense and sudden that the urge to retch consumes me. Yet, I know that I won’t, I can’t, throw up. Even that hard-won relief is denied to me.

My vision darkens on the edges as I continue to feel suffocation despite all evidence to the contrary. I put my fingers against my neck, feeling the artery pulse beneath them. My pulse is rapid, but steady. Not erratic, so not a heart attack.

Stroke, then? I run through all of my pertinent information, all of my ‘stats.’ Name, rank, serial number. My birthday. The first time I tried rocky road ice cream. That time my brother and I stole my sister’s chocolate rabbit from her Easter Basket and made her cry…

No, I don’t think it’s a stroke, either. Slowly, I begin to feel myself again. I stand up, still unsteady, and pat the tree in silent thanks for its assistance in keeping me upright.

What the Hell just happened to me? Did I pick up some flu variant somewhere? No fever, and the nausea is gone. Probably not the flu.

I wipe a hand down my sweating face as the truth hits home. Fuck, I just had a panic attack. It’s the most likely explanation, and the symptoms match those of other sailors who’ve suffered from them.

A panic attack. Me, of all people. Self-loathing twists my innards up into knots until I want to scream. Not only do I have to worry about freezing up, now I have to worry about panic attacks, too. How am I supposed to protect Selene like this?

As if in answer to my silent query, a hard crack echoes out through the air. A long, drawn out dragging noise follows, like rolling around a pebble in a cardboard box.

A gunshot, and not far away. In fact, it sounded like it came from …

“Oh no.”

I run like mad back for the cabin, unbelieving I’ve ranged this far. Please be alive when I get there, Selene.

Please.