15. Hunter

Kaci's cries have me running into the house. She's on the floor by the table, her hands pressed to the side of her head, clutching a piece of paper in one hand.

"Angel." I sink down next to her, my arms going out to her.

"Don't you touch me!"

She scoots away from me, and the look in her eyes is pure pain and hurt and anguish.

"Angel…"

"Don't call me that," she hisses. "My name's Kaci. Kaci Peterson. But you know that already."

She holds up the piece of paper, and it's the letter she wrote me three weeks ago. The letter I ignored because I wasn't ready to give her the answers she was looking for.

I never dreamed she'd make the trip out here to find me.

"Kaci..." I hold out my hands palms up like I'm dealing with a wild animal. "I can explain."

"Don't, Hunter. Just don't. Whatever fucked up explanation you have, I don't want to hear it."

She staggers to her feet, still backing away from me, and it pains me to see how she can't put enough distance between us.

"What do you remember?"

I've got to know if she's got it all back, if she knows about Ben.

"All of it," she whispers. "I remember all of it."

One thick teardrop courses down her cheek, and the sorrow on her face breaks my heart in two. I want to hold her, to take her in my arms, to absorb her pain so she won't have to feel it all.

I take a step toward her, and her expression turns hard.

"Stay the fuck away from me."

Her hands go out defensively, and I can't blame her. I should have told her; I should have come clean. I managed to shield her for three days from the pain, but was it worth it?

"Take me back to Hope," she says. "I need to get home."

There's no point in explaining myself when she's too angry to listen.

"Okay." I nod. "Get your things."

"I don't have any things," she says through gritted teeth.

I grab the keys, and she follows me to the pickup with her arms folded. She gets into the passenger seat and sits right on the edge, her body angled toward the door and her head tilted like she can't bear to look at me.

Pain rocks my body, but it's what I deserve. I lied to her; I broke the trust she had in me. And now I'm getting exactly what I deserve.

We drive in silence, bumping along the dirt road. I can feel her seething next to me.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Kaci."

She glares at me before turning back to the window. "How could you keep it from me, Hunter? You knew who I was, and you didn't tell me."

"Because you seemed happy. Because I knew as soon as you remembered who you were, you'd go through the pain of losing Ben all over again."

She turns away at his name and swipes a tear from her cheek.

"You had no right."

We lapse into silence, and I hate that this is how it ends. That after the nights together, the meals, and the laughter it's come to this. Maybe one day she'll forgive me. But I can't ask her for that now. This is exactly what I deserve.

"What were you coming to ask me?"

She keeps staring out the window, and I think she's not going to answer.

"You were coming to see me, right? What did you want to know?"

If I can give her one thing, then this is it. I didn't answer her letter because she was looking for answers about her twin and I didn't want to remember, but for her, I will.

"I didn't get to see his body, Hunter. I wasn't told anything. I want to know how he died. That it really was him in the coffin they lowered into the ground."

Her voice falters as she talks. "We're twins. I just couldn't believe he was gone. It had been three years, but I still had this feeling like he was going to walk through the door or call me up with a goofy story."

She's sobbing now and I reach my hand over to rest it on her thigh, wanting to comfort her. She stiffens under my touch and removes my hand from her leg.

"Tell me what I want to know, Hunter. Tell me about Ben."

I put my hand back on the steering wheel. I can't comfort her, but I can give her what she wants to know.

I pull over on the side of the road and let my mind go back to that day.

"He was about the happiest kid I ever knew."

Because he was a kid to me. When I was assigned my squad of new recruits, I'd never felt so old. They were fresh-faced and thinking they were going to save the world. I must have seemed like a miserable old man to them.

"We were traveling in a convoy that day, heading back to base after a three day mission."

The memory floods back in so intense I can feel sweat on my back and taste the arid desert air. It's as if I'm back there in the desert heat, sweating under the full body armor.

My hands shake as I tell Kaci about the last moments of her brother's life, the banter in the back of the truck, Ben talking about heading home at the end of the month.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. When we rolled over the IED I didn't feel it or hear a click. Suddenly the truck lifted into the air as an explosion ripped through us.

I was thrown from the truck, slamming into the ground with the explosion ringing in my ears.

I don't mention the details, that the reason she didn't see Ben's body was because it was blown apart and unrecognizable. Ben was one of the lucky ones. He was killed instantly, I'm able to tell her that. That he felt no pain.

I pulled bodies from the wreck, but it was too late.

"My entire squad perished. Either at the crash site or later in the hospital."

Kaci's staring at me, and there's pity in her eyes. I can't stand pity.

"I didn't even have a scratch, Kaci. My entire squad was killed. Four young men who were my responsibility. I was leading the squad. I was supposed to die with them."

I bury my head in my hands, and the grief and the guilt pound against my heart. Why not me? Why take the lives of those young men and all their potential? How did I survive without a scratch?

"It should have been me and not your brother, Kaci. I'm so sorry he died that day. I wish it had been me instead."

We're both sobbing now at the lost lives and the wasted potential.

Survivors guilt is what the therapist called what I have. The guilt that haunted me for my final tours, the darkness that chased me all the way back to Wild Heart Mountain, thinking I could hide out in the mountains and it wouldn't find me here.

But somehow Kaci found me, and when her letter arrived it opened up all the old wounds.

When she turned up in the woods like a ghost from my past, I thought it was my chance to atone. To keep her safe and cocooned for a few days away from her pain.

But all I've done is split it wide open for both of us.

A warm pressure presses on my thigh, and I look down to find Kaci's hand there. She scoots over in the seat and looks up at me with eyes raw from crying.

"It's not your fault, Hunter."

So many people have told me that over the years.

"You didn't plant the IED. You didn't make any of those soldiers enlist. Ben knew what he was getting into when he signed up. He knew the risks. They all did."

But hearing it from Kaci, from Ben's twin, the woman who I've thought about constantly over the last three years, wondering what she was doing and hoping she was handling her grief, it feels like absolution.

She squeezes my thigh, and I take her hand tentatively.

"I'm so sorry, Kaci. When I realized who you were, I couldn't face telling you the truth. I couldn't bear to be the one who hurt you."

She takes my face in her hands. "You gave me three days, Hunter. Three pain free days, and I'll always be grateful for that."

"I wish I could give you more. I meant what I said last night, Kaci. I love you. I don't deserve you, and I'm not asking for forgiveness for what I've done. I just want you to know I love you and I'm sorry."

She takes a long shuddering sigh and lets go of my cheeks.

"I need some air."

Kaci opens her car door and slips out of the pickup. She stands on the edge of the road looking out over the valley and hugging her arms, for cold or comfort I'm not sure. She looks so vulnerable my heart aches for her.

Kaci came here looking for answers, but all I've done is make it worse. She's still all alone. Nothing will bring Ben back.

A breeze whips her blonde hair sideways and makes her shiver. She's out there alone, but she doesn't have to be.

I didn't die that day, and for three years I've felt like living was a mistake. That I was supposed to perish with my squad. But maybe there's a reason why I didn't die that day. Maybe that reason is standing right here in front of me.