War Torn by Jeffrey Wilson

Author:Jeffrey Wilson [Wilson, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-12T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

Jake lay on his back and stared at nothing but dark. He guessed it would be about midday by now, but with all the windows blacked out for light discipline it might have been the middle of the night. A thin sliver of light snuck in from beneath the cheap door that wouldn’t close completely, and made his world more grey than black. The occasional laugh or shout from his roommates—hard at work on some Xbox game in the common room—kept him from drifting to sleep.

Not that he had any desire at all to descend into that trap. He knew the images that waited for him on the other side of sleep. He had no doubt he had added some faces to the slideshow of death he watched every night now, but that didn’t bother him, really. He found his way to calm much more quickly recently, having acclimated in some sick way to the nightmares.

What kept Jake awake more than anything were thoughts of the boy. No one had said anything about it—not TC or the First Sergeant from first platoon. He wondered if that meant it was okay somehow—okay that he had shot a kid. How was that possible?

A single sharp rap on the door made his pulse quicken for a moment.

“Shit,” he breathed, then, “Come.”

The sliver of light grew into a long panel, followed by a head-shaped shadow and a soft whisper.

“Sar’n?”

Aaron.

“Yeah, dude,” Jake said, unable to keep the heaviness from his voice.

“Talk a minute?”

Jake sat up in his bunk and dangled his legs over the edge. He leaned forward to rub his face with both hands. He figured whatever Aaron needed was part of his job as squad leader, but he just wasn’t feeling it right now.

“Come on in, dude,” he said, almost against his will.

Aaron shuffled in and sat precariously on the edge of the bottom bunk across from him, his head bent forward in the low space. Jake hoped he wouldn’t turn on the light.

“You hear anything about the kid?” Aaron asked, but he was staring at the ground, apparently unable to look at Jake.

Jake sighed heavily. He was so not the right guy for this—not right now.

“Anything like what?” he asked. “It ain’t like they carry some kinda terrorist ID card, you know.” What the hell did Aaron want him to say? Jake figured he could just tell Aaron that it wasn’t him who shot the boy—that Jake had fired the rounds that dropped the boy down the stairs. Then he suddenly realized that he didn’t know that, not for sure. If Aaron thought it might be him, then he must have fired some rounds that way, right? Maybe Jake hadn’t shot the boy at all.

“It ain’t that, Sar’n,” Aaron said, and Jake could hear the quiver in his voice. “I just wondered if he, you know, made it.”

“You mean, like, did he die?” Jake asked. All of a sudden that mattered more than anything to Jake. He wondered why he hadn’t asked that himself yet.

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