Fracture (19 page)

     And never, in those agonizing minutes, did anyone come out to help. Too afraid, or too indifferent, to show simple kindness to a pair of strangers. The locals must have had some inkling of what was stirring before Ryan was attacked. It’s the only explanation I can think of that keeps me from hating each and every single person I come into contact with.

     “I never did find out why they’d singled him out. Was it wrong place, wrong time? Or did they know who he was? His thesis was controversial. His advisor had backed him, though, so we thought the only danger he’d be in was once he went to defend, and they’d attack him with words, not fists.” 

     Rubbing my hands over my face, I push back the blankets. Tea. Tea will take away the last of it. I won’t get any more sleep tonight.

     I pad out to the kitchen and feel my way around, faint light from the street lights outside making fuzzy shapes of the living room. I put the kettle on and root through the cupboard searching for a clean mug and the last of my herbal tea. It’s good stuff, my one luxury I’ve had consistently while I’ve lived here. They regulate everything from bread to meat to fresh vegetables, but I’ve never had any problems getting my hands on tea.

     “Is there any vodka left?” Declan limps into the kitchen. I find the bottle in the freezer and hand it to him. He unscrews it, takes a swig, and makes his way to the living room.

     Once the tea is brewed, I join him on the couch, curling up with my mug and a blanket. “I tried to have his body transported home. Bosnian officials wouldn't let it beyond the borders.” The only kindness those officials had shown was to have the body cremated. “Are you ready to get out of here?” I ask, changing the subject. Steam floats off the surface of the liquid, sinuous tendrils wafting under my nose.

     “No.” He chuckles at my surprised noise. “I didn’t get what I came here for. I’ve missed a good deal of the actual fighting because the war is more unpredictable than expected, and that’s saying a lot because war is never predictable. I got the shite kicked out of me because they thought I saw something I didn’t. I’ve got half a story. I didn’t earn my fee, which means I’ll have to return some of it or come back in when I’ve healed enough to do so. Or they could choose to send me elsewhere. Won’t know until I get home.”

     It occurs to me I don’t know exactly what he does, other than go into places he’s likely to get killed and take pictures. If we’re both going to be up, we might as well talk. “So you, what, have an agency or something that sends you on shoots like these?” He squints at me in the dark. “Just asking. I don’t really know that much about you.” Though if I think too much about it, it feels pointless, like we’re going backward. He’s already seen me naked, already seen me at my most vulnerable. Not to mention our impending divorce. Do I really need to know anything about him?

     Vodka sloshes in the bottle as he tips it up for a drink. “It’s an agency, I guess. Media outlets need photos of all kinds, so they send people out like me to get them. We’re not their regular staff so they don’t have to pay out insurance policies if we’re killed on the job.”

     “Where else have you been?” I sip my tea, wincing as I burn my tongue, and settle into a more comfortable position.

     He’s been all over. He was in Japan after the tsunami and Lebanon during a spate of fighting with Israel. He spent time in Libya when they knocked Qadafi out of power and sold a series of photos from Baghdad for a hefty sum.

     “Hurricane Katrina was one of my first assignments. Getting there was too easy.” Another swig of vodka. He doesn’t follow up the statement with anything else. Based on the coverage that was sanitized enough to show on the local news, he doesn’t need to.

     Gunfire erupts in the distance. The familiar, manic
tatatatatat
prickles my skin with each bullet launched from the barrel. Not nearby. My shoulders tense.

     Declan sets the bottle on the table, picks up
Middlemarch
, and flips it open. His arm comes up. I stare at it. He shouldn’t have done that. Does he think I’m going to fall apart when the firefight’s obviously nowhere near here? I shake my head and take another sip of tea. He glares at me until I put my mug on the table and crawl across the couch to his side, tension draining from my body when he pulls me closer.

     I hate how soothing his voice is.

* * *

     “It is good you are leaving.” Mila gives me an authoritative nod, then passes me a mug of tea. “This is not your fight.”

     “It’s not yours, either.” The heat seeps through the ceramic and singes my fingertips. I set the mug on the floor. “That’s one of the many downsides of war. It’s almost always someone else’s fight.” 

     Mila and Zlata are ridiculously well adjusted for what’s going on around them. Or maybe they’re desensitized to it. Violence is funny that way; it can keep you on edge or lull you into submission. It seemed it had the latter effect on the sisters.

     “True,” she agrees. “Enough war. Tell me about Declan. Mysterious man who does not flirt with my sister? I never thought that would happen.
Everyone
flirts with Zlata.”

     “Not everyone.” Zlata wanders out of her room and throws herself down on the couch. “She gets tea and I do not?” She pouts. When Zlata pouts, she does it in that annoyingly cute and sexy way that you admire and despise at the same time. “But I know why he does not flirt back. You saw them in the club together? Before the bombs blew everything to hell?”

     The three of us shudder, remembering the horrible night.

     “She is right. I saw you. There is a story there, and you do not leave until you tell it.” Mila waggles her eyebrows at me, and the sisters give me their full attention, expectant grins on their faces.

     I groan. “There isn’t anything to tell. We have chemistry. The marriage is for…what, diplomatic purposes only? He’s doing me a favor because I can’t get transport out of the country. I lost my passport somewhere.” Untrue — breaking into the embassy had proven to be futile. The fighting had been particularly heavy in that area since Declan had relayed the plan of attack. With him unable to run or otherwise be of much use, that left me, and the fighting was too intense for me to be able to get near it without chickening out. Even an accusation from Declan that I was a coward and wanted to be miserable for the rest of my life didn’t work. “We’re friends. Sort of.”

     They give me skeptical looks, and Zlata opens her mouth to say something when someone knocks on the door. Grumbling, she slides off the couch and goes to open it, and Mila takes the opportunity to lean toward me. 

     “You are not friends with him.” She shoots a quick glance at the door. “Or he is not friends with you.”

     I follow her gaze. Declan had gone over to Murat and Ismael’s before the three of them trooped over here for a movie night, and he stands near the door, blue eyes fixed on me. It’s intense, his stare, full of things I can’t begin to understand and don’t particularly want to. It’ll make leaving him that much harder to do.

     “Whatever,” I mutter and pick up my tea. Then there’s conversation overlapping conversation, giggles, Zlata insulting Ismael and scowling at his impassive face. I’m surrounded by noise. A low hum of humanity, these people I’ve known for months now and what I actually know about them you could fit on the head of a thumbtack. My stomach sours with the knowledge I don’t have time to rectify my mistake. We leave tomorrow, and I can’t cram months of missed conversations and laughter and advice into a few hours.

     “That man.” Zlata thumps down on the couch next to me, ignoring my curse as the tea slops dangerously close to the rim. “You want someone who does not flirt back? Ismael. He is not even worth the effort. Too—” She waves a hand around.

     “Stubborn? Hard–headed?”

     “No. I am those. He is…oh! Complicated!” Her smile lights up her face.

     I snicker. “Men like to pretend they aren’t complicated. You should have seen the look Ismael was giving you a moment ago.”

     She turns so she’s facing me fully, her back to the rest of the room. “And what look is this?”

     “Like he wants to bend you over a table and spank you, then fuck you senseless.”

     Her mouth drops open, eyes going wide with shock, and just as quickly she recovers, a sly grin tugging at her mouth. “Oh. Yes. I can use this.” She plucks the mug from my hands and sips. “Mila always makes better tea than I do. Anyway. Declan looks at you like that.”

     I roll my eyes. “I told you. Chemistry.”

     She continues like I didn’t even speak. “He also looks at you like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with you.”

     Well, that doesn’t make me feel any better.

     Handing the tea back, she rises and wanders toward the kitchen, pausing to smile up at Declan and rub herself against him. A classic move. Aim for jealousy. Too bad for her, Ismael isn’t paying attention. He’s focusing the brunt of it on what Mila’s saying and he’s actually smiling. The sight is so surprising I can’t help smiling myself.

     “You must do that more often.” Murat sits beside me on the couch. “Makes the sadness go away.”

     “Haven’t had much to smile about,” I murmur and take a sip of tea. “Are you ready for tomorrow?” Murat and Ismael are our escorts. They’re coming along to help carry our crap and try and keep us from getting shot at.

     “Of course.” He sounds offended.

     “You know you don’t actually need to do this, right? We can get there okay.” The southeast border is one I’ve only heard about, never seen, but I’m confident I can find it, even with Declan in a cast.

     “We said we would escort you. We will.”

     I open my mouth to protest some more and think better of it. “Want to tell me why Ismael’s so studiously ignoring Zlata?”

     Murat chuckles. “She drives him crazy. He wants simple. She is not simple. Too wild. She is not good for him.”

     I think of the way she eyed those men at the bar, and I’m inclined to agree. Zlata’s not ready to latch onto one man for an extended length of time. We chat for a while longer, and I tease him about the neighbor woman he’s been avoiding for weeks. 

     “You might as well give in, hon. It’s a war zone. I think it gives you license to screw whomever you want.”

     He has the grace to look disgusted. “Why would I want any woman who just lies on her back and spreads her legs? No. She must participate. Ludmila already looks like a dead fish. I do not need to sleep with her to confirm it.”

     Laughter sputters out before I can stop it. “God, Murat, tell me how you really feel.”

     Mila holds up a DVD. “Sit.”

     Everyone finds seats, and Murat moves over to allow Declan to sit next to me.

     Our dynamic shifted on our wedding night. Not forward or backward. More like sideways. He’s quicker to offer comfort when the sounds of war pick up, slower to show affection any other time. Since that night, we haven’t had sex. We talk less. We’re drifting further apart and coming closer together.

     It’s the drifting I hate. It’s the drifting I’m grateful for. The security he offers is easy to mistake for feelings. I thought maybe he cared. Just a little. Now I’m not sure. But I
am
sure I’m not ready to have feelings for him.

     I wish I were whole again. It would be easier to hold off, to stay away, to not want to give in to the need to curl up against him and have his arms wrap around me, fighting off my demons for me instead of letting me battle them myself.

     As the opening credits roll, the windows rattle with the impact of an explosion nearby. Mila combats the rising sounds of the firefight by turning up the volume on the TV. Zlata inches closer to her sister, the two of them clutching hands. Someone shuts off the lights and Declan looks over at me. It’s a look that says it’s okay to lean on him, to be scared shitless that maybe we won’t make it out in one piece tomorrow. I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around my legs, resting my chin on top of my knees. I’m not leaning on him tonight. Not when I might have to do it to get through tomorrow.     

     Maybe he doesn’t know what to do with me. I don’t blame him. I’m not sure what to do with me, either.

     I’m jostled awake sometime before dawn. Eyes gritty and burning from lack of sleep, I snuggle deeper into the warmth surrounding me.

     “Sorry, lass.” I crack open an eye. My brain wakes up. I’m on the couch. Or
a
couch. The cushions aren’t quite as lumpy as mine. Declan’s spooning me. If the others can see us, we’re probably giving them the wrong idea, especially after my assertions it’s little more than chemistry and an obligation. Who cares? I’m too damn tired and he’s nice and cuddly.

     Last night swims to the surface. The movie hadn’t ended late, but the fighting had picked up and neither sister wanted anyone to leave. Too dangerous. After much grumbling, Ismael and Murat agreed to stay, sprawling out on the floor. Declan had simply pulled me down on the couch and curled around me, as much as was possible for a man as tall as he is, and told me to go to sleep. So I did.

     Hard to believe it was only a few weeks ago that I’d badgered him into crawling into an alley with me. Hard to believe that numb and entirely broken woman was me.

     Now he’s trying to unwind himself. “Where you going?” I mumble, clutching at the arm wrapped around my waist.

     He tugs it free and scoots around until he can get his feet on the floor. “I’ll see you at your flat.” My lids drift shut as he rouses Ismael and Murat from their spots on the floor. There’s a vague sense I ought to be more concerned with what they’re doing so early in the morning, but sleep beckons and I’d much rather do that than worry about what mischief they’re up to.

 * * *    

     The nightmares are a tumbling mass of images and sounds. Indistinct. Blurry. Yet frightening all the same.

     I jerk myself awake several hours later, lungs primed to scream. I swallow it instead. It’s full morning now, based on the light streaming through the windows.