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My eyes close quickly, and I try to shut my thoughts off, but my nerves reignite when I feel Tango’s lips on my temple. I turn over
and curl my hand around his bicep, tugging at him, wanting him to join
me in this bed. Maybe it’s the remnants of the tequila making me feel this way, but I know I had these feelings before the tequila too.
Regardless, he pulls away with a seductive gaze—his lips parted slightly and his eyes half-lidded.

“I will do very bad things if I lie in this bed with you tonight,” he says, sounding pained. “I just want to say goodnight.”

“Well, for the record, I think I’d be okay with the bad things,” I say.

He hovers down over me, leaning one fist into the side of my pillow while the fingers of his other hand trace a line across my
collar bone
and down between my breasts. His touch is so light; it causes a ripple of goose bumps to rise up on every inch of my body. He
continues to graze his fingers down my body until he reaches the hem of my shorts. One fingertip slips underneath, but only far enough to torture
me. He’s not even inside of me and my back arches up toward his hand, begging for more. But he pulls his hand away and places it down on the other side of my pillow. He leans down, drawing his
lips into my ear as he whispers, “Let today be the day of our first kiss.” He moves to my lips, pressing his lightly into mine and lingers there until he nips at my bottom lip. “Goodnight, beautiful.”

Damn him.

CALI

HER HAND
is getting colder, but I try to keep it warm. Her skin is gray—
almost translucent, and the color in her eyes is becoming dull against her pale skin. It’s hard to remember the woman who once wouldn’t leave the
house
without spending almost an hour getting dressed and carefully applying just the right amount of makeup. A smile still shows on her face though,
and I don’t
know what has made her so strong. I would be crying, panicked, and
terrified of the black hole that I would soon seep into.

Her lips are dry, and I’ve been watching her tongue press her cheek outward a number of times. The nurse says it means she’s thirsty when she
does that. I pull the small plastic cup of water off of the rolling cart and press the straw between her lips.

The effort of sucking the liquid from the straw is almost too much for her, but she tugs her hand out from beneath mine and touches my cheek, looking carefully into my eyes.

She releases the straw from her lips, and I pull the cup away from her and place it back down on the table. She clears her throat a few times before she can say anything. “Carolina, don’t ever forget what I’ve taught you.” She breathes heavily in between each word, showing me the effort it takes for her to speak at all.

“Know everyone . . . trust no one. I know, Mom. Don’t worry. I won’t forget.”

“Good girl,” her voice crackles. Her chest heaves in and out, struggling
against the cancer that’s fighting for the remaining breaths left in her body. “I
love you, girls.” She takes time to look at both of us for a few seconds. As her
smile becomes a struggle, I wrap my hand back around hers, trying my hardest not to miss a second of any warmth left within her. “Take care of each other. Always.”

And with that, the beeps of her heart monitor slow down. Her eyelids close slowly, and her hand goes limp, feeling heavy, considering the
slenderness of
her ninety-pound body. Krissy’s cries ring loudly in my ear, and I want to
fall to my knees and let go of all my pent up pain, but I won’t let go. I’ll watch her follow her light. I’ll watch her find peace.

I watch as the nurses roll her out of the room. And I let go. I grab Krissy, and we pull each other to the ground. We rock back and forth in
each other’s
arms, crying all of our pain out, trying to figure out what being gone for forever really means. We’ll never see her again. Ever. How does one
comprehend forever? It didn’t matter how long we prepared for this moment. There is no moment like the one when you lose your mom.

***

I think I’m still dreaming and hearing Mom’s heart monitor ringing out a long beep, until I realize I’m awake in the present, and there are sirens outside the hotel. Tango stumbles in, shoving his feet into
each of his boots. “Cali, come on. Come on.” He lifts my bags from the ground and throws them over his shoulder. He runs to the bed
and pulls me out faster than I can even comprehend what’s happening. “We have to leave.” I can’t even put together a logical thought. My
head feels fuzzy and nausea is settling in, but I know I have to move. He hasn’t overreacted since I’ve known him. And I haven’t seen him panic yet. But I can sense the panic right now, so I follow in his
footsteps.

We’re running down the fire escape and out the emergency door. I can see the lights above the sirens flashing, but I’m still none
the wiser
as to why we are running. I don’t ask questions, possibly because I can’t quite form a question yet. As we reach the truck, he slows
down a bit, and I can’t figure out what changed.

He pulls out of the lot at a normal speed, and leans his head back against his seat. With a loud exhale, he says, “I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“The alarm.” He sighs again. ” Cali, I’ve only been home from Afghanistan for a month. When I hear an alarm, I jump to attention. I find cover. I’m not used to it being a fire drill. We didn’t have drills—just the real thing.”

I place my hand over his arm. “It’s okay. We needed to head out anyway.” I’m starting to wonder how much he actually suffers
within his head. I can’t imagine what he lived through over the past few
years. I mean, I’ve heard the stories, and I’ve seen the news, but
trying to understand what it’s like to live in a combat zone probably isn’t
something I can comprehend. He has this lost look on his face, and it’s mixed with embarrassment. “Tango, you don’t have to be
embarrassed.”

“What?” he asks as if he didn’t hear what I said.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry.” I look back out the window, giving him the little time he seems to need.

TANGO

Jesus. This place reminds me of my first tour in Iraq. It’s fucking with my
head. A cool sweat drapes over my skin and a dark funnel surrounds me. I
can smell the sweat, the sweet thick air and blood.

I fall to the ground with him, purposely trying to confuse them and cover my body as I reach for his weapon. No time to aim, I squeeze the trigger as soon as my hand grips the gun, raising a dotted line of lead starting with the first man’s knees, up to the second man’s stomach, and finally the third man’s head.

Fighting the urge to think about how that just happened one handed, or the fact that the magazine was conveniently loaded, I jump up and quickly finish the first two men off. The third was dead on impact.

It’s quiet again, except this time with the ever so familiar dull piercing
of the ring in my head. I’ve always hated the sound of machine guns. With the street empty, I now see a stairway in the far side of the room. Was that there before? Doesn’t matter, I reach the top and come out onto an open rooftop. The sun is hot, accentuating the accustomed smell of burning trash
mixed with
dust. Looking around some more, I stop. I hear it. The chops are too fast and
offset to be just one. Are those helos I hear?

I look down into the face of the man I just murdered. His eyes are open, staring back at me. Was he born a bad person? Was he just following orders to protect his family? None of this mattered to me. It was him or me. I lift the shemagh scarf out of a pool of blood and drape it over his face,
concealing the
eyes that won’t stop looking at me, begging me to take it back. I shake the image from my head, and it disappears quickly, but it’s replaced by a growing shadow behind me. I can see the outline of an AK47 pointed at the
shadow of my body.
I suck in one breath, spin around, lock my foot behind his knee, jam my elbow into his face, feeling his skull morph around my bones, and watch
him fall to the ground, moaning. I lift my blood-covered boot and smash it into the center of his face. This battle is never fucking ending.

I can’t even remember what I’m fighting for. Is it for my survival or my country? Where is my country? Do they even know I’m here, having guns shadow over my head, watching children sacrificed in place of their parents?
Do they know what kind of world I’m being faced with, while they’re watching little snippets of sandstorms on TV? Do they think that’s war?

***

A cool hand rests against my hot skin and it pulls me out of my flashback and back to the road. Shit. I can’t be doing this while I’m
driving. Fuck. “You okay?” she asks softly. “You just pounded on the gas.” No, I crushed the skull of another asshole trying to kill me.

“I’m good. I’m good.” Dammit. This shit has to stop. I need to pull over. I have to collect myself. I’m fucking sweating like a pig. I
must
look crazed and insane. This can’t be a comforting feeling to the
person I promised to protect.

CALI

It’s clear we don’t look like we belong here. We aren’t in a tourist area, and the locals have us pegged. I can tell what they’re all thinking, and I’m sure they’ve seen it millions of times before.
I wonder who they are, and who they’re running from?
I step out of the
truck to stretch my legs at the gas station. The ladies sitting on the bench in front of the small shop look like they are whispering about us, and the two men on the
corner of one of the pumps are shoving each other, snickering and staring at us. I kind of want to go ask them what their problem is,
but I don’t speak Spanish.

I’m standing beside Tango, leaning my back up against the truck. It feels so good to stand after being in the truck for so long. I shuffle my toe around in the dirt, admiring the blush of each grain.
Red dirt is prettier than brown dirt—my analysis for the day.

I hear gravel crunching beneath shoes and a shadow growing behind the pump. One of the elderly ladies who I’d seen whispering from the bench is approaching us. Her hair is white as snow, and her skin is as tan as leather—the wrinkles on her face tell me she’s spent most of her days in the sun.

Her long bright pink and purple floral dress blows with the slight breeze as her arm reaches out to me. Her short and crooked fingers, which look worked to the bone, curl around my shoulder.
“You go
back home. No run away. Bad girl. Bad. Go home.” Her broken English flows out in a raspy voice, and I can’t understand her
concern. She has
no idea what she’s talking about. Maybe they
don’t
see as many
runaways as I figured.

I force a smile and place my hand gently over hers. “Gracias, Senora.”

A toothy grin stretches across her cheeks, so I’m guessing she thinks she changed my mind about the direction I was heading. She pats me tenderly on the cheek, and with her hand being so close, I can smell cooking flour and hot spices. “Good girl. Good.” She turns her head toward Tango and points her finger at him. Her grin morphs into a scowl as she shouts, “¡qué vergüenza.” She blows the loose strands of hair out of her squinty eyes and spits at his shoes before turning
and walking back toward the bench.

I look at Tango and furrow my brows, mouthing, “What did she just say?”

He laughs a little. “She said, ‘shame on you.’”

“Well,” I purse my lips. “You are kind of a
bad
boy, teasing me
like that last night.”

The hose unclips under his hand and the gas cap falls from his other hand and bounces to the ground. He stumbles one foot
backwards when he realizes he lost control of everything in his hands. Guess I have quite the effect on him. Good to know.

“Hey.” He nods his head and sighs. “Get back in the truck.” He grabs my ass and squeezes, making me yelp. As I slide into my seat,
I see the old lady slap her hand over her mouth, apparently disgusted with our behavior.

When Tango finishes pumping the gas, he climbs back into the truck and places his hand down over the shifter. “Cali, I have
something important to tell you.”

“What’s the matter?” I ask. What else is there left to say?

He looks at me grimly and it makes me worry. “I’m sorry but—“
he sighs again, totally dragging this out. “Holy shit. Cali . . . you
have a nice ass.”

I slap him. “Bastard. You scared me.” After steadying my racing heart, I ask, “Wait . . . does this mean the ‘no touching’ rule is gone?”

“You’re the one who made that rule in the first place,” he reminds me. “Plus, I think we kind of broke through that rule
yesterday, a couple of times,” he laughs. I love his laugh.

“Hmm, very true. I also made the fattening food rule,” I add.
“We’ve kept our word on that one at least.”

His hand moves from the shifter over to my leg, and then he
continues moving it slowly up my thigh, high enough to where his little finger sweeps against my most sensitive area, causing warmth
to gush
through me. “The ‘no touching’ rule. Should we reinstate it or—“ he asks, pressing his finger into me a little harder, making me want to beg for more. “Get rid of it?”