Blood on my name

Night

November 10th
11:57 pm
Austin Texas

I sit on the ledge of the building on the 24th floor, watching the sky as the moon slowly makes a rotation across the night sky. The shining stars with the sound of crickets in the background. "What's going on? Why was the city bombed and why was our building one of the only intact buildings left?" I ponder those questions in a deep thought that was hard to break. As I take a deep breath, a cloud of fog forms from my exhale. I close my eyes and relax, listening to the silence of the night. Just as I go into q relaxed state, I hear soft, quiet footsteps coming from the gravel on the roof. I slowly get up to investigate. I pull out my pocket knife I use for gutting game and open it. As my breathing softends, the foot steps get louder and more clear, I hide behind a air conditioning unit and wait for the noise to reveal its self. After a little time has passed, a shadow was visable, but not recognisable, it sat on the ledge where I sat, doing what I was doing,.relaxing and watching the night sky. I slowly walked up to it, trying to be as silent as possible. As I get at least 2 feet from it, I wrap my arms around its neck tightly, throwing it away from the edge. It falls back first into the gravel as I jump in top of it with my knife touching it's neck "Who are you!" I yell angrily "Why are you following me!" it chuckled in a familiar way, as it wrapped it's arms around my neck softly "So...you still haven't figured it out, Onii Chan?" I dropped my knife and threw her arms off me as I get up and lay against the A/C unit "Damnit Abby...why are you even awake?" she chucked and sat up calmly "couldn't sleep, plus I like coming up here to see the sky. It relaxes me" I sigh as my heart start starts to calm down. "At least let me know your coming..." she lays back with her legs dangling off the edge "I DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE HERE" I chuckle, realizing that I never told anyone I was here either "good point, so you can't sleep either?" she closed her eyes and softly sighed "no, haven't since this...hell hole started" I walked up to her and sat down "hey Abby?" She opened her eyes and rolled on her side to face me "What is it Sam?" my hear started racing as I though about what to say, carefully "you were right..." she tilted her head as she sat up to look at me "about what?" I hesitated to speak the words I wanted to say, as if some sort of wall is preventing me from speaking. I glared at the moon, watching the vivid white color shine off it's surface. "That I liked someone" Abby hugged my arm softly and looked off the ledge "who?" I again hesitate to speak, forcing me to clear my throat "well...um, you see" she looked up at me, the moon light shining of her eyes "Sam, who is it?" I sigh "I honestly don't know, I get this feeling of, love when I'm around you guys, but not like...what you guys see of me, ya know?" she shakes her head and smiles "yea I do, why don't you come inside, it's already late as it is" I look into the night sky, more questions rushing through my mind then answers "I will in a bit" she nods softly as she walks towards the stairway door and walking into the apartment. "Well that was weird" I say to myself "whatever, I'm pulling the night shift anyways" I lay on my back looking up at the stars, thinking about what will happen tomorrow and what I'll do "I need sleep, but I can't pull myself to, like I have to be up 24/7 protecting them" Abby walks into the bedroom where Nicole and Gayla are currently sleeping to wake up Gayla. She shakes her softly till she wakes up "hmmmm...whaaat, did Sam get shot again?" she said in a muffled tone "no, but I need you to talk to him, he seems depressed" Gayla blinks a couple of times "like usual...?" "No, it's different, I don't know how to explain it, but it's different" Abby said worriedly "Fiiiine" she hops out of bed, in her clothes for the next day and walks up to the roof "Sam?" She whispers, I jump violently off the ground with my knife in hand "God damnit Gayla...c'mon" Gayla walks over to me and sits down "what were you doin anyways? Jerkin the chicken?" I blankly stare at her "No...why are you here anyways?" she shrugs and looks at the gravel "To be honest, Abby sent me here..." I chuckle a little thinking about the thought "sounds like her" She looked over at me with concern "Sam, you ok?" I take a deep breath as I sigh heavily "So far" she scoffs as she lays her head on my lap "Sam tell me" I looked down at her while shaking my head "I forgot how physical you guys are..." she poked my stomach hard enough to leave a fingernail mark "Stop ignoring the question" I pull her head off my lap as I set my head in her lap "Nothing is wrong, I just...Miss when we were in middle school" she looked down at me smiling and running her fingers through my hair "what about it?" I close my eyes, trying not to fall asleep "When Nicole and Abby were always laughing and having fun, where Jordan and Amie would hang with you and I, where I was everyone's therapist..." her eyes widen in shock as her hands start to slow Down "you remembered that?" I softly chuckle, trying to hide the tear rolling down my face" that's all that was keeping me alive while I was deployed, just the memories...that's all I had after watching my squad get slaughtered..." Her hands come to a complete stop halfway on my head "sam..." another tear rolls down as I take a deep breath "I couldn't tell you guys I was in the Military or y'all would of called mom and told her." she looks at me in sorrow, as if i was a puppy living on the street "Sam...I'm so sorry" I roll onto my back, with my head still on her lap "for what? Keeping me alive for 6 years?" the moonlight reflects off the streaks from where the tears ran down "no, I'm sorry I didn't fill out the form when you did....Sergeant General Foster, Squad 17" I come to a complete stop, my body shoots with a sense of fear and sorrow "How...?" she places the Palm of her hands on my cheek as she seems to have trouble spitting the words out "Sergeant Tasco...Squad...17" my mind goes completely blank, nothing enters my mind but what she said "That's impossible, Squad 17 was..." Gayla interrupts with pain in her voice "captured and killed by Extremists...Augest 16th...2000" for what feels like days gone by, I stare at her, not knowing how to possess any of this "Sam I was with you for 4 years...the minute I saw you on the airfield ready to board the AC-130 for Afghanistan...I...I followed you, what hurt the most was when you removed a bullet from my ribcage, and still didn't realize it was me..." my stomach turns inside out, like I'm looking at an entirely different person "I have no idea how you didn't know it was me, even after you saw my face several times, and even stared me in the eyes that one time" I lay on the Gravel, trying to possess everything "but that's in the past, and when we got on the plane to come home, Abby picked me up just in time for your party..." I sat p and looked at her, all I could think to do is just...hug her "Gayla, I have no idea how I was so blind, but if that was actually you, thank you for dragging me out of that hell hole" she wrapped her arms around me as she sighed and Sniffed "your hair is soft..." I lightly laugh, pulling pack from the hug "Why didn't you tell me? That it was you?" she shrugged "you would of ordered me to go back home or be super fucking protective of me...like usual" I nod my head and look at her hair "I liked it better longer..." she does the best hair flip she could "Its beautiful, don't judge me, plus I liked your hair shorter...now it's shoulder length " I imitate her by flipping my hair, dying of laughter afterwards "too bad" She scoots behind me, wrapping her arms around my stomach "I know your weak points" she says teasingly. I roll my eyes, doubting shell actually use them. She slides her finger up my chest to where one of the bullet wounds are, she applies a little amounts of pressure at first, making me cringe in pain, I grab her hand and throw it off my chest "will you not..."
She chuckles and stands up, looking at me from the corner of her eye "Sam, you coming down for bed?" I stand up and jump up on the A/C unit to sit on it "I'm taking the night shift tonight" she softly nods and walks down back into the apartment to lay down on the couch. Abby walks over to her and sits down "Get anything out of him?" Gayla sighs and looks up at her "Well, I told him I was in the same squad as him in the Military, other than that...would just...talked" Abby poked Gaylas cheek "about what" Gayla looked over at her "The military...he said the memories from Middle school were the things keeping him alive, and that he didn't want to tell us he was in the Military because he didn't want mom to know, he was more worried about Us than the actual person that's fighting, he didn't want us worrying" Abby scoffed "like usual...he's such a pain in the ass sometimes, but he's my brother...I have to love him" Gayla rolled her eyes and smiles "I agree, Do you know why he's more open with me than with other people?" Abby shrugs "I don't know, but I guess it saves me from all the drama" Abby winks at Gayla and smiles "Abby...he cried...how many times have you seen or even heard of him crying?" her eyes widen with shock "you sure he was crying?" Gayla Sat up and walked to the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker "he had streaks down his face...and I was trying to calm him down by rubbing my fingers through his hair." Abby sat on the couch, looking at the floor "I've seen him cry once...and that was when he moved away for a few years...and even then, you were the one who made him cry after we tried for like 20 minutes...you just walked up and hugged him and the waterworks started..." Gayla pours her self a cup of coffee and takes a sip "guess I do that to people" She looks up at Gayla, head slightly tilted. "You were his first..."Significant other" at our old school...you think...?" She takes another sip of her coffee "that he's not over me...c'mon it's been what, 10 years since that, I doubt that he still does, and plus I go alone in things..." Abby sighs and rubs her face with her hands "It was just a thought...but he's hiding so much from us, and it feels like whenever we make a discovery about him...he sees it as scratching the very surface..." Gayla chuckles "maybe we should force it out of him...sister style...but" Abby looked at her as she kept going "he has Post traumatic stress...meaning he may think if we interrogate him, he'll think its what happend to us back on Augest." She shakes her head in disappointment "I don't know what to do Gayla, but I want to know what's going on with him" Gayla sets het coffee down "he'll tell you when he's ready...that's all"