Out of Focus #SYTYCW15 Top10 Finalist! [COMPLETED]

2| Haven

 Waking to a hot lick of dog's breath was not Marshall Davies idea of a great start to the day. Swiping a hand across his face, he rolled away from an avid, slobbering tongue.

"Down. Down, LeBron. Jesus," he muttered, pushing eighty pounds of hyper Labrador off of him. Sitting up straight, Marshall's head spun on his shoulders and a spike of pain ripped down his right arm.

Fast, sharp. He swore a vicious stream, hugging the limb to his body.

He breathed through the worst of it, waited for his heart to kick back down to normal before he tested for range of movement. Rolling his right shoulder, the joint whined like a bitch in heat, but what else was new? Served him right for sleeping on it.

Lifting his hand, Marshall flexed his fingers, rotated his wrist and shook it out, willing the sensation to fade. At least his arm wasn't shaking, he thought. And when he pressed his thumb to fingertips there was no lingering threads of discomfort or weakness in the grip. Be patient, he told himself, stuffing his left hand into the back pocket of the jeans he'd slept in and cursed.

No smokes. This was two days in to Going-Cold-Turkey 4.0.

So, to curb the itch, he dug around in a kitchen drawer for a pack of gum and punched a couple of tablets from the plastic casing. Cinnamon worked best for soothing his nerves. The heat and spice coating his tongue and firing down his throat. But it was a poor, poor substitute for the smoky pull of nicotine.

While the coffeemaker gurgled to life, Marshall snatched up his laptop and plunked down on a weathered sectional, kicking his feet up on the length. A few clicks and he was in his email, pushing and wading through until he found the one he was looking for from his editor, Danni Dobre.

Clock's ticking, buddy. Gervais isn't going to sit on this forever. Time to make a decision. Tell me I haven't backed the wrong horse?

While LeBron whipped around in spastic circles, bounding from kitchen to living room and back, Marshall sat in frowning silence.

He could read the subtext easy enough. Slapping the top down with a muttered oath, he set the computer aside.

Nearly six months since that stray bullet pumped from a Nigerian rebel's gun knocked him clean off his feet and straight into physical rehab, you'd think the guy could get a bit of break. For ten years he'd circled the world, three times over, covering political unrest, global suffrage and terrorist uprisings.

He'd lived for the rush and thrill, and prided himself on digging deep to find the heavy-hitting cases that struck the jugular, and newspaper gold. At thirty-four he'd carved out a pretty impressive reputation.

Deadline Davies. The man who got the impossible done. The man without fear.

The man who was now secretly scared shitless after a near brush with death.

Tingling worked down his arm, shooting from elbow to wrist, spiking into his fingers. Nerve damage and residual bruising, the doctors had said, from the bullet ripping through muscle. Most of the damage had been reversed with rehab, but it was possible that it would never quite go away. That he'd live with this for the rest of his life.

Clock's ticking, buddy...Yeah, it fucking was. This time last year he'd been at the top of his game. A force to be reckoned with. Now he had to ask himself which way he wanted to go, left--back to the grind and pulse hammering beat of chasing a killer story. Or spiralling down the drain to land with the rest of the bloodied corpses of the broken and burnt out...

In his kitchen, Marshall rummaged around, between bottles and debris, for his phone. Punching in Danni's number, he waited all of three rings for her to answer with a firm, no-nonsense, "What?"