A Waltz Of Lies

05. Chapter Five

reaching home

I'M still shaking. The world is still Turning in its axis and I'm in a no man's land wondering what happened to normality, wondering when it burst into a thousand, fine lights, andI...I become stuck in this body, inhabiting this small space, seeing the face of soldiers and trees and alone alone alone alone—

The tent's crevice opened. A face pivoted in.

Stevens.

She tried at a smile . It was soft, nothing like Brian's sun storms.

She said, "You hanging in there?"

I didn't reply. I couldn't. Couldn't say, no, couldn't tell her, I'm staggering, reeling from the ordeal, her Captain's words, hellhole. His face, the resolution, the fear, the hate. The sense of entrapment.

"Here's something for you," she went on to add, a safe distance away, still attempting at a pleasurable expression, still eyeing me like a bomb ticking to explode. In her hand was a plastic-wrapped bread and a bottle of water. "I know you must be starving."

"I'm fine," I snapped, lying to myself, to her, to the ache in my stomach.

The soldier put the things atop a nearby table. She stared: stared as if it wasn't rude to stare, as if she could look past my eyes and my bones and my skin and into the flow of dirty blood in my viens. She stared until I asked, "What? What the fuck are you staring at?"

A pause emancipated. The try for the smile was abandoned, In place of it laying an emotionless gaze, the hardest of any code to crack. I Wondered about Brian's comment, of Stevens' girl, back home, wherever in the world it was. I wondered how a woman like her could  have a girl, a relationship, someone to be openly affectionate with.

Stevens sighed.  Crept closer, placed her rifle down, squatted on the ground, said to me, "Look, we're not the bad guys here."

I gave her a bleak glance. "Isn't that what all the bad guys say?"

"I wouldn't know," was her reply. Stevens grinned suddenly, prettily, lightly.

I shook my head,  drifted away, away from the now- world, the tent, into a dark, bottomless place, a realm of screams and endless hours of torture.

Another sigh. Longer this time.

"I just...Captain Price...he's really not that bad, little girl." Stevens stood up, rubbed imagined dust from her fatigue-adorned knees. "It's hard for him to trust anyone." An instant of hesitation, a short, hard breath. "It's hard for all of us. Especially with you...coming out of nowhere...uninjured and...looking like that-"

"And what, you think I find this comforting?" I intercepted. My tone was sharp, my words spit-venom. "You think I have this all figured out?" Spittle flew. My voice rose in volume, screeched, "I don't even know if I'm alive anymore!"

Stevens raised her hands in surrender. Pointed at the items she'd brought. Murmured, "I'm trying to help, little girl. Be glad it was me and not Brian that Cayden sent."

"My name's not little girl," I hissed, thanking God and Cayden- the Captain, I thought, blue eyes, I thought- for sparing me Brian's company. I added, begrudgingly, before Stevens' exit, "It's...it's...my name's Charlene."

The smile built itself, one twitch of lip at a time, second by second. Stevens pointed at herself, ran a hand Up and down, up and down, her buzz-cut, strongly blonde hair. Said, "Amata."

My mouth opened in surprise. A Latin name, I realized. A feminine name. A beautiful name.

My alarm coaxed a laugh. A tiny, tickling bell-like sound, lavish and rich but nothing loud  or brutish.