By lunchtime, he was starving and ready to drop with exhaustion, but he didn’t eat or sleep. Instead, he wrapped up in a hoodie and his thin denim jacket, and left the flat in search of the one vice he’d held on to.
Life always seemed easier with a fag jammed in his mouth. He lit up and crossed the road from the small newsagents to walk by the water. The river ran parallel to Matlock Bath’s vibrant high street, and seemed to be the focal point of the pretty town. Fish and chips, ice cream, and weird hippie-trippy outlets made up most of the shops along the waterside, with a few stores selling biker gear, and the place was buzzing. Like a seaside town without the sea... or King’s Lynn without the ghosts and with a hell of a lot more colour.
Jamie made short work of his cigarette and resisted the urge to spark another.Beat the binge, eh?It sounded like a Weight Watchers’ slogan, and he couldn’t help a smile, or the lure of a bag of chips from one of the numerous chippies across the road. He ate them on a bench outside a shop that sold homemade incense and scented candles. The musky smell reminded him of Venice Beach, and for a moment he missed the California sun beating down on his back. But the feeling was fleeting. In Cali he’d have been eating a quinoa burrito and drinking something green and grassy. Fuck that. California had saved his soul, but he’d eaten enough birdseed to last him a lifetime.
Jamie finished his chips and gave in to the urge to smoke another cigarette while he considered his surroundings. The high street was carved out of a deep valley and most of the dwellings, Jamie’s flat included, rose up the sides like windowed caves nestling in the cliffs. It was gorgeous, and he was glad his pin had landed here. King’s Lynn had felt wrong from the start, and it hadn’t been long before the murky underworld of nearby Norwich had called Jamie’s name. But here Jamie heard nothing but silence, and for the first time in years, it didn’t frighten him much.
* * *
Home. Finally.Marc kicked open the door to the old manor house and let it slam behind him. He whistled lowly, and Natalie appeared before he’d even dumped his bag.
The slinky black cat jumped onto his shoulder, chirping her annoyance that he’d been gone so long, and nipped his ear for good measure. Not that her ill humour was uncommon whether he stayed at home or not. Her nature was as cantankerous as the man who’d sarcastically gifted her to him to keep him company.
“Do you good to spend more than a week at a time in that damn-fuckin’ house.”
Yeah, yeah, though Marc couldn’t ignore the voice in his head forever. He set Natalie down, followed her to the kitchen, and threw some Go-Cat in her bowl. Then he retrieved his phone from his pocket and sank into the nearest chair to fire off the text both Nat and Glenn would be waiting on:Home safe. Cat’s not dead.
Nat’s reply was instantaneous:Call you later.
Marc sighed and cast the phone aside. Since when hadhebecome the one who needed to check in with every fucker he’d ever met? Before he’d come home for good, it had been everyone else who needed mothering, Nat included.
A heated lance of pain shot through Marc’s leg, cutting his rebellious thoughts dead. Nat forgotten, he set about removing one of his boots, and then the loose sweatpants he’d travelled home in, and then finally the prosthesis that was digging into the tender stump where his lower leg had once been. He massaged the mangled flesh, forcing himself to look at it. He wasn’t in the mood for an agonising bout of phantom limb pain, and facing his ruined body helped... sometimes.
When he’d soothed his sore stump, he turned his attention to the surgical dressing that was a few inches above. He peeled it back and peered at the three incisions underneath. He’d clean them properly later, but for now he was satisfied that the stitches had survived the journey home when he shouldn’t have been wearing his prosthesis.Cheers, Glenn.Showering was going to be fun—not—but he’d worry about that later. Before then, he had some Jamie-fuelled dreams to catch up on, and a phone call from Nat to avoid.
* * *
It was dark when Marc woke to the insistent shriek of the landline phone. There was no way he’d get there in time, so he didn’t bother trying, and instead settled for crutch-hobbling to the kitchen.His growling stomach told him that it was probably about time he ate something, but lingering nausea from the general anaesthetic, combined with the burning throb in his leg, left him with little appetite.
Coffee seemed like a fair compromise. The stove-top kettle had just come to the boil when the house phone rang again. Marc’s gaze flickered to the clock and saw that it was nearly one, which meant either that someone had died, or that a fellow grunt was pacing a dark house while the rest of the world slept.
“Took your time,” Nat growled when Marc finally reached the phone. “Thought I was gonna have to jump in the motor and check on your miserable arse.”
“No need. The cat’s fine.”
“Don’t be a cunt.”
Marc rolled his eyes and bit back a sharp retort. This could go on all night if one of them didn’t blink and let the words flow. He’d never met a military man that was good on the phone, and Nat was worse than most. “I’m okay, Natty. It was a minor procedure. Be right as rain in a few days. Back at work on Monday—you know how it goes.”
The last bit wasn’t entirely true. Healing dependent, he’d be off the prosthesis and on crutches for a week or so to protect the wound, and he wasn’t due back at work for the rest of the month.
And Nat knew it too, though he let the bullshit pass. “How was your flight?”
“No idea. I slept through it.” Marc wasn’t about to tell Nat about his encounter with Jamie. “Have you heard from Wedge?”
“Yeah, no drama so far, at least none that they didn’t expect.”
Nat didn’t elaborate, and Marc didn’t ask. He’d come to accept that he was better off not knowing much about what his old comrades were up to. The knowledge meant nothing but impotent worry when there was fuck all he could do to help. “What you doing up, anyway?”
“Same as you, I’d imagine.”
Marc unplugged the landline phone and hopped to the nearest chair. “I’ve been asleep all day. What’s your excuse?”
“I wish I knew sometimes,” Nat said tiredly.
He didn’t have to say much more. How many nights had Marc stared at the ceiling, drowning in silence? “Connor all right?”
“Yup. Sleeping like a baby.”