I could only imagine how thrilled he was hearing from Cait as he approached the outpost.
I sorted through my feelings as I stared at the bottle, tapping it lightly with my fingers as I let my emotions roll through me. The girl, Sarah, was going to make it. She was probably already in the safety of the nearest hospital where they were going to repair the damage to what I suspected was her liver, and then get her on the road to recovery. There was going to be no such easy recovery from the loss of what had turned out to be her older sister.
It had been Sarah, it seemed, who had proposed they go out before Ellie went to college in a few months. She had also been the one who insisted they stay out longer despite how dark the sky had been getting. She wasn’t responsible for what had happened, not in the way she thought or would probably believe for years to come. People made bad decisions every day, and it didn’t cost the lives of them or the people they loved. And sometimes, just sometimes, it happened like it did today, and while the universe wasn’t malicious, it didn’t care about us either, and we bore the scars of that uncaring universe throughout our lives.
I was happy Sarah had made it, that despite her injury, her chances of surviving were high. And I was heartbroken for Ellie. Not just for losing a life that had so much potential, but for the harm her absence would bring to her family…and how much Sarah would blame herself unnecessarily for the years to come.
So there it was, one happy ending tainted by the bitterness of the other ending, and here we were…figuring out how to deal with it.
“No!” I heard a voice boom, and I sighed. Introspection was over; it seemed. Time to face up to the choices I’d made tonight. “Where the fuck is he?”
“Now, I know you aren’t taking that tone with me, of all people, Carter Malcolm Dean Wells,” Cait said, and even I felt a small chill go down my spine at her icy tone of worry. Sheesh, she’d pulled out the government name. “You’re going to get a hold of yourself, or you’re going to have a lot more problems than my bad attitude.”
“Sorry,” he muttered, and I heard a squeak of shoes on the floor. “In there? Fine, excuse me.”
“Now hold on,” Cait said, and I heard her call into the phone. “Get your ass here. I don’t care what the roads are like, now!”
It didn’t matter if Xander was two hours down the road or five minutes, there was no stopping what was going to happen. Choices had been made, a link had been forged, just as it had for two sisters tonight. One decision after another, seemingly harmless or even necessary while on their own, but dragging those involved toward the inevitable with each link forged. They had chosen to stay out longer than was wise, and I had chosen to ‘sacrifice’ one sister for the sake of the other.
And around and around the ball of dirt and water spun.
“You fucking son of a bitch,” Carter snarled as he came in, and the boyish goofiness that had been on his face all the other times I’d seen him was gone. I could see grief there, but grief wasa funny thing. It could break through the thickest fog sometimes, but when there was rage, grief fueled it, and Carter was pissed.
“Carter!” Cait snapped as he grabbed me by the collar and hauled me up to slam me against the wall.
“Carter,” I began, but my head rocked as he punched me. Stars swam behind my eyes as Cait began yelling in the background. I blinked, opening and closing my mouth as I tried to loosen my jaw.
“You arrogant, heartless son of a bitch!” Carter snapped in my face. “You made us mangle that girl, and then you fuckers left her there, left me there with her, trying to save her life! Who the fuck put you in charge?”
“You,” I said, and he flinched, his rage flashing again. “And Reno, and Jake. The minute you listened to my orders, you accepted I was in charge. That I was the one making the calls.”
“It’s called trust,” he said, releasing me and stepping back as if I might poison the surrounding air. I wasn’t fooled, though; just as I had suspected the blow was coming, I could see him gearing up for another swing. “And I won’t be making that?—”
He didn’t get the chance as Jake came barreling into the room, took Carter off his feet with a curse, and Cait was bellowing all over again. Grunting, I bent down as Carter took two punches to the head before I could wrap my arm around Jake’s neck and pull it tight. He froze, his breath coming out in disbelief.
“Let him up,” I told him calmly, evenly. “If he swings again, go for it, but let him up…let him talk.”
“He…” Jake began, but he was already letting go of Carter and I let go, stepping aside so he could stand up and stare at me. “You’re serious?”
“First, I appreciate your support…all night,” I told him with a smile and a pat on his broad chest. Jesus Christ, he was like…made completely of muscle. Even as big as he was, Carter hadto feel like a train had bowled him over when Jake had flown in. “Second, you need to remember I fought beside jarheads like you; I know how to hold my own. Even against you big guys. So if I’m not fighting back, it’s for a reason. Third…let us talk.”
“Fine,” he muttered, backing toward the doorway. “I’ll be in the hallway. I hear shit go down again and I’m breaking something.”
“Fair enough,” I said, feeling my exhaustion grow, but I turned and held out a hand to Carter.
He glared at me, smacking it away as he got to his feet. “I didn’t need your help.”
“This isn’t about help,” I told him, picking up my beer and sipping it before putting the cold bottle against my broken lip. “And it shouldn’t be about your hurt feelings, but here we are, dealing with them anyway.” His eyes flashed, but I beat him to the punch with one question. “What would you have done?”
He stopped, looked at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead. “I would have tried to save both of them, not…squash the other one into the mud. Her jaw was broken, her nose shattered, the ATV cut her face up, and don’t say it was like that because of the crash. That happened after we fucking?—”
“Saved her sister,” I told him. “Because if you tried to move that ATV any other way, you would have risked tearing Sarah apart. That handle wasdeepinside her, and there was already a lot of bleeding by doing it the way we did. Anything else would have driven her chances to bleed out before we ever got her up the embankment, let alone to safety. You may think me cold, you may think me arrogant, and tonight? You had a point. But I made the call to preserve the life that was there to preserve. The sister…was gone.”
“I don’t know where you get off making a call like that. Without Big Boss, it’s a team choice.”
“And your team looked to me when I made the call, andyouwent with it. You would have rather risked the life of a still, breathing girl, all for the nonexistent chance to save a life that was already gone.”
“If you keep blood pumping, and it hasn’t been too long, then damage to the brain isn’t guaranteed and?—”