Lia Antonio.

She was the beautiful, dark-haired woman who found herself at my cabin in Arizona during my exile.  She ended up in my bed and in my head far more than I expected or even wanted.  Now, I clung to thoughts of her as much as I could—everything else I thought about was too full of gunshots, sirens, and blood.

I didn’t know how she managed to find me, and the serendipity of finding me at that place at that moment was fantastic.

As my thoughts raced around in my head, I heard the heavy footsteps of other inmates and prison staff as they moved around the infirmary, around beds and desks, and eventually out into the hallway.  The things going on around me registered as they happened; they just didn’t have any meaning for me.  I didn’t care.  I didn’t want to be a part of any of that.

I still regretted not taking a life—if I had done that, they would have killed me.  If they had killed me, I wouldn’t be here now, wondering how the fuck I got myself into such a mess.  I was supposed to go far—be smarter than this.  I was supposed to have my whole life ahead of me.

“You’re a bright boy, Evan,” Mother Superior says.

I know she’s right.  I’ve learned more in the past couple of years than she even realizes.

“You’re going to go far.”

“Just sign the papers,” I say as I push them across the desk and closer to her.  As soon as her scrawl is over the bottom line, I bring them back toward me and slide them into a brown envelope.  “Have fun with the next one.”

“Evan, you know-”

“Don’t,” I interrupt.  “Just don’t do that.  You know it’s crap as much as I do.  You got what you wanted, and now I have what I want.  Let’s leave it at that, okay?”

She sighs as she looks at her hands on the desk.  I half expect her to start rubbing at the rosary around her neck, but she doesn’t.

“What are you going to do now?” she asks.

“It’s pretty straightforward for an educated guy with no money,” I say with a shrug.  “I’m going into the military.”

If they had killed me, I wouldn’t have seen Lia again.

Though the memories seemed ancient considering everything that had happened since my time in Arizona, I could still clearly see the look of desire in her eyes as her hand caressed my abs.  The sound of her soft moans as I filled her ran through my head, and the feeling of her flesh against mine made everything else bearable.

Almost.

Then I would remember the bodies of my unit sprawled on the ground, the realization that one of my own had given up our location to the enemy, and the taste of sand filled my mouth again.  My stomach tightened involuntarily, and I sat up slightly as my body tried to double itself over.  I squeezed my eyes shut and didn’t even try to stop the memories.  It didn’t work anymore, anyway, and it was too much effort to try to control it any longer.

Up on the roof of the base, rifle at my shoulder, I can see a figure walking in the distance, and I set my sights on him.  As the crosshairs focus on his head, I can tell he is nothing more than a kid—maybe fourteen or fifteen.  Through the scope, my view of him is crystal clear. His clothing is dirty and torn, there are smudges on his face, and a bruise over his left cheek. His eyes hold resolved terror.

He doesn't want this. He's going to do it, but he doesn't want it.  He’s holding his arms out at his sides at an awkward angle, and it’s obvious he has something strapped under his arms and around his waist.  When I refocus between his eyes, I can see tears in them.

I lower my eyelids for a moment before I secure my aim and fire.

One memory followed another as I remembered running through a hailstorm of bullets to pull my unit’s communication officer out of the line of fire.  The captain of the unit was hit and unconscious, and I became the first Marine in years to earn a field promotion from staff sergeant to second lieutenant right there on the dunes.  Carrying my captain over my shoulder, I led my unit out of the firefight and back to base.

With exactly seven weeks under my belt as a lieutenant, I’m staring at the bodies of all my comrades as they lie there in the sand.  I feel slightly dizzy, and my stomach churns as I realize it’s not a dream, a hallucination, or a trick of the light.  A slight sound behind me registers but not before I feel a sharp pain in the back of my head.

I gripped my hands into fists, tightening the muscles in my arms as I tried to pull them across my chest.  All I got in response was the constriction of the cuffs around my wrists and the clanging sound of the chains against the bedrails.

My wrists are tied so tightly I can’t feel my hands.  I’m sure if I could see them, they would be blue or black or some other unnatural color.  I’m glad they’re behind my back so I can’t watch.  As my hands go numb, the pain in my shoulders from my arms tied together increases a thousand fold.  I wish I could pretend it’s all a nightmare, but I know it’s real.  There’s no getting out of this.

The very concept of “pride” is completely foreign to me now, and I no longer care how it looks or sounds.  I scream and beg as they throw me back into the hole.

I didn’t open my eyes but squeezed them shut so tightly my head was beginning to pound.  I flexed my hands once to prove to myself I could still move them, but it made the cuffs tighten a bit more.  I could feel a scream building in my throat, but I swallowed it down.

I guessed I had managed to pull a little pride back inside of myself at some point.  I wondered when that was and figured it was probably around the same time Rinaldo took me in and gave me a reason to be.  Regardless, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself—not here.

Really, I just didn’t care to have anyone coming over and fussing at me about it.

I spit to try to get the grains of sand off my lips, but it doesn’t work.  It never does, but it gives me something to do—something to strive for to stop the mind-numbing lack of interaction with anyone or anything.  Time is meaningless, and the only connection I have had with anyone in what feels like days is the sound of footsteps in the compound where I’m kept in a deep, sand-filled hole.

I’m convinced it’s for the sake of convenience.  When I die, they only have to fill it back up again.

Unfamiliar sounds, then gunshots and the whirring blades of a helicopter fill my ears.  I assume my mind is playing tricks on me as I think I hear voices in English, but then a few minutes later there is a voice close to me.

“Lieutenant?  Sir?  Are you a Marine Corps Lieutenant?”

“What do you have there, Smith?”

“I dunno, sir, but he’s wearing fatigues, or at least what’s left of them.”

“He’s got tags.  You’re right—he’s USMC.”

I feel a hand on the skin of my neck.  Shuffling sounds above me become louder, and I try to turn my head enough to see.  I want to call out, even if I’m calling out to my own imagination.  It sounds real enough, and I don’t mind the fantasy.  It beats eating sand.  I don’t have enough of a voice to respond, though.

“Lieutenant?  Lieutenant?”

“Lieutenant?”

My eyes flickered to the sound out of reflex, and I found Mark Duncan staring into them.

“Can you talk to me?”

I swallowed and wet my lips before I looked back down to the cuff around my wrist.  The metal had warmed against my skin but didn’t feel quite right.  It should have been those plastic zip-ties or maybe rope, not handcuffs.  There was still the feel of sand in the back of my throat, and I coughed to try to get rid of it.  It didn’t help.  It never did.

“Can we get him out of the restraints?”

“No, sir.  That wouldn’t be a good idea at all.”

“I’ll take the risk.”

There was an unfriendly guffaw from the guard as he mumbled under his breath.

“You got no idea who you’re dealing with, do ya?”

“What does that mean?”

My eyes traveled from Mark to the guard at the end of the bed.  He was the unit supervisor, and though I didn’t remember his name, I did remember him making sure the cuffs were nice and tight as he restrained me.  We locked gazes for a moment, and I stared at him with an intense, silent warning until he looked away.

Even if I didn’t give a shit about what happened to me now, I wasn’t going to let Rinaldo’s name into the conversation.  There was some pride in me and also some loyalty, even if it was a fucked up version of allegiance.

“Sorry, sir,” the supervisor said to Mark, “but I can’t release him without orders from the warden.”

A deep sigh came from Mark as he pulled up a rolling chair close to the edge of the bed.

“Evan?”

I closed my eyes and tried to cross my arms in front of my chest, but of course, the handcuffs stopped me.  A shudder passed through my body, and my breathing increased along with the pounding of my heart.  I could taste and feel sand in my throat.

It’s not real.

Real or not, it sent me back into the desert.

“Lieutenant Evan Nathanial Arden, service number zero-four-seven-two-”

My teeth clench together to keep myself from screaming.  I can’t see what the bearded man is using to whip the back of my neck down to my ass, but it stings like a motherfucker.  I’m surprisingly glad I went through all the torture resistance training back in the spring.

“Did I ask you for your numbers?”  The man in front of me—the leader of the group—kicks sand into my face, and I don’t manage to close my eyes in time.