Learning to Stand (16 page)

“
What do I do with this?”
Alex asked.

“
Lie on your side and press
it against your abdomen,” Raz said. “I’ll get you more hot water
when it cools.”

Alex fumbled with the water bottle.

“
You’ve never had a period,”
Raz said.

“
I had a few when I lived at
home with Max,” she said. “But I was on birth control as soon as
Mom thought I was messing around with Zack. Then I’ve been on the
depo shots since I went into the military.”

Raz sat up against the back board.
Readjusting the heating pad, he opened his arms to her and she
rested her head on his lap.

“
Tuck your legs up,” Raz
said.

He moved the hot water bottle between her
legs and her abdomen.

“
Oh… That’s perfect,” Alex
said.

Raz smiled. “Max is working. He said he
would be back this afternoon.”

“
Ok,” Alex said. “He’s got
the next gimp shift.”

Raz looked down at her cropped hair.

“
He’ll have to fight me for
it,” he said. Looking around the room, he added, “No
TV?”

“
Be glad we have heat,” she
said.

“
There’s one in my room.
Should I get it?”

“
You sure it works? You
don’t usually watch TV when you’re in your room.”

Raz fell silent. His hand stroked her fuzzy
head. He laughed.

“
You’re right,” he said.
“I’ve never tried the television.”

“
It doesn’t work. We need
cable down here and… I don’t know… something about something else,”
she said.

“
Something about something
else?” he asked

“
I can’t keep track of
everything on the ‘To Be Fixed’ list.”

“
The list is long,” he said.
He settled in against the bed’s headboard. “It’s a hundred-year-old
boarding house that was all but given to us. How many square
feet?”

“
About three thousand a
floor, two thousand at the top,” she said.

“
Well, it’s to be expected.
Buy a bargain, pay the price.”

“
Hmmm,” Alex said. “How long
do we have before we start working?”

“
How did you know?” Raz
asked.

“
Know the problem. Know this
President,” Alex said. “So how long?”

“
We’re supposed to meet with
them in fifteen minutes on the outside. Matthew is awake. He’s
eaten and is walking some. He and Joseph have been meeting for the
last hour.”

“
Here? We’re meeting in this
room?” She looked up into his face. His eyes flicked to her face.
“That’s a lot of men in my boudoir. My reputation will be
ruined.”

Almost on cue, his laugh brought a knock to
the door. Alex rolled onto her back.

“
Sir.”

Sergeant Larry Flagg stood in the door with
his hand at a salute. Alex tried to remember if Larry had ever
saluted her. He stood in the doorway like a toy soldier.

“
Sir,” Larry said
again.

“
What?” Alex
asked.

“
Permission to enter the
room,” he said.

“
Permission granted,” she
said.

“
Sir, we would like to hold
a meeting regarding our current assignment,” Larry said. “We are
wondering if the Lieutenant Colonel can join us in the main
room.”

“
The main room?”

“
Out here,” Larry
said.

“
They’ve moved desks into
the den area by the laundry,” Raz said.

“
Great,” Alex
said.

Standing at the end of the bed, Larry stood
at attention.

“
Go away now,” Alex
said.

Larry turned in place and marched out of the
room. The door blew closed behind him.

“
What was that?” Alex
asked.

“
He, Trece and White Boy are
getting a little mandatory training,” Raz said. “Trece’s superior
officer enrolled them. They work with us during the day and get
this other training at night.”

“
No sleep?”

“
Couple hours a night. Trece
says he’s grateful for it because he feels horrible about what
happened.”

“
He should,” she
said.

He touched her back when she moved to get
out of bed. She turned to look at him.

“
This darkness...” His
eyebrows pinched together in a question.

Scooting to the edge of the bed, Alex
grunted as she stood.

“
Hip’s bad too?”

“
John’s giving me injections
again.” Walking toward the door, she turned back to him.
“Ready?”

“
About this
darkness...”

“
I’d tell you if I could,”
Alex said.

“
Why can’t you?”

“
Because I don’t know,” Alex
said. “I don’t know. I don’t know. God damn it.”

Bowing her head, she pressed her fingers
into her nose to keep from crying. She wanted to scream at him. But
it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

He wrapped her in his arms. They stood
together until there was another knock at the door. She stepped
back. Giving him a slight smile, she went out to meet with the
men.

After all, Cee Cee Joiner was more important
than the loss of her child. After all Cee Cee Joiner was...

She stopped walking.

F

CHAPTER thirteen

The wheels of Alex’s mind clicked through
the information from the Weasel. Feeling a hand on her arm, she
looked up to see Joseph. He held a pad of paper and yellow pencil
which she took. Wandering in front of the stunned men, she found a
table and began to write. She looked up when Sergeant Flagg touched
her.

“
Lieutenant Colonel?”
Sergeant Flagg asked.

“
Leave her,” Joseph
said.

“
But I’m an intelligence
officer. She needs my help.”

“
She doesn’t need anyone’s
help. Why don’t you make a fresh pot of coffee? She’ll be done in a
minute,” Joseph said. Turning to Matthew, he said, “This is what I
told you about. And it is your job, Mac Clenaghan, to make sure she
gets it.”

“
What?” Matthew
said.

“
A pad of paper, a pencil
and about fifteen minutes of silence.”

Matthew nodded his head.

Alex had no idea what happened. It was like
walls of a maze lined up in her mind. Working with her pencil and
paper, she tracked the flow until she reached the conclusion. It
was something she had always been able to do. Sure, her father had
trained her how to track her mind, what questions to ask and what
to follow. She was also Ben’s daughter.

But when things began to click together, the
world faded. She had been told she hummed and tapped her pencil
against the pad. She only remembered the maze of facts. Max had the
same capability but he didn’t like the way it felt. He preferred a
more logical approach over her ‘woo woo’ methods.

Nodding her head, Alex looked up to the men.
Sergeant Flagg put a mug of coffee within reach. She looked at the
coffee and realized it was black. She was about to get up when Troy
set a carton of milk next to the mug. He shrugged a shoulder to her
thanks. Taking a drink of her coffee, she was ready to start.

“
I thought we could talk
about Joiner,” Joseph said.

He motioned for Matthew and Raz to take the
ancient brown leather couch. Troy reversed a metal folding chair
and sat down. Vince slid into a leather arm chair. Trece and White
Boy stood at attention toward the edges of the meeting. Larry
looked confused then stood between them.

“
You’re going to leave them
there?” Alex asked Joseph.

Joseph glanced at Trece, White Boy and
Larry.

“
They have not made their
peace with their superior officer. Until they do, they will remain
at the fringes of this group.”

“
He hasn’t
either.”

Alex pointed to Troy. Troy threw himself
from the couch until he lay face down at Alex’s feet. Alex kneeled
down. He looked up at her.

“
I’m a fucking asshole… for
so many things,” he whispered to her. “I try. I really try to not
be like him. But there I go again. Trample all over the people who
care about me for no reason at all. Oh God Alex, I am my
father.”

“
At least you know you’re
doing it,” she said.

“
Only when it’s too
late.”

“
I can’t imagine not being
your friend.” He sniffed at forming tears. “I’m sorry I made that
happen. Can you forgive me?”

Alex nodded. Troy popped to a crouch to hug
her. He helped Alex to her feet.

“
What did he do?” Troy
pointed to Vince.

“
I mow the grass at the Fey
Special Forces Team memorial,” Vince said. “Another guy does the
edging.”

“
I do the edging,” Matthew
said.

“
It’s the least I can do.
Those men saved my life. ”

“
Exactly,” Matthew
said.

“
Anyway, I went there after
getting reassigned. I would need to find someone else to care for
the grass. Alex and I talked when she got there. She and some of
the wives clean the stones. Anyway, I remain ashamed of my
behavior.”

Alex gave Vince a weak smile.

“
Permission to speak, sir,”
Trece said.

“
You don’t have anything to
say,” Alex said.

The change in her was immediate. She whipped
around to face Trece. Her voice wasn’t loud but the rage and injury
laced words made every man in the room cringe.

“
We were never friends.
Even though I thought our relationship was personal, and treated
you as a friend, a member of my family, I was stupidly deceived. I
was only your package, your object to guard. There’s no apology
necessary. Right? After all, you secured your package, so you went
about your business.”

“
Isn’t that correct,
Captain Ramirez?” Alex said.

Alex shook with rage and indignation.
Trece’s eyes blinked but never wavered from staring straight
ahead.

“
I was never your FRIEND. I
was never important enough to be an ACQUAINTANCE! I was only your
JOB, your PACKAGE.”

Out of breath from yelling, her voice
dropped to an eerie low, “Tell me that’s not correct.”

“
Let me tell you! You’re
not very good at it. Because this package,” Alex punched her chest,
“barely survived machine gun assault, torture, three days in a
sensory dep chamber, and yesterday’s trampling from a psychopath. I
don’t think I need a BODY GUARD. You can crawl back into whatever
hole you came from.”

Turning to see the slack jawed, stunned men,
she grabbed her pad of paper and pencil.

“
I just remembered. I’m a
civilian,” she said. Stalking out of the room of shocked men, she
turned at the edge of the room to say, “Good luck finding Cee Cee
Joiner. I hope he dies an awful death like the one he planned for
me.”

She threw the pad of paper at Joseph and
went into her room. Slamming then locking the door, she moved
through the room to the bathroom. She turned on the bathroom
exhaust fan and the shower. Fully clothed, she climbed into the
back of the shower. She slid down the wall until she sat with her
knees against her chest.

Under the cold rain of water, she cried her
heart out.

FFFFFF

Forty minutes later
Thursday morning

March
27
–
8:20 A.M. MDT

Denver, CO

“
Move,” Max said.

White Boy shook his head.

“
Don’t you think it’s a
little late to be loyal?” Max asked.

Even though he had been in a meeting since
six in the morning, Max knew exactly what had gone on here. He felt
Alex’s indignation and rage as if it was his own.

“
She doesn’t want to see
anyone,” White Boy said. “I’ve never seen her so upset.”

Max raised his eyebrows. He opened his mouth
to say something then shut it.

“
What?” White Boy
asked.

“
The difference between you
and me is this: Alex is my life. She is every breath, every
thought, every moment of every single day. To you, she is a job.
Now get out of my way or I will make you move.”

“
I love Alex,” White Boy
said. “So does Trece. I mean, we screwed up. We totally screwed up.
But what you said… what she said… It’s not true. It’s just not
true.”

“
Fine,” Max said. “Do I need
to make you move?”

“
No sir,” White Boy said.
“But the door is locked.”

“
I
have
the key,” Max said.

“
Oh.”

White Boy stepped aside and Max opened the
door. Walking through the bedroom, he found Alex in the shower. She
was shivering, blanche white, and bleeding. Turning off the ice
cold water, he reached for her. Alex crawled forward to his arms.
The twins held each other.

“
Oh my God.” Raz threw Max
towels from the rack. “I’m sorry. I saw the door was open and I
wanted to get my laptop. Max, she needs to get to
emergency.”

Unwilling to let go of her, Max looked up at
him. Raz pulled the blankets from the bed and wrapped them around
Alex. Max carried her to the door. Trece grabbed Alex from Max and
ran up the basement stairs to his Black Expedition. Max, Raz and
White Boy ran after Trece. White Boy opened the doors and Trece set
Alex in the back. The men scooted into the car.