And nearly died.

It was dark inside the camper, the room filled with silhouettes. There was someone in there with me, tall and broad, standing on the other side of the small space with a rifle in his hands. I dropped to one knee as he took aim and fired, a three-round burst cutting the air just inches over my head and shattering the window behind me.

I knew in that instant if I had been a fraction of a second slower those rounds would have killed me. Without thinking, I aimed my Beretta, popped off two shots center of mass, then shifted aim and fired a third at his head. The first two shots staggered him, but the third blew the top of his head off. Blood pumped from the wound like a fountain as the gunman fell shuddering to the ground, a black pool spreading on the floor beneath him.

For a few heartbeats, I didn’t move.

I didn’t have the shakes yet, but they were in the mail. The gunman’s feet kicked spasmodically, and I heard his bowels let go. The stench of piss and shit mixing with the coppery, meaty scent of blood tore at my gag reflex. Fighting it down, I rose to my feet, fished a flashlight from my vest, and shined it across the room. On the bed opposite me, Lauren lay face down, limp and unmoving, a rope around her neck, pants around her ankles. She was bent over the edge of the bed, her buttocks and legs exposed, twin streams of blood trickling down her inner thighs. My mind flashed back across the years to our old house, and the closed front door, and the men assaulting her in her own bedroom, the gunshots, the cops, the questions, and the months of walking on eggshells trying not to upset her.

“Oh God. Lauren, no.”

I hurried closer on numb feet and unwound the rope from her neck, desperately hoping I wasn’t too late. As soon as the rope fell free, she drew a rattling breath and started coughing. Her face was battered, her left eye bruised and swollen, blood running from her nose.

Her eyes opened and stared at me in abject panic. She began to buck and thrash, pushing at me with her hands, struggling to scream but unable to do so.

“Wait, Lauren, it’s me, Caleb.” I took a step back, one hand raised defensively, and shined the flashlight on my face. She saw me, and after a few seconds, the panic left her eyes and she began sobbing.

“Caleb, please, turn around.”

I did as she asked. The sound of her struggling to pull her pants up awakened a cold rage within me.

Since my night vision was ruined, I put the flashlight on the man I had just killed. For an insane moment, I hoped he would come back to life so I could kill him again, slowly this time. His face was a bloody, unrecognizable mess, but the nametag on his uniform was plain to see.

Farrell.

“Come on, Lauren,” I said gently. “We need to get you to the medical tent.”

*****

0800 the next morning.

I was in the back of a deuce-and-a-half, my hands cuffed in front of me, sitting at the end of one of the long benches near the cab. There were two armed guards by the exit, hands loose on their rifles. I had not slept. My head hung almost to my knees from exhaustion, my stomach roiled with hunger, and my throat burned with thirst. I had tried to request water, but the guards’ only response was a curt, “Stop talking.”

There had been raised voices in the night. I heard the angry tenor of my father, and Mike’s thundering bass. As usual, Blake kept everyone from killing each other.

My eyes closed again, and this time I did not try to open them. My mind drifted back to the dead body of Sergeant Farrell, and carrying Lauren to the medical tent, and how light she felt in my arms, like carrying a child. The medics asked me what happened to her, and I told them what I had seen. Lauren gathered herself enough to explain the rest in detail.

She had been sitting next to the fire, alone. A soldier approached out of the darkness and asked if she had any coffee to spare. Said he was willing to trade for it. He offered a can of table salt in exchange, which we happened to be running low on. Lauren agreed, and went into the camper to fetch the coffee. The soldier followed her in, and when she turned her back to him, he struck her in the head.

When she fell, he hit her several more times, then forced her onto the bed, pulled her pants down, wrapped a length of nylon rope around her neck to keep her from screaming, and proceeded to rape her. He was perhaps a minute into it by the time I arrived.

After hearing her story, one of the medics grabbed a private who happened by and told him to go find Captain Morgan. The captain arrived a few minutes later, accompanied by two armed sergeants. After I explained what happened, he told me he had to place me under arrest until he could conduct a full investigation. My father arrived right about then, frantic, and things got ugly.

It took me, Mike, Lance, and four soldiers to subdue the old man. After wrestling him to the ground, I told him to calm the hell down and let Morgan do his job. He finally agreed, though he was still fuming with rage. He stayed with Lauren for a few minutes, then left so the medics could treat her injuries.

At 0900, Morgan showed up at the truck with my father. The scent of fried spam, beans, and tortillas drifted to me, making my stomach clench painfully. Morgan dismissed the guards and followed my father inside, then removed my cuffs and sat down across from me. Dad gave me a canteen of water.

“You all right, son?” he asked. I chugged half the canteen, then said, “Doing a lot better now, thanks. That for me?” I pointed at the food.

“Yeah. Eat up.”

I did, then set my plate aside and looked at Morgan. “So what’s going to happen now?”

“We’re still investigating,” he said, “but so far your story holds up.”

“Of course it fucking does,” Dad said heatedly.

Morgan winced as if struck, then said, “Detective Travis Holzman is assisting with the investigation. He’s been a big help.”

“Is that the same detective I beat the hell out of a few days ago?” I said.

“Yes. But he’s been very professional about the whole thing.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical.”

“I understand your concerns. But believe me, he’s working hard to get to the bottom of what happened. You should have seen him after he interviewed your stepmother. I thought lightning bolts were going to fly out of his eyes.”

It occurred to me then that if Travis really was a good cop, he was probably a lot more concerned about Lauren than he was with me. “Okay. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Listen, I need you to stay here for a while longer,” Morgan said. “Just until Detective Holzman has had time to sort out all the details. Things are kind of tense out there right now. Rumors flying, that sort of thing. I’m worried some of the soldiers might try to retaliate. Sergeant Farrell had a lot of friends.”

Dad said, “Well you better kick those soldiers in the ass and tell them to mind their goddamn manners. Any of them takes a shot at my boy, I’ll put a bullet between their eyes and worry about the consequences later.”

“Mr. Hicks, I understand you’re angry, but-”

“You don’t understand shit!” Dad snarled. “That son of a bitch raped my wife. He deserved to die, and he was one of your men. Your responsibility!” He punctuated the end of the sentence by jamming a hard finger into Morgan’s chest.

Morgan paled, his mouth pinching down to a thin, flat line. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hicks. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But I have to face reality, okay? And the reality is, this place is a powder keg. So give me some time to defuse it before you go flying off the handle, all right?”

My father’s fists balled up as his sides, muscles straining under the skin of his jaw.

“Dad, please.”

He looked at me, the anger in his eyes a living thing, boiling and writhing and burning to be let loose.