J Saint - Collateral Damage

Fayetteville, North Carolina

Though unable to sleep, Mari Dalton kept her eyes shut. Roger Weston was with her, his reassuring presence had eased her choking fear. In her mind, she could still hear the man promising to make her pay, promising to kill her, and every time she drifted asleep, his face, his hate resurrected and joined the jeering faces of the men who had violently taken her innocence. She had thought she would die then, had wanted to die then, for surely death was preferable to living with such shame, but her spirit wouldn't let her die. She'd survived and she'd faced the shame and she'd learned to live even though her family had reviled her.

When Neil had found her and loved her despite her shame she thought Allah had forgiven and blessed her. Now she questioned if all the blessings she'd been given over the past few years were no more than just a greater punishment. To have found safety and freedom. To have found loving and friendship. To be given the miracle of a child, only to have them all taken away was a cruel knife to her heart. Though her stomach had stopped cramping, she just knew she would lose her child, no matter what the doctor said. She had tried to be so good. She had tried to be pure.

But perhaps she deserved no better, for she had failed.

For as much as she loved Neil and grieved his loss, for as committed as she was to be the perfect wife to him forever and yearned for his presence. For as determined as she was to ignore, and yes even cut out the part of her that had sprung to life, her insides clenched every time Roger Weston walked into a room. She remembered the first time it happened. Neil's commander had been away somewhere that even Neil could not know of when she had first come to America. She and Neil had been married for six months and she could hardly believe the blessing that both Neil and Allah had showered upon her. Then Roger Weston had walked in the front door of her happy home and her stomach had knotted. She'd broken out in a heated sweat and had been so physically disturbed by what happened that she had had to excuse herself. She'd feigned an illness and had spent the rest of the evening alone in her bed while Neil and his friends had watched a special football game on the television.

Now she was pretending again. Pretending that Roger Weston didn't disturb her, but it wasn't working. She felt him there and, Allah forgive her, she was so thankful that he was even though it sharpened her grief for Neil. Made her loss more painful because deep in her heart she wondered if she had been unfaithful to Neil by her reaction to his commander.

She truly might deserve to die, but still her spirit refused to let go.

She brushed away more tears of guilt and grief with the end of her blanket and drew another deep breath. She had vowed she would never use the phone number Roger Weston had given her after telling her that Allah had taken Neil away from her. But then that man today had left her no choice. And even now, she did not have the strength to deny herself and send Roger Weston away. Maybe tomorrow she would be stronger.

Every noise, every time the door opened, her heart would race with fear. Sure that man had found her to deliver the punishment he promised. SheA rough groan brought her eyes wide open and had her sitting straight up in bed. Her heart leapt to her throat and pounded hard in her chest as she searched the shadows of the room for danger. She knew in her mind that the door to her room was closed and had not been opened. She knew it was impossible for that man to be there, but she could not stop her fear. It wasn't until she heard another groan that she realized it was Roger Weston. He slouched low in the chair across the small room, his long legs sprawled out, and his head resting against the chair back and the wall. He appeared asleep, but it was not a peaceful rest. His breathing was rapid, his hands gripped the side arms tightly, and his head jerked slightly in a repetitive denial of whatever nightmare had gripped him.

"Mr. Weston," she said softly then repeated a little louder. He didn't wake and looked as if he was in such distress from his dream that she couldn't just leave him. Though her body was sore all over, though her hands and knees throbbed with every movement, she slid from the bed and walked across the chilled floor. Wearing only the thin material of the hospital gown to cover her practically naked body was so sinful that she turned back to the bed and pulled the blanket from it and covered herself. By the time she finished, she was nearly groaning from the sharp pain in her hands. As she turned back to Roger Weston, she heard his jagged whisper. "No…God…no. Not Neil. Not DT. Not Rico. Not Pecos. I didn't have a choice. I had to…had to decide. Don't you understand, Beck? I had to. God help me… I had to."

Roger Weston's cry for his God so matched Mari's own cry to Allah that her already hurting and grieving heart twisted with even more pain. She moved closer to Roger, spoke to him again, but still he did not hear her. With no other choice, she reached out and touched him, more aware of the power and heat of his muscled shoulder than she ever had the right to be. And that was through her bandages. Touching him skin to skin would be… Allah, forgive me.

"Mr. Weston." She shook his shoulder this time. He jerked awake with a start, nearly coming straight up out of the chair. She reared back and wobbled for balance, even crying out a little in shock.

He caught her arm, balancing her. "What is it? You shouldn't be up. You should have just called me. Do you need the nurse?"

Before she could find her voice to answer him, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to the bed.

"I tried calling out to you," she told him, barely finding her voice amid the flooding sensations of his scent, his heat, his strength. "But you were asleep."

"I'm sorry. It won't happen again. What did you need?" he asked, setting her back in the bed as if she were made of glass. And perhaps she was; she thought she would break apart at any moment from the emotions battling within her breast and the pain trying to drag her under a dark abyss.

She drew the blanket to her, too aware of him so close. "I-I didn't need anything. You were in pain, a nightmare. I think. You spoke of Neil and others and were so distressed from your dream that I had to wake you."

"What did I say?" His jagged, almost angry tone surprised her and made her peer closer at his face in the shadowed room. His rough jaw, hooked nose, dark unruly hair and blue eyes were all familiar to her, but there was something completely different about him that wasn't there before Neil had died. And whatever nightmare he was having about Neil and the other men, it was still with him. She could see it in his eyes and read it in the sudden tension gripping his every visible muscle.

"Only that you didn't have a choice. That you had to decide."

He exhaled sharply.

"What is it? What happened?"

"Nothing. Forget anything you heard. It was just a nightmare. Not real. Not important. Go back to sleep. I won't disturb you again. I'll be in the hallway stretching my legs." He turned away from her and didn't look back as he left the room.

Mari blinked at the closing door, realizing Roger Weston had just lied to her. His nightmare had been important and he was as haunted by ghosts as she was.

Roger stepped out into the hospital hallway and braced himself against the wall, barely curbing the urge to bang his head against it. What he'd almost revealed in his sleep-what really happened in Lebanon and how Neil had died-made him sick inside.

Heart racing double-time to his careening thoughts, he broke out in a cold sweat and pressed his palms to his eyes to stop the images flashing in his mind. The dead. The dying. The gravely hurt. The women. The children. His men.