Jack Wilder - The Missionary

Taking a seat on the toilet, he grabbed the closest towel and pressed beneath the wound. He took an unopened bottle of water, and, using the tip of the knife, worked a small hole into the bottom of the bottle. The spray from the shower had set the wound bleeding again, so Stone held the towel beneath the entrance wound, and then, tilting his body back as far as he could, squeezed the bottle so water squirted in a thin, high-pressure stream into the bullet hole. His breath expelled in a gasping moan, but he gritted his teeth and squirted more water in, catching the excess as it sluiced away, pink with blood. He soaked through one towel, tossed it into the tub, and grabbed another, pouring water into the wound until the bottle was gone. Then he fished the small bottle of antiseptic spray from the backpack, opened it, and sprayed the entrance hole.

The next part was trickier. He had to do the same to the exit hole, which he couldn’t really reach on his own. He debated trying, but knew it would ineffective. Pressing the towel to the opening, he shook Wren awake.

She moaned, murmured, and then finally cracked her eyes open.

“Sorry, babe, but I need your help.”

Wren sat up and blinked, shivered. Her forehead was dotted with sweat, and she scratched at her skin, then caught herself and stopped. “Help with what?”

Stone crossed the room to resume his seat on the toilet, this time facing the tub to give her access to the exit hole. “Squirt some water into the hole for me.”

Wren knelt behind him in the small bathroom, taking the red-soaked towel from him. She handed him one of the unopened bottles of water, and he poked a hole into it, then handed the bottle back to her.

“Will it hurt?” she asked.

“I’ve got a bullet hole in my side,” Stone said. “Everything about it hurts. I’ll be fine.”

Wren cupped the towel against his back and poured the water onto the hole. Stone suppressed the hiss of pain, grinding his teeth until they hurt.

After she’d used the entire bottle, he nodded. “Good,” he said. “Now spray the antiseptic on it. A lot, from an inch or two away.” She sprayed it liberally, and he couldn’t stop a groan from escaping. “Good. Okay, now open the tampon for me.”

She did so, and Stone slid it into the hole, grimacing and growling as the cotton scraped the raw edges of open flesh. The string hung down his side, and he ripped a piece of the medical tape and fastened the string to his skin so he could pull the tampon free later. Wren had bought a roll of gauze, so he wrapped that tightly around his body, covering the wound and applying a bit of pressure. He taped the ends to his skin and then sank back against the cold porcelain, trying to even out his ragged breathing.

It would have to do for now. He was lightheaded and weak, which meant he’d lost a lot of blood.

“What now?” Wren asked.

“Now we hope I don’t pick up an infection. If that clerk can find some antibiotics, I’d be happier, but if not, we’ll just have to pray.”

Stone uncapped the bottle he’d already opened and drank from it. He finished the liter and then forced himself to his feet. He was dizzy, exhausted, hungry, and tense. He checked the latch on the door, then slid the chain into place, and propped a chair under the handle. Finally, he couldn’t stay upright any longer.

“One of us should really keep watch, but I don’t think either of us is capable. I’m dead on my feet.” He sank gingerly onto the bed. “You should take a shower before you fall back asleep.”

Wren nodded and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. After a moment, the shower turned on and Stone was left to picture her naked and wet beneath the water. Twenty minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. She rounded the bed and lay down on the edge, stiff and seeming unsure. Stone wrestled with himself briefly, and then gave in.

“Get over here, babe.”

“What?” Wren’s eyes were wide.

Stone extended his arm and crooked his finger at her. “Come over here. Closer, so I can hold you.” Wren wriggled over until her head was on his chest. He curled his arm around her, holding her waist and trying not to let his hand wander lower. “Better?”

Wren nodded, and within moments was asleep. Stone wasn’t far behind, despite the fact that they were both wearing nothing but towels.

An unknowable time later, Stone woke up with Wren curled against his uninjured side. She was tensed, even pressed against him. He knew by her breathing that she was awake.

“Stone?” She rolled away slightly, clutching the towel in place. She searched his eyes. “In the lobby…was that just…I mean—did you—?”

“I don’t know, Wren. Honestly I don’t. I don’t know what it means.”

“Did you…feel anything?” Her voice was small and hesitant.

“Of course I did,” he said. “How could I kiss you and not feel anything?”

She shrugged, and the towel slipped slightly, drawing Stone’s attention to her cleavage. He forced his gaze to her eyes when she spoke. “I don’t know. It’s so hard to tell with you. You don’t ever seem to show emotions. You don’t show pain, or fear, or happiness, or anything. You’re just this wall of…stone.”

Stone laughed. “How do you think I got the nickname ‘Stone’ in the first place?”

Wren’s face scrunched. “Nickname? Stone’s not your real name?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I got it after my first combat mission.”

“Why?”

“Well, like you said, I don’t really…show much. I never have. And then during combat I was just stone-cold calm the whole time, and my L-T made some kind of casual remark, like, ‘you’re made of stone or something, Pressfield,’ and the nickname Stone just stuck.”

“So they gave the nickname to you for being unemotional?”

Stone wobbled his head side to side in a ‘not really but sort of’ gesture. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

Stone sighed. “It’s another one of those things I don’t like to talk about.”

“I watched you kill men today, Stone. I think I can handle some old story.”

“It’s not just because I’m stone-cold emotionally; it’s because I seemed like a stone-cold killer. That first combat mission, it went off the rails. Went bad. Old intel, the bad guys had more backup than we’d anticipated. One of them got the drop on L-T, and I was out of ammo. Rookie mistake, you know? Shooting too much, waiting till empty to reload. Supposed to reload when you’ve got a few rounds left, and you never just throw the clip away like in the movies. You save it. Reuse it. Anyway, a tango got the drop on L-T, and I was out of ammo. For some stupid reason, I went for my KA-BAR instead of my sidearm—”

“Kay-bar? What’s that?”

“Combat knife. I should have shot the fucker, but I stabbed him instead. Of course, unless you know exactly what you’re doing and where to stab and all that, you never get a guy on the first try with a knife. It’s surprisingly hard to kill a man with a knife. That’s why you always hear about someone being stabbed like twenty or thirty times. The human body can withstand a shitload of damage as long as it doesn’t stop the heart immediately, or the brain. So I got the guy, but he had a gun and I had my knife, and L-T was down, wounded, so I just laid into him again. Not thinking, just doing.” Stone flexed his hand, remembering the feel of the knife in his hand and the warmth of blood on his hands for the first time. “Shooting someone from far away, that’s one thing. Even from thirty feet away with a pistol. It still takes it out of you, hits you hard the first few times you do it. But to kill someone up close and personal like that? With your hands? You watch the light go out of his eyes. You watch him turn into a dead husk right in front of you. Watch him bleed out, knowing you did that to him. And because I don’t show much emotion, and never have, it seemed to everyone else that I just did it easy as you please, no guilt, no remorse.”