“If you hadn’t given me the drug, they would have kept giving me dose after dose of that serum until my body ripped itself apart,” he said hoarsely. “And if you tried to stop them from taking me, you probably would have found yourself in one of these graves without the possibility of ever crawling out. So don’t be sorry. You saved me. That’s all that matters.”
Zarina shook her head, her mouth opening but no words coming out.
Before he could stop himself, he reached out and grabbed the hand she had resting on his forearm, giving it a firm squeeze. “When those men grabbed me that day in the forest, I was sure I was dead. When they gave me those two doses of hybrid serum, turning me into a monster, I prayed I would die. And when things were at their darkest, you came and risked everything for me. I can’t put into words how much that means to me, because you did more than save my life that day. You gave me a reason to keep going.”
She wiped the wetness from her cheeks with her free hand, blinking at him in confusion. “Keep going? What are you saying? That you’d given up on living? Why?”
He shook his head, opening his mouth to tell her that wasn’t it. But the truth was, at that point in his life nearly eighteen months ago, he had been close to giving up. He’d pulled so far away from the rest of the world, there wasn’t much left other than ending it all.
Zarina’s hand tightened around his. “Tanner, talk to me. Please.”
He regarded her silently for a moment. Maybe it was time he got everything out in the open. Maybe then she’d understand why he couldn’t take her antiserum and why she was wasting her life staying out here trying to help him.
“This isn’t the first time I ended up flat on my back in a shallow depression, getting dirt dumped in my face,” he said quietly. “The other time it happened, I was pretty sure I was going to die, too.”
He ran his free hand over the grave he’d clawed his way out of after Zarina’s drug had worn off. As the loose, earthy soil shifted between his fingers, he vividly remembered the sensation of the rich dirt getting sucked up his nose and into his lungs as he’d fought to get out of the hole. It had seemed to take forever, and he’d almost given up. But it was the memory of the beautiful Russian doctor with the voice of an angel that had kept him clawing for the surface. At the time, he remembered thinking that he had to make it out so he could find a way to help her.
Zarina didn’t say anything, didn’t prompt him. Instead, she knelt there in the dirt beside him, holding his hand and waiting for him to get the courage to say the things that needed to be said.
“Ryan and I were in northern Afghanistan on our last deployment with the 2nd Ranger Battalion,” he said, the pain of thinking back to the last battle he’d fought with his friend making it hard to get the words out. “It was in a little place called the Kunduz Province that I doubt ninety-nine percent of the world could find on a map, even with the help of Google. The mission was supposed to be easy. All we had to do was babysit a bunch of Afghanis as they picked up a local warlord. But everything fell apart, and we ended up in a meat grinder. All three members of my fire team died right in front of me. Ryan’s guys bought it, too. In the span of ten minutes, our entire squad was wiped out.”
Thinking about Chad, Vas, and Danny dying was enough to push him to the edge of his control again. His fingers tingled and his gums ached. He breathed through it, focusing on Zarina’s warm scent and her gentle touch until the urge to run—or tear something apart—passed.
“I was almost taken out by a Taliban fighter with a rocket-propelled grenade and ended up getting flipped through the air,” he continued. “I came down in an artillery crater and immediately got pelted with falling dirt and rocks. It felt like I was being buried alive.”
Zarina looked down at the depression in the ground in front of them, her face going pale as she recognized the similarities to what had happened here.
Tanner swallowed hard as he remembered what it had been like lying in that hole over in Afghanistan, every part of his body hurting while he wondered if he was going to die. Wondering if anyone would ever find him in that damn crater. They were exactly the same feelings and emotions he’d experienced here.
“Going through something like that once was bad enough, but having the same thing happen to me again here?” He shook his head. “I…I didn’t handle it well.”
Zarina took his other hand in hers, and he used the strength she gave him to keep talking, to get the rest of the story out.
“I thought I’d get over everything that happened over there, all my guys dying, you know?” He shrugged. “I’d seen other men in the battalion die in combat before, and it hadn’t shaken me up too bad. I mean, I’d be upset about it for a couple of weeks but then get right back into the job. That’s what soldiers are supposed to do. It’s what I’d done for years. But for some reason, that time was different. I couldn’t shake the memories. The images of my guys dying were there every time I closed my eyes. I stopped sleeping
