Bite the Bullet

Chapter 26

"You see anyone coming, you put two through his chest and one through his head, you hear me Marine?" I yell, ears still ringing. Gotta move. Step. Step. Step. Back to the vehicle. Three men appear to my left. Six rounds fire out of my rifle. Three men fall. Crawling through the window, I cut the next man free. He's out. I pull him free, back to the other man. Pulse. Check for a pulse. Damn. He's gone. Gun fire behind me. Yelling. Arms on my shoulders. Pulling me back, shaking me. Shaking me.

I react, turning and shoving my knife hilt deep into the attacker's midsection. Blood. So much blood. His body falls. Neutralized. Back to the vehicle. Hurry. Hurry. I cut the next man free and haul him out. Pulse. He's alive. More movement from behind me. I turn, raising my rifle. Friendlies. Thank god. I wave them down. Back to the vehicle, I pull my last team member free of the burning humvee. Can't drag him. Lift him up, over my shoulders. Focus Robbins. Sweat and blood dripping down my face and soaking my clothes. Step. Step. Step. Setting him down with the rest of my mangled team. I can hear the slow churning of American humvees approaching. More yelling. Another hostile attacks. POP POP. Threat neutralized.

"Normani!" A familiar, yet distant voice calls. I turn.. Cordell.. He's come. He's here to back me up. I wave him down. His own team approaches. On guard. Always watching. He takes a firing position next to me. "Good to see you alive." He says.

"You too Cordell." More yelling. English. Non English. More gun fire. Smoke. The smell of burning flesh. The hard look in my brothers eyes. The dead body of my team member. Retreat. We pull back. Hauling our injured out of harms way. Go. I'll cover. "Not without me, Mani." He smiles. I smile. We cover our teams. POP POP. Two Hamilton, two ace marksmen. POP POP. Body after body fall before us. We miss a guy in a window. I hear a whistling, see an RPG shoot towards us. Cordell! I push him behind a stone wall as the missile hits one of the already battered humvees, sending scrap metal flying. Ow. Pain. Pain. Darkness is descending on me. "Normani! Normani! Stay with me Mani. Come on girl, don't do this to me." An explosion.

My mind thrusts me out of my night terror. I'm gasping for air, clutching at my long ago healed wound. I feel hands on me, soothing me. My eyes focus and lock onto that of the gorgeous Polynesian. My heart is racing and my stomach is rolling.

"Its ok... its ok... breathe for me Normani..." Dinah is cupping my face with one hand as the other is laid over my heart, tracking its unnatural rhythm. It feels like its beating through my chest. "That's good... that's good..." She purrs softly as my breathing slows, and so does my heart. I sit up and disentangle myself from the sheets. Dinah moves back from me, giving me space to breathe. Looking out the large glass windows, I see the morning sun peaking over the hills surrounding my father's property.

"Are you-" Dinah says in a soft voice.

I cut her off "Yeah, I'm fine." I get up off the bed and move to the kitchen, Dinah following me. My Dad is there, pouring out three cups of coffee. He slides one to each of us and we stand in silence. Both the doctor and my father watch me, like I'm going to combust at any second.

"When did they come back?" My dad asks.

"Couple months ago." I say, not making eye contact with him.

"Come back?" Dinah questions, confused.

"She was getting help and taking medica-" My dad starts to answer but I cut him off.

"Dad!" I give him a hard glare "No." I don't want him telling the woman who is suppose to trust me that I was on medication and seeing a shrink for my night terrors. That for a year after I came back from Iraq and out of the hospital that I couldn't get an hour of sleep without waking up crying like a baby. She doesn't need to know why I have them, or what they are about. For years, they never bothered me, but they started again a month before I was assigned to Dinah's detail. ...after that case. The one that landed me on probation. That's what triggered them again. I just need to wait it out. They'll start to fade again. ...I can only hope. He takes the not so subtle hint and leaves the kitchen to go about his chores around the house.