Worth Saving Page 2

  “Umm, I’m sorry, Damien,” I begin, but I’m quickly cut off.

  “I don’t want to hear that shit, Layla, because that’s how it always starts with you. Apologies and bullshit that never do the one thing I need them to do—make me money. Your apologies never bring me back the money your fucking attitude loses me.”

  “But I really am sorry, Damien, you’ve got to believe me. You don’t understand what he wanted me to do,” I try to explain.

  “I don’t give a fuck!” He bellows, and I swear the entire room stands still to see what’s going on. You’d think this is where Damien would take me to the back and finish this conversation in private. But if you think that then you don’t know Damien Baxter. He’d prefer we do this right here in front of everyone, especially the other girls. He wants to make an example out of me, and Damien always gets what he wants.

  “I. Don’t. Give a fuck,” he continues, pausing between his words to emphasize. “When a paying customer puts up two G’s to spend the night with your little sexy ass, then that paying customer can do whatever the fuck he wants to do with you. You know that’s how this goes. You’ve been here long enough, you know better, but you just like to break the rules and set a bad example for the other available girls. You think that you don’t have to follow the rules. My rules.”

  “That’s not it at all, Damien,” I try to edge my way into the conversation, hoping maybe I can get him to understand before things get too out of hand. “I’m not trying to break the rules, I promise. But he tried to burn me. He wanted to tie me up so he could do some shit he called fire play. He was gonna burn me.”

  Damien stands there, completely unmoved by what I just told him. His facial expression doesn’t soften at all. He just glares at me for a second, then he looks around the room at the other girls who’ve all started watching the whole thing unfold. I, on the other hand, am too embarrassed and worried to look at anyone else.

  “He paid two grand, and now he wants his money back,” Damien says as he pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and sticks one between his thin lips. He flicks his lighter and puffs out the smoke in my face. “He paid two thousand dollars to burn you, and now your fear and attitude have cost me that two thousand dollars. So, now you owe me, and you know owing me is never a good thing.”

  He takes a step towards me and I feel a sharp pain in my stomach that shoots up to my heart.

  “Damien, please. I’m so sorry. I’ll pay you the money back. I just couldn’t let him . . . please, Damien,” I beg. The only two customers who are in the room suddenly get up from their booth, but it isn’t to help me. I watch out of my peripheral vision as the two men slowly make their way towards the exit, acting as if they haven’t seen a thing. Typical cowardly men. It’s just Damien and the available girls now.

  “One way or another, Layla, you’re gonna learn to follow the rules.” That’s the last thing Damien says before he reaches across his body and hits me in the face with a vicious backhand. I stumble back a couple of steps before finally crumbling onto the floor. I hear the other girls gasp, some of them turn around and walk out, but none of them help. They know better.

  Damien takes two steps in my direction, and then sends his foot flying into my stomach. The impact sends all the air in my lungs shooting out of me like a fighter pilot ejecting from his jet. My vision goes blurry as I struggle to breathe and maintain consciousness.

  In that moment, that nanosecond that I realize I can’t breathe and I might actually pass out, I check out. I let my brain slip into my nirvana, and I’m suddenly on the beach in Hawaii. The dull lights of the room morph into one bright sun, shining down on me in the middle of the most perfect day I can imagine. Instead of struggling to breathe, I let my lungs fill up with the humid, salty air that sweeps in from the ocean in front of me. I’m in my nirvana. I’m somewhere better. I’m somewhere happier. The bright sky is beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I barely notice the amber glow of the cigarette just before Damien jams it into my flesh.

  Austin

  “So how long you been with her?”

  “Umm, about seven months. I met her while I was in the academy.”

  “Well, that’s cool, Lieutenant,” I say as calmly as I can. The look on this guy’s face tells me that he’s nervous as hell. Exactly the kind of thing I don’t need right now. This isn’t the time or place for babysitting, but it’s in my best interest to make sure this newbie doesn’t lose his cool before we get there. It’s his first time out.

  “How about you, Captain?” he asks. I look down towards the controls and see his knee is bouncing rapidly like he’s trying to burp a baby.

  “Nah, none of that for me. Been off and on a little, but definitely more off than on. I don’t do serious. I just try to get mine and be on my way. Haven’t been in a rush for anything serious because I’m always out here doing this. I try to stay focused, because if you’re not focused, you make mistakes, and I can’t have that. Got too much at stake for distractions.”

  I reach up and adjust my headset and align my mic so it’s right in front of my mouth. Then, I glance over at Lieutenant Weston again. He still has that look of worry spread across his face as he looks down at the clouds below us. I can understand the feeling. I remember my first time out. I was sitting there next to the pilot with my knee doing the same bouncy shit his is doing right now, and sweating like the co-pilot seat was a sauna. I was beyond nervous. I was damn near terrified, but once we went in, everything went away. There was nothing on my mind but the mission. There was no fear, and that’s why I became so good at this job. Hopefully I can help Lieutenant Weston get there too, since he’s my new partner up here until my tour is done.

  “So, how long you been doing this?” Weston asks, still staring down at the clouds.

  “Well, I joined when I was eighteen and got commissioned earlier than most, and I started flying these missions when I was twenty, so it’s been three years now.” I adjust the headset again.

  “Three years, wow. Are you ever afraid?”

  I adjust the headset again, because I’m sure I just heard static on the other end, so I know something’s about to come in.

  “Don’t really have time for fear up here, Lieutenant. When things happen, they happen too fast for you to really be afraid. Fear can get you killed out here.”

  As soon as the words come out of my mouth, the transmission I was sure was coming blares into the headphones.

  “Whiskey Sierra, this is Echo Nest.”

  Lieutenant Weston snaps his head in my direction and his eyes bulge. I get the feeling he’s gonna have to get over his obvious fear real soon.

  “Go ahead, Echo Nest,” I reply after a deep breath.

  “Roger, Raptor Team is in route to extraction point three. Be advised, the team has taken contact. The extraction point has been compromised and will be under heavy fire. Be prepared to execute a quick pick up with evasive maneuvers. How copy?”

  Weston’s eyes look like they could fall out of his head any second now as he stares at me.

  “That’s a good copy, Echo Nest,” I say into the mic. The transmission ends and I feel my heart rate pick up. “Shit.”

  “Oh my god,” Weston says under his breath, then he looks up at me. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

  “Hey!” I snap. “Get your head in the game, god dammit. We’re here, and we have a job to do. If we fail, they all die. You want that on your conscience?”

  Weston looks me in the eye, and I can tell he’s really not ready. It’s his first mission, and it’s about to be a lot harder and scarier than my first one was, but I don’t have time for sympathy right now. I have to be a strong leader for him and for the Raptor Team. So, I don’t ease up on him. I stare at him like his fear offends me, like it endangers me, because it does. He needs to know how real this is. This is not a video game.

  “No, sir,” he finally answers. “I don’t want that on my conscience.”

  “Go
od. Me either. Now, buckle up. It’s time to go pick up our boys.”

  Without hesitation, I push down on the stick and the helicopter dips its nose down, and we fall through the gray clouds. The descent is like the world’s worst roller coaster ride and I get a sick feeling in my stomach, but I push through it. We drop through the clouds like they were never there and once we break through, the brown sand of Afghanistan reveals itself to us. The desolate location is covered with stucco houses that are packed tightly together like sardines. Even though it’s dark outside, you can see we’re in a third world country, with trash on every street and very few street lights, which is good because we don’t want them being able to see us anyway. But, based on the sound of the gunfire I can hear over the blades of the helicopter, they’ve already seen us.

  Even though I’m trying to convey to Lieutenant Weston that we’re not playing a video game, I maneuver the helicopter like I’m playing one. I grab the control and guide the Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter down the narrow street, just barely missing buildings with the propeller blades. I can hear the Lieutenant breathing hard like he’s about to hyperventilate, but he has nothing to worry about. Not tooting my own horn or anything, but I’m good at this shit, and I’m not going to let anything keep me from getting my guys out of there.

  It only takes a second for us to get to extraction point three, and in the same second we arrive, I see the five Raptor Team members running out of a building towards us. The three in front are running at us at a dead sprint, while the two in the back are running backwards while firing rounds from their M4 rifles into the building they just came out of.

  “Holy shit! Oh my god!” Lieutenant. Weston yells, his voice filled with panic. “Fuck! Hurry up, hurry up!” he screams as he unbuckles his harness and goes to open the door so the team can climb right in.

  “Hey! Keep your fucking head down, Lieutenant, you don’t have your gear on!” I yell at him, but he’s in too much of a panic to even acknowledge me. “Lieutenant Weston, get your damn gear on, now!”

  The Raptor Team is only forty or so yards away when the bullets start to fly past them and hit the helicopter. I can hear the rounds bouncing off the outer shell of the chopper just as we touch down and the first Raptor Team members jump on board.

  “Get in, get in!” Weston screams as he stands in the open entryway, waving his hands like a lunatic. “Come on, come on!”

  “God dammit, Weston, get your ass back in your seat. The door’s open already, you’re just in the way now. Come on!” I scream at the lieutenant, but he just doesn’t seem to hear it, and he continues to stand there as AK-47 rounds spray in his direction. I see him drop to the floor, finally realizing the danger he’s putting himself in, and the last of the Raptor Team jumps in right on top of him. The instant I see we have all five team members, I pull up on the stick and lift the chopper off the ground.

  The rain of bullets don’t stop as we lift off. I try to pull us up as fast as I can, but these bastards have a bead on us and they want nothing more than to see all of us dead. It’s like they have an infinite supply of bullets, because the gunfire never seems to let up as we lift off, and one of the Raptor Team members gets up and starts shooting out the door to try to give us some space. When that doesn’t work, I jerk the stick to the left and spin the chopper around so the nose is facing the enemy, and I fire off a shower of bullets from the Ma Duece machine gun. I only hold the trigger for about three seconds, but when I let go, everything is silent and it’s like the world is standing still. All I hear is the chopper blades above us.

  “Fuck yeah, Captain Sloan! Took those motherfuckers out!” one of the Raptor members yells, and the others cheer like our team just scored a touchdown. I smile a little smile to myself, then pull us the hell up and out of there before the next wave of terrorists realizes we’re still in the area.

  As soon as we’re over the low hanging clouds and headed towards the base, I glance back at the crew to make sure everyone is alright, then radio in. Mission accomplished.

  “Echo Nest, this is Whiskey Sierra,” I call in.

  “Go ahead, Whiskey Sierra.”

  “Roger, the package is in hand, and we are in route to your location.”

  “Copy that, Whiskey Sierra. Casualty report?”

  “Green, green, green, Echo Nest,” I reply, letting them know we’re all good.

  “Aww fuck! Umm, Captain, we’ve got a problem,” I hear a voice say from the back.

  “That’s a good copy. Job well done, Whiskey Sierra. Come on home.”

  I look over my shoulder to try to see what’s going on, but it’s too dark for me to see.

  “What? What’s going on?” I reply.

  One of the Raptor members turns on his flashlight and shines it at the floor of the chopper. All I see is red. It’s like someone spilled a bucket of paint all over the floor, and I follow the trail as it reaches Lieutenant Weston’s body.

  “God dammit!” I yell when I see that the Lieutenant has been shot in the stomach and maybe the chest area—it’s hard to tell because there’s so much blood, and his entire torso is covered in the red liquid. “Fuck, man, bandage him up. Cover those holes, try to stop the bleeding. Dammit!”

  My frustration reaches a fever pitch because I’m stuck in the front, and there’s nothing I can do for him.

  “Hey, Weston! Can you hear me?” I yell over my shoulder.

  He doesn’t answer. All I can hear is the sound of his heavy breathing, and an airy, bubbly sound coming from him with every breath, which tells me he’s been shot in the chest and has at least one punctured lung, if not two.

  “This doesn’t look good, Captain Sloan,” the Raptor Team leader says.

  “Come on Lieutenant, you fight that shit, man. Come on, breathe, Weston, breathe for us. We’re almost home, man. Hang in there!” I yell, but when I’m done yelling, I realize that I can’t hear the Lieutenant breathing anymore. I can’t hear the bubbly sound. There’s nothing.

  “I’m sorry, Captain Sloan,” the team lead says. “I’m so sorry. He’s gone.”

  Austin

  Two Weeks Later

  “Alright everybody, hold those glasses up. Let’s go, no exceptions, come on. Alright, listen up. This shot right here is for finally being back on American soil. For finally being able to enjoy a fucking drink. For making it home safe after six fucking months in the shittiest place on earth. Welcome home, motherfuckers!”

  We all clang our shot glasses together and liquid spills from each of them and lands on the round metal table centered between us. Then, in unison, we all tap the bottom of our shot glasses on the table and toss the drink back. Patron is strong as hell, especially when you’ve been gone for six months and only had Near Beer to drink. That shit is basically piss-flavored water in a beer bottle.

  Once my throat is over the burning sensation, I sit back down in my seat while the other five people around me laugh and pat each other on the back. My commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Curry is with us tonight, so it’s supposed to be a special occasion, but it doesn’t really feel like one to me. While I’m obviously happy to be home from my third tour in Afghanistan, I’m still having trouble getting the image of Lieutenant Weston’s dead body out of my head. The sadness and disappointment I feel from believing that we’d gotten out of there safely, only to see that one of our guys had been fatally hit still sits with me right here at this table, with its arm dangling over my shoulder, weighing me down. It’s been there since I saw him lying there lifeless.

  It’s not something you get over quickly, maybe ever. Even though I didn’t really know Weston very well, he was an Airman just like me, and like all of us here. His time in service didn’t match my five years—he was obviously young and wet behind the ears, but that makes it even worse. To watch a kid die when he’d just started doing what he wanted to do—it’s sickening, life changing.

  I watch them all laugh, wondering how nice it must be to be able to just have a good time without thinkin
g about the person who died on your helicopter, and I’m a little envious. It must really be nice. It was definitely nice every other time I came home and didn’t have to think about anything like this. It’s funny how you take things for granted, never even realizing that there’s another side to everything, even celebrating your homecoming. A lot of people leave for deployments and never make it back. So, how can I laugh and have a good time in this bar when a cloud that dark is lingering overhead?

  “How about a toast to First Lieutenant Blake Weston?” I say aloud, but I look down at the floor. “How about a toast to the people who deployed but never came home?”

  It’s quiet for a while, and I know I’m totally the Debbie Downer of the group, but I can’t help it. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a man killed in action.

  “Umm, yeah,” Lieutenant Colonel Curry says softly, trying to make me feel like he actually cares. He places his boney hand on my shoulder and gives it a slight squeeze. “For those of you who didn’t know, Captain Sloan lost his copilot on his last rescue mission of the tour. The guy who was supposed to replace him, First Lieutenant Blake Weston, was shot and killed as he stood in the doorway of the rescue chopper. Captain Sloan saw something that the rest of us are very lucky to have never seen. We didn’t known Lieutenant Weston, but he was an Airman just like the rest of us, and we appreciate his service and his sacrifice. To First Lieutenant Weston.”

  I don’t watch, but I hear the glasses being tapped together and then on the table again. The whole thing just seems wrong to me, but the last thing I want to do is bring the rest of the guys down. They’re happy to be home, and I don’t want to ruin that for them. So, once they’re all engaged in conversation again, I stand up and tap Colonel Curry on the shoulder as I walk away from the table.