My Broken Soldier (Love Conquers Life Book 2) (3 page)

Chapter 3

Carter

Fuck! I have a pounding fucking headache and my alarm is going off for work. Fuck this, I’m calling out sick. I haven’t slept in two days and I’m completely fucking exhausted. I pick up my cell, dial Derek’s office line, and leave him a message.

“Hey, man, it’s me. Listen, I have a killer migraine so I won’t be in today. See you tomorrow.”

I hang up as I climb out of bed to get some aspirin. When I walk into the bathroom, I see all of Patty’s stuff and it pisses me off. I can’t believe she won’t fucking talk to me. She won’t even hear me out. I get the two aspirin and trudge off to the kitchen for a bottle of water. When I open the fridge, I spot the beer and go for that instead of water. I down half the bottle with the two pills and then go back to bed.

I’m sweating and I don’t really know why. I take my shirt and wipe the sweat away.
When I do, I see I have dirt all over me as well. Suddenly I hear gun fire, and I turn to see my guys are lined up behind me. Focus, Carter, I tell myself. I have to get us out of here alive. I give the guys the signal to follow me, and they do as they’re told. Our mission is another rescue mission, but we need to be careful because we aren’t sure how many guys are guarding our prisoner.

My sniper up on the hill takes out two targets. It’s perfect timing because we need to move positions and that’s exactly what my sniper allows us to do. We all run forward to take cover behind this piece of shit stone wall. Colin peeks around the corner and gives us the okay to run, so we do.

We all take off into the positions we discussed in the planning stage of this mission. Colin and I head straight for the building, but when we get inside we find we are outnumbered four to two. We both quickly take out a man, leaving us two on two. I jump behind a wall and he takes cover somewhere else in the room.

I’m listening as I hear my target approaching me. He knows where I am, but I can’t see him. As soon as he rounds the corner I take the butt of my rifle and slam it into his face, and then I turn and shoot him in the heart. I hear screaming down the hall, so I take off in that direction. I hear arguing, and suddenly I’m frozen in place because I know the voice.

She screams again, and this time, I charge the room to rescue her. When I get there, I find Ben holding a knife to my girl’s throat. I’ll be damned if he is going to take her from me.

“Stay back or I slice her,” he says as he presses it to her throat. I can see a small trickle of blood dripping down the knife.

“Calm down, man,” I say as I put my rifle up in the air. “Listen, what is it you want?”

“I want Patty, but she won’t give me another chance. That means I have to take her out. If I can’t have her, no one can. Then I’ll take you out for taking her from me,” he says with his voice shaking.

Suddenly, there’s a commotion behind him, so he turns to see what’s going on. When he does, I pull my nine millimeter and shoot him in the back of the head. Patty falls to the floor, crying.

I sit up in bed, panting as I try to catch my breath. I’m drenched in sweat and shaking from the nightmare I had. I can’t believe I’m having nightmares again. I haven’t had one since I told Patty about them a few weeks ago. It’s been so nice sleeping without them.

I go into the kitchen to get a glass and some ice. I pour some scotch into the glass and down the amber liquor. It burns as it goes down. I pour a second and chug that one too. I need to forget. I need to forget Patty and the nightmares.

I’m walking back into my room to shower when my phone rings. I see it’s Derek, but I ignore it and go to the bathroom instead. I turn on the water as hot as I can take it and step in. I let the water run down my back as I think about what happened yesterday. I keep kicking myself for not pushing Olivia away sooner, but I feel like it all happened so quickly and now Patty won’t even talk to me.

I quickly wash my hair and then my body so I can try and remove the remnants of this nightmare. I finish up in the shower and then dry off, slipping on a pair of shorts. I snag my phone from the nightstand and saunter back into the kitchen to get one last drink. When I look down at my phone, I see I have a bunch of missed calls from Derek and Patty. I notice there’s also a text from Patty.

Patty: Hey trying to reach out so we can talk.

Patty: Hey thought you wanted to talk about what happened?

Patty: Guess you don’t want to talk that bad. I’ve left you a few messages as well as sent you some texts and you’re not responding to me. Do you want to talk or not?

I shout out to absolutely no one, “Oh, now you want to talk? What the fuck!”

Yesterday I wasn’t good enough to listen to, but today it’s okay. Oh, fuck no. I pour half a glass of scotch and down half of it before I sit on my couch, turn the music on my surround sound radio on, and drink until I pass out.

***

Patty

I’m so mad that he won’t answer my calls. He texted me yesterday, angry that I wouldn’t talk to him, and now that I’m ready to talk he’s ignoring me. What the hell?

I look at the picture of us from the dinner one more time and start to do some research on PTSD. I’ve discovered that people with PTSD have nightmares after events that affect them either physically and or emotionally. The nightmares can lead to drinking and other problems.

I’m getting nervous, so I decide it’s time I work on my book. I’m on a roll and I don’t want to lose momentum now. I’m halfway through the chapter when I decide that I need to read what I’ve already written and then I can finish it. As I read, I make a few small changes. Now that I'm happy with what I've got, I continue writing the chapter I’m working on. I’m about to finish the next chapter when my phone chirps.

Bella: How are you doing today?

Patty: Pissed.

Bella: Why?

Patty: I tried to call Carter and text him and he won’t answer either.

Bella: Really?

Patty: Have you talked to Derek?

My phone rings. “Hello?”

“Why do you ask?” Bella says.

“Well, I’m curious if Carter went to work today.”

“I’ll call you back.”

She hangs up on me before I can respond. I open the e-file I need to sign for my agent. I’ve gone through the entire contract line by line, and I’m now happy with it. She tried to sneak a line in that said I had to have three chapters to her by a set date and I told her to remove it or I wouldn’t sign. I go through it again, initialing each page and signing the very last page so that I can send it off to the agent.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Patty. It’s Derek. I hope you don’t mind me calling you, but I’m a bit concerned about Carter. He called off of work sick today, and he won’t answer my calls. When Bella called me to tell me he isn’t answering yours either, it made me nervous.”

“Why? He’s obviously pissed off at me that I wouldn’t speak to him yesterday, so he’s probably throwing a tantrum. I don’t understand why he’s mad at me. I’m the one who caught him in a lip lock with another woman.”

“Patty, I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is a tantrum. He saw your mother laughing at him. I think she set him up.”

“Is this your cell number?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’ll call you back.” I cut the call and dial my mother’s number.

“Patricia, darling, how are you today?”

“Cut the crap, Mother. What did you do?” I say full of anger.

“Patricia, don’t talk to your mother that way. Now calm down and tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Carter told Derek he saw you laughing at him after I ran out on him. What did you do?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I wasn’t even in the room.”

“Liar! You told me you saw me run out, upset, and that’s why you called me yesterday, worried about me,” I shout into the phone.

“I did see you run out, but…” she stammers, “I…I didn’t see what happened.”

“You know what? If you’re going to interfere in my life like this and lie to me, then I don’t want you in my life. Don’t call me until you’re ready to apologize to both Carter and I because I want nothing to do with you.”

“You can’t mean that,” she says as she chokes back a sob.

“Oh, I do. You are supposed to be my mother, and that means supporting me in my decisions. Not only have you hurt me, but this time you’ve hurt Carter too.”

“I didn’t do anything to that boy.” She sounds offended.

“Oh yes, you did. He has PTSD. Us breaking up may have sent him into a depression and caused him to have nightmares. That means he’s not sleeping, and if he doesn’t sleep that can lead to other issues, like not eating and alcohol abuse.”

She gasps, but she quickly tries to recover. “I still didn’t do anything,” she says, but I can hear her voice is shaky.

I have nothing more to say, so I cut the call and call Derek back.

“Hey, Patty. What did you do?”

“I called my mother to try and get her to admit to whatever she did, and when she wouldn’t, I told her I wanted nothing to do with her until she apologized to Carter and me.”

“That’s too bad,” he says, sounding sorry for me.

“Derek, I’m worried about Carter. What do I do?”

“Have you tried to go to his house?” he asks me, like it’s common sense.

“No, but I’m on my way now,” I say.

I drop everything I’m doing to go straight to his house.
I pull up a few minutes later and run right in. When I run past the doorman, he says, “Hi.”

While running to the elevator, I shout, “Hi.” I get up to his apartment, and I can hear the music blaring through the door. I pound on his door and scream, “Carter, it’s me. Open the door.”

I pound on the door some more, and when he opens it, he has a glass of scotch in his hand and he reeks of alcohol.

“What do you want? You didn’t want to talk to me.”

“I was upset.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m upset today and don’t want to see you,” he says as he walks away, leaving the door open.

I walk in behind him, finding a ton of empty beer bottles on the counter and a bottle of scotch that’s three quarters empty. “Carter, did you drink all of that today?” I ask him, noticing it’s only about one-thirty in the afternoon.

“What do you care? Just get out, will you?” He turns to me with a look of disgust.

“I’m worried about you,” I try to say calmly, but in reality he’s scaring the shit out of me. I’ve never seen him like this, and to be honest I would be fine if I never saw it again.

“
Now
you're worried about me? Were you worried yesterday when I wanted to talk to you to tell you that I didn’t want to kiss that girl?”

I start crying because he is so mad and hurt and I can see it. Now I feel bad that I wouldn’t listen yesterday. I’ve never seen this side of him.

“I’m sorry,” I say in barely a whisper. I certainly didn’t mean to hurt him.

“Why? Because I’m angry, or because you realize you should have spoken to me yesterday?”

“You know what? I don’t deserve this. I’m sorry I hurt you by not talking to you yesterday, but I was hurt when I saw you kissing that girl and I needed time to calm down so I could take in what you were saying. All I keep seeing in my sleep is her lips on yours, and it’s killing me.”

“Try seeing what I see in my sleep. Now get out,” he screams at me.

“You don’t mean that. I can’t believe you really want me to go,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.

He starts crying. “Get out!”

He finishes the scotch that’s in his glass. I run away from him, crying, and I swear to myself that this will be the last time he hurts me.

As soon as I get in the car, I call Derek. Sobbing, I tell him, “He’s all yours.”

“What happened?”

“He is so drunk. He was mean and cruel. He stood there, yelling at me.”

“Go home. I will take care of him,” he says. He sounds pissed off.

“Will you call me with an update?”

“Yes. Where are you now?”

“I’m sitting outside his apartment, talking to you.”

“Please calm down and then go home. I’ll call you in a little while.”

“Okay.” I cut the call and take a deep, calming breath. When I regain the control I need, I start the car to go home. Lucky for me, I only live a few minutes away. When I get home, Bella is waiting for me.

As soon as I get out of the car, she wraps me in a hug and says, “Let’s get you inside.” I barely make it through the door when I start sobbing all over again.