Fear of the unknown. Of what could be happening. Of getting home and finding out that someone you know, someone you love, was involved. Was hurt. Or worse.
Sam remembered that awful feeling from 9/11, the hours of uncertainty, the unanswered phone calls, the nightmarish quality of the news reports, almost as if Hollywood had decided to drop a CGI green screen against the Manhattan and D.C. backdrops and shoot a heart-wrenching action sequence. She’d lost several friends that day: two who were in the towers when they fell, one on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
Even one casualty was too much.
When she arrived at her house on N Street, it was just after 2:00 p.m. Four hours had passed since Brooke’s swan dive in class. Four interminably long hours. She was exhausted. She just wanted to take a long, hot shower, and wait for Xander to get back within cell range.
Sam took the steps to her front door, inserted her key. The door was unlocked.
She thought back, trying to remember if she’d locked it this morning when she left for class. Of course she had. She always locked her doors.
She heard her best friend’s voice mentally admonish, “Back out, and call the police.”
Sam shook homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson out of her head. There was a perfectly legitimate reason for her front door to be open. The only problem was the timing. She turned the knob and pushed the door open with her foot.
“Xander?” she called out.
“Sam!” Xander came barreling out of the kitchen. She was struck by how handsome he was, even with worry lines creasing his forehead. His dark eyes locked on hers. He reached her in two long strides and pulled her to his chest.
“Jesus, I’ve been worried sick. You weren’t answering your phone.”
She let him hold her, just reveling in the normalcy of it, how warm his skin was beneath his T-shirt, how she could just reach all the way across his tightly muscled back, his scent, woodsy and clean. He’d showered recently; the edges of his dark hair were still damp.
She pulled back.
“What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer, instead kissed her, long and soft, so sweetly that she nearly forgot everything that had happened this morning. Nearly everything.
When he released her, she smiled up at him. He topped her by several inches. He made her feel downright dainty.
“Trying again. Why are you here, Xander? Not that I’m not thrilled to see you, but I thought you were fishing.”
He draped an arm across her shoulders, walked her into the kitchen.
“There’s tea. It should still be warm. And I did go fishing. My guy never showed, and nothing was biting so I decided to head back to civilization and check my email. I heard about the attack and started down here immediately. I called as soon as I got here. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
Sam reached into her pocket. She opened the phone and saw a blank screen. It must have run out of battery on her walk home.
“Whoops. It’s dead.”
“That’s a seriously cheap-ass phone, lady.”
“It’s a seriously old phone, and I should probably get a new battery for it. Otherwise, it does its job.”
His playful tone changed.
“How bad is it?” He didn’t need to say more.
“I don’t know yet. Fletcher blew me off and Nocek said there were no casualties yet. It’s a biological agent of some kind. What’s the news saying?”
“Multiple contradictory accounts. I’m so glad you’re home. I was worried about you. Are you...okay?”
Sam knew what he was talking about. Since the flood, since she lost her family, these kinds of events had a tendency to shake her. Natural disasters—tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, floods—fed her anxiety and caused her to relapse into obsessive hand washing. She tried not to sit up nights watching the Weather Channel, but sometimes succumbed. She felt that the only way she could ever move past the fear was through immersion. If you’re afraid of spiders, you spend time letting tarantulas crawl on your arm. If you’re afraid to fly, you get on airplanes as often as possible.
If you’re worried a terrible flood might sweep your life away...
It wasn’t necessarily a healthy choice, but it worked for her.
Xander, on the other hand, spent his time avoiding all things that could remind him of his own stormy past. He didn’t understand her need to watch, to experience, to relive. To punish herself through others’ pain. He’d served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, seen things she could only imagine in her worst nightmares. He’d lost friends. He’d spent nights under fire, days in armored carriers driving IED-laden roads, weeks on foot in the desert, not knowing if each breath was his last. When he got out of the Army, he went to ground, alone in the woods, cut off from everyone and everything. Until Sam.
They were a perfect fit. Each damaged, each desperate. Each so very alone.