Leave Me Behind

The sound of the IED setting off and knowing Eren stood on it hollows out my chest. All I can feel is the blood that seems to pool in the cavity. I feel like I’m fucking drowning inside myself.

I can’t live without him. I… can’t.

My legs come to a halt and Bunny stops, looking back at me with red-rimmed eyes and a quivering frown.

“I can’t go on, Bun. I need to go back for him.”

Her eyes narrow with sorrow and she shakes her head. “You know we can’t do that, Bones. He’s… he’s…” She can’t even say the words. My throat knots and I feel sick.

Jefferson and Pete glance back and realize we’ve stopped. “Bones… I know this hurts so fucking much but we can’t stop. We have to keep going,” Jefferson’s voice breaks.

I shake my head, fists trembling at my sides. “No. I can’t live without him. I can’t.” I hang my head and tears fall down the bridge of my nose.

Bunny wraps her hands around my head and strokes my hair as soothingly as she can. Her tears tap against the back of my skull. “I’m so sorry… but we can’t let his sacrifice be in vain. We have to keep going,” she pleads, and I know she’s right.

I give a hesitant nod and force my body to move with them. Each step makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Bunny walks close to my side and slips her hand in mine. I can’t bear to look at her. I’ll lose all my composure again if I do.

“One klick away. Chopper is inbound and touching ground in twenty,” Jefferson says in a low voice. I nod and secure my hold over my M16.

“They’re not going to just let us walk out of here.” My comment sounds grave, but my brother is dead. If they didn’t spot us before the explosion, they know we’re here now. It’s only a matter of time.

Bunny stills and snaps her head to the left, raising her rifle with no hesitance before letting her first bullets fly. The four of us kneel and raise our scopes to our eyes.

“Two incoming on our left,” she says as she pulls the trigger again. “One.”

Pete and Jefferson fire to the right and front. Goddammit. We can’t get surrounded, not this close. The blood in my ears beats erratically. I face our flank and spot three soldiers approaching.

“Give them hell, Malum.” I grit my teeth as I shoot the closest flank-side soldier in the throat. He falls to the ground and the others don’t even blink as they move past him.

Chaos unfolds as gunshots pepper the night sky. My lower side gets hit as I shoot a soldier in the thigh. We both grunt and before I can lift my rifle to shoot the next guy, he shoots again. My upper arm flares with pain and the shock in my system makes my hand stop functioning. The M16 slips from my hold. I quickly unlatch my handgun and shoot the soldier three times in the chest at point-blank range. His body falters and crashes into me. I use him as a shield as his comrades open fire at me.

Fuck. I spare a glance at Bunny as she unsheathes her knife and cuts a throat without a second thought. My eyes narrow in misery. She didn’t want to kill anyone, but look what it’s come down to.

Once the bullets stop, I drop the carcass and shoot the two men in the face. One of them looks right into my soul as I pull the trigger. I recognize him as one of Bunny’s guards. So much for them trying to help her escape; they’d drag her right back to hell if that’s what their master wanted.

His eyes dull as soon as the bullet shatters his face. His counterpart falls beside him. I stagger to my feet and press a bloody hand to my injured side. Pete and Jefferson engage hand-to-hand with three soldiers while Bunny fights off two.

I start to move toward her when I hear his awful voice.

“Bradshaw. What an unfortunate end to the Bright brothers, don’t you think? You just couldn’t let her be.” Jenkins stands ten feet away with a black knife and a handgun. His uniform is matte gray, making his slicked-back blond hair stand out even more. His sinister, dark eyes trace my features carefully, enjoying the despair he’s caused.

“It’s not my fault she can’t love a monster like you,” I say venomously.

Jenkins throws his head back and laughs. His smile is genuine—the malice that rolls off his shoulders is unbelievable. Strands of his hair fall over his forehead as he points his knife at me.

“If only I had a heart,” he says with a curl to the edges of his lips. Then he charges me. I’m slower in drawing my KA-BAR but block his heavy-handed blow. It sends sharp pulses of pain through my injured arm and my blood makes the hold I have on my knife waver.

Jenkins takes advantage of my agony and knocks my feet out from beneath me. The force of the ground knocks the breath from my lungs, but I prepare myself for his attack.

He tries to plunge the knife into my throat, but I block it with my forearm. I stab him in the thigh and he doesn’t even flinch. He just uses my momentary victory against me, letting his knife sink deep into my shoulder. My body convulses and I clench my jaw to keep from shouting in pain.

Jenkins smiles and laughs as he pulls my blade from his thigh and twirls it in his hand. “Who do you think raised our lovely soldier? She was nothing but a murderous little thing when I found her. Who do you think took her under their wing? Taught her everything she needs to stay alive? And you think you can just take her from me?” He claims to not have a heart but, clearly, he’s bothered by her disloyalty to him.

“She’d choose me over an evil fucker like you any day. You were better off as a memory to her. She loved you then.” I grin as the words sink into him. His eyes lose their malice for a moment before he shakes it and buries my blade into my other shoulder, pinning me to the ground and letting my blood seep into the earth.

I groan and try to shake him off, but he’s planted firmly on my torso.

Bunny shouts as a soldier shoots her in the stomach. She buckles and falls to her knees. Blood is smeared over her face and hands. Bodies pepper the battleground.

My chest seizes and every moment after feels drawn out and slow.

“Bunny!” I shout. Pete snaps his head up and runs to help her. Jenkins lifts his pistol and shoots Pete without a thought. The bullet strikes the side of his head and he falls like he was never anything more than a body thrown into war.

No.

Jefferson is nowhere to be seen. My eyes lower to the bodies where Pete had stood. My gaze meets Jeffersons’s lifeless eyes, his throat cut and oozing blood into the earth.

My throat dries and all the fight flees from my body.

Jenkins laughs and tears the knives at the same time from my shoulders. I cough at the violent force he uses to rip them from my body. He turns me on my side and presses his hand down over my head, letting his weight make my face sink into the ground.

“I want you to watch him kill her.” He chuckles darkly as he waits for his soldier to finish Bunny off. She fights valiantly for someone just shot in the stomach, but the man sparring with her is uninjured and lands a brutal strike against her face.

“Bunny!” I struggle with every ounce of strength I have and throw him from my back. Jenkins staggers to his feet. I deck him across the face and he falls on his neck. I fist his ebony knife and plunge it into his chest furiously. He cries out as I withdraw the blade one final time and slash his face. The sharp end of the blade catches his lip and tears half way up his jaw. My breaths are uncontrolled and my body rocks back and forth with the adrenaline coursing through me.

Bunny gets the upper hand while the soldier is sidetracked by his boss getting overthrown, and she buries her blade into his temple. His entire body convulses and he falls back lamely.

I return my attention to Jenkins. A darkness falls over me for all the lives he’s stolen from me, and I set to punching his face over and over. I want him to feel everything in his last moments. I want him to feel all the pain he’s caused. His teeth break and blood spurts over my face as he chokes on his incisors. I keep hitting him until his face is almost unrecognizable and raw.

A soft hand falls on my shoulder and I stop. My breath is heavy and uneven as I look up at Bunny. Her eyes are rimmed with red and she looks so fucking tired. Her hands tremble at her stomach, where blood streams from her small frame.

“Let me finish him,” she says sadly, with a grim set to her jaw.

I hesitate. The urge to strangle the life from him still vibrates at the ends of my fingertips.

“Please.”

I struggle to my feet and watch as she lowers to his side.

Jenkins’s eyes soften almost immediately.

He loves her. I look around at the carnage left in the wake of his so-called love. The number of soldiers he brought with him is evident in his intent. He wanted the fight to be fair. Jenkins was anything but unfair in the end. Perhaps even he wanted her to escape him.

Yeah, he loved her. In his own wicked way.