All for You Read Online Free PDF Page B

were heroes. They’d deployed, gone where the army had asked them, done what it had asked them.
    He glanced down at his cell phone. Foster was heading to the hospital with Wisniak’s stuff.
    The psych doc’s words haunted him. How was he supposed to have loyalty to a soldier who’d never deployed, never gone to war? How was he supposed to help someone who took resources away from the men and women who needed it? He had no loyalty to someone like Wisniak, who’d never sacrificed anything and couldn’t cope with life, let alone the army.
    There was no answer at the clinic. He shouldn’t have been surprised. The only doc he could get after duty hours was in the emergency room.
    He’d follow up on Sloban’s packet first thing in the morning.
    He wrote up the serious incident report about Wisniak’s being admitted to the hospital and sent it to the commander, then tackled the hundred and twelve e-mails in his inbox.
    The silence in the office was beautiful. He fell into the work until there were only a handful of e-mails that needed further action.
    The day that had started with a bang ended with a whimper and Reza couldn’t have been more relieved.
    Shutting down his computer, he headed for the gym, needing the time with the weights to wear him down enough so that he could sleep without a drink.
    Because tomorrow was a new day.
    One more day sober.
    *  *  *
    By the end of the day, Emily didn’t think she was going to have the stamina to do anything but curl up into a little ball of misery and die, but the weight pressing on her chest demanded she do something to ameliorate it. She’d long ago discovered the link between endorphins and her anxiety levels, and knew that if she didn’t go for at least a little run she was going to have to drink to get through the rest of the week.
    And Emily did not drink. At least not much.
    She certainly wasn’t going to fall into the same routine as her father. A martini at lunch, another after work, all with top shelf liquor, of course.
    No, she didn’t need that. There were other, better ways to cope.
    She pulled into the parking lot at the gym, ignoring the chime of her cell phone. She couldn’t deal with anything else from work today.
    Wisniak had been admitted to the fifth floor psych ward earlier that morning. He hadn’t said anything during the entire process.
    Once, he’d told her that all he’d ever wanted to be was a soldier. A leader of men.
    He’d built this ideal up in his head of what he was supposed to be. He’d never been good at anything. He’d thought he could be a good soldier.
    But he wasn’t living up to his own idealized image. He was so traumatized by his past and by his own perceived failure as a soldier that every day was a struggle.
    What he did to himself was far worse than anything anyone in the unit could do to him. His sense of failure was staggering in its depth.
    She simply counted her blessings that he’d come to her when the thoughts had gotten too dark this time.
    It could have been so much worse.
    Walking into the locker room, she changed quickly into an Under Armour t-shirt and running shorts. After stretching, she straddled the treadmill as she entered her weight and time. She wanted—no, she needed—to go hard and fast. Her family members worked out with trainers to maintain their appearance, and when that failed they went under the knife.
    Emily worked out simply because she’d learned to love it.
    Popping her ear buds in, she cranked up the hard core techno she’d learned to love before her sister had looked down her nose at it. Finding her rhythm, she focused on her breathing and just ran.
    In. Out. Her breath was rhythmic and steady. Her arms swung and with the constant motion, the tension in her chest melted away. She glanced in the mirror to the gym behind her. There were several guys lifting weights. One man’s expression was so intense and scrunched up it was almost comical. He was the kind of guy who would make very