Toward the Sound of Chaos Read Online Free PDF Page A

can’t.
Others come back in a box. It affects all of us, even those who say it don’t.
They’re just better at hiding it than the rest. This last time, all that
returned of my platoon was the shell of a man, scarred on the outside and
broken within, and this town don’t have a clue what to do with broken soldiers.
    The
second I rattle open the screen door with trembling fingers, Nuke barks. He can
tell there’s something very wrong, and as I seek out the corner of my bathroom
and huddle into it, he whines and licks at my face. He nestles himself in
between my legs as I press my forehead against the cool tile.
    I
don’t know how long I stay that way, huddled in a corner as if it could save me
from the demons that shadow my every move, but it feels like days and nights
pass. And maybe they do—maybe this is what hell looks like. You wake every day
and do the same thing and expect different results. Only I didn’t do the same
thing. Not today. I pushed my boundaries the way Crenshaw told me to do and I
hurt Ellie Mason because of it. I terrorized the woman—I saw it in her eyes.
    I
beat my fists against my head until Nuke paws at me to stop. My ass is numb
from the cold tiles, and my legs and side ache. With a debilitating fear that
almost cripples me, I crawl across the room and lie down beside my bed, hidden
from the harsh rays of the sun that stream through the open window. Nuke
stretches out alongside me. I know I need to take him outside, but I can’t. He
won’t leave me, even if he could make his own way out, so I quietly whisper to
him, “Soon, we’ll go out soon.”
    Fear
has other ideas. It grips me by the throat and pins me down to the carpet, and
there we stay until well into the night.
    Stupid .
    I’m
a U.S. Marine. Nothing holds us down. Not war, famine, deprivation, and
certainly not terror. When others run from the sounds of chaos, we run toward
it. Me? I ran so far that I became the chaos. I reveled in it, wrought it until
I couldn’t wield any longer and it won.
    War
takes little toy soldiers and breaks them. Afterward, we’re glued back together
with pain meds and doctors that shrink our heads. We’re given shiny medals of
honor that are supposed to make the sacrifices of scars, lost limbs, and fallen
brothers worth it. But freedom comes at a price, and it’s rarely worth it. This
isn’t freedom; it’s hell on earth. There’s nothing free about a broken soldier.
    Nine
years I fought their war. Now, every day I wake and fight my own. All I have is
my guilt and my dog whose life is dedicated to making sure I don’t lose my shit
and blow my fucking brains all over the walls of my empty house.
    All
I have is nothing, and the cost of that was way too high.

Chapter Five
    Ellie
    B y
Friday week we aren’t doing much better. I spent all week feeling guilty, about
everyone and everything. I cried my eyes out when we got to the shelter and
Lady wasn’t there to greet us. I felt responsible for her death, because if I
hadn’t been watching Jake Damn Tucker in my rear-view mirror, I never would
have crashed my car, Olivia wouldn’t have had to babysit me, and she’d have
been at home with Lady and Pebbles.
    I’m
so humiliated and confused beyond belief. I’d puked on Jake one day, chewed him
out the next, and the following day he’d had a Spencer-sized meltdown in my salon.
I never did thank him for pulling me from the car, and I guess I had been a
little hard on him at the beach, but with the way he came at me, and then
seeing that blood on Spencer’s arm, and the torment in his gaze when I
accidently cut him—well, I was completely flummoxed.
    That
man just turns me into a walking hormone, which is so unlike me. Okay, that’s a
lie—it’s not completely unheard of for me to lose my head around those big,
broody, silent types. I did fall hard and fast for Spencer’s dad and look where
that got me. It seems the meaner they are, the harder I fall.
    Being
attracted to those kinds of men,