Tattered Love (Needle's Kiss)

been drinking or drugged up maybe. Anyway, she needed it, so I gave it to her. It took about six months until I realized she was just using it for her next fix or booze. Once she admitted it, I cut the cash flow off and just started to pay her bills, rent, electricity, gas, anything that came up. She called again early this month and told me she needed to meet with me.” I stayed quiet this time. I had plenty to say, but I wasn’t sure I could say any of it without showing my anger, and I didn’t need to do that, especially when Mace was opening up.
    “I met with her and she told me that she owed some serious drug dealers a heap of money and had nobody else to ask, besides I owed it to her.” I bit down hard on my tongue so as not to lose my boiling temper. “I went to sort out her latest mess and found out she owed more than even I had, $10,000. I can’t help her even if I wanted to.”
    “It’s not up to you any more, Mace. What happened to Belle wasn’t your fault; I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face if I have to. IT. WASN’T. YOUR. FAULT.” I sat up running a hand through my long hair, aggravated.
    “I know that now,” Mace whispered, looking down, his hand on the back of his neck, elbows resting on his knees.
    My face must have shown my shock at his words because he rushed on. “I know that now because you’ve made me realize I couldn’t have changed what happened. I wasn’t there. I couldn’t be there when it happened, and I sure as hell never thought it would happen. I have you to thank for lifting that suffocating guilt.”
    I jumped onto his lap and kissed him hard and deep, holding him to me “Baby, it wasn’t your fault. None of it was.”
    “There’s more, Scar, more I have to tell you and I want it all out. No more secrets between us. I don’t want anything else in our way.”
    I nodded my head once, how much worse could it get, right?

 

     
    Here goes fucking nothing. Shit!
    “You know I was in the Special Forces, and you know I’m not anymore. It was my choice to get out. The last mission I was on...It went bad. Real bad. The tour was almost over when it happened.” Scar looked at me cautiously but didn’t say a thing. “We pulled over to dismantle a roadside bomb. I was leading twelve men that day and only six came back without any physical scars. I was driving the first truck with Jude and four of my guys. Ace was driving the second rig. He pulled in behind me and took his guys to dismantle the bomb. I should have checked it. Ace missed the second trigger. Exactly twenty seconds after he finished with the wires, the bomb detonated.”
    My mind took me back to the day it happened. As I explained the scene, I found myself slipping into my own memories. It played out before me like a vivid picture show. It took me back there. I still felt the heat. I still heard the sounds. My head throbbed and my chest ached.
    “My stomach pitched as everyone hit the ground. A loud boom then screaming was all that could be heard.” I felt Scar’s gaze on me so I went on. “Half the unit was in the direct path of the explosion. I hadn’t checked Ace’s work that time. What was fucked was that I did on occasion, and I’d done it so many times before that I trusted him. I should have checked. All it takes is a noise or sight of something to get distracted.”
    The memories consumed me. “I started barking out orders and leapt into action, bile rising in my throat as I took in the horrifying scene before me. Half of my twelve-man team was down. I swallowed down the vomit that threatened to come up as the adrenaline coursed through me. He had missed the fact the bomb had a secondary timer designed to kick in after the bomb was disarmed.”
    I snapped out of my daydream and shook my head to clear it. My body ached as if I was back there. “If I was more alert, doing my job properly, I would have saved six men that day. I could have spared the families who now live in a world of torment without their loved ones.”
    Scar’s face had softened as she said quietly, “Mace, baby, you need to stop taking shit. It wasn’t your fault. Some things just aren’t within your control.”
    Rather than arguing about it, I figured I’d just keep quiet and snuggle down on the couch with my girl while watching the game, thinking I was damn sure this was as close to bliss as I was ever gonna get, and it was a hell of a lot more than I deserved.
     

     
    Just over a week later, I washed