Blank - Cambria Hebert Page 0,3

on one of my cheekbones that looked like it was almost healed, so it must have been more than two days old. My skin was olive-toned, deeply tanned, likely from being in the desert, and my face was now smooth. I turned from the mirror, not learning a thing other than I was one good-looking bastard (clearly, I had good self-confidence), and tossed my ruined and now wet shirt onto the dirt floor. Rachel was sitting at the nearby card table, and to her credit, she wasn’t looking at me. She was sipping a mug of tea.

“How did I get here, Rachel?” I wished my voice wasn’t so deep because, coupled with my large presence, I knew she was probably scared.

She set down the mug and looked at me, her eyes focusing on a spot above my shoulder. “I was out early the other morning and I saw you. You were lying on the ground, half concealed in sand. You were covered in blood, but you weren’t injured.” She frowned like that perplexed her, and after seeing all the blood on my shirt, it perplexed me too. “And you were unconscious.”

“Out where?” I asked, wanting specifics.

“Out driving. It’s mostly desert.” She shrugged.

“You brought me back here?”

She nodded. “Took forever to get you into the Jeep.” Her smile was amused.

For a moment, her upturned lips distracted me, creating a stirring of desire deep inside me. But that wasn’t what was important now.

“I was alone?” That didn’t feel right. I shouldn’t have been alone.

“Yes.”

Dread and worry speared me. I felt sudden anxiety about being here.

“I have to go,” I hurried to say, looking around for anything I might need to take with me. Then I remembered I had nothing at all.

Her eyes, eyes that purposely avoided me, now snapped up to mine. “Where are you going to go?”

“To find my team. They need me.”

“Who is your team?”

I paused. I wasn’t sure.

She took my silence as a sign I didn’t trust her. Maybe I didn’t.

“Look, I drove around for a while that day. You’re the only soldier I saw.”

“I’m not a soldier,” I said automatically.

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re wearing half of a military uniform.” She pushed out of her chair. “Are you American?” Something in the air shifted. I inhaled. Rachel was frightened, and I could smell it. Was it possible to smell someone’s fear?

“I’m an American. And I am in the military, but we aren’t soldiers.”

“Then what are you?” She was still frightened, but not as much as before.

“I… uh… I’m not sure.”

Her eyes widened. They were a deep green around the rims but a light green in the center. “Do you remember what happened to you?”

I shook my head.

“Do you know why you were here?”

I shook my head again.

“Do you remember your name?” she pressed.

That I did know, and my shoulders sagged in relief. “Vance.”

She nodded. “Vance. What’s your last name, Vance?”

I tried to remember. I searched my memory until there was nothing left to search. Then I shook my head.

“It’s okay,” she said. “From the shape you were in, you must have really hit your head. You just woke up. I’m sure it will come back to you.”

What if it didn’t?

* * *

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember. Sure, basic information was there, but the details—the parts that made life, that made me—weren’t there. They were just out of reach.

I sat on the cot, staring at the dirt floor, begging myself to remember. Why couldn’t I? My head didn’t hurt; my body wasn’t even stiff after moving around a bit. I had no clue how I got here, but I knew this wasn’t where I was supposed to be. It was beyond frustrating.

A power bar appeared under my nose. I glanced up. Rachel was holding it out, waiting for me to take it. “I’m sorry. I wish I had more supplies.”

I took the bar from her hands and slid it onto the nearby table. “It’s okay. I’m not hungry anyway. I’m still kind of nauseous from whatever happened to me.” It was a lie. I was actually starving. My stomach felt like it might eat itself and something inside me felt restless… caged.

But I wasn’t about to take the food from a young woman—a civilian—who already admitted to being low on supplies.

“You haven’t eaten in days. Your stomach is probably upset because it’s empty.”

“Maybe later,” I murmured, watching her step away to sit at the table. She was thin, thinner than I liked my women.

The thought caused