I patted his shoulder. “You’re in the big leagues now.” I hopped into the truck and Jase climbed in the back several seconds later.
Clutch smirked. “You look a little green around the gills.”
“I’m. Fine,” he choked out.
“Give it time,” Clutch said. “It’ll get easier.”
And it did.
By sunset, Jase was drunk for the first time in his life, and we discovered he was a happy drunk, finding pretty much anything and everything funny. We sat in the park office, and the booze helped the MREs from Camp Fox taste better. And I had long since noticed that apples and wine paired beautifully together for dessert. Clutch was quiet, though he’d already put a hurting on his bottle of whiskey.
Still, it had been a nice night. The three of us together again and not running for our lives.
A couple hours later, we’d all passed out, though I awoke to the sounds of Clutch’s nightmares. They were even worse when he drank, and he drank often.
“He still has them,” Jase said quietly.
I found Jase propped up on an elbow.
“Yeah.”
“He should get help,” he said. “There’s someone at Camp Fox he can talk to.”
“Get some sleep,” I replied.
Jase collapsed with a thud, and I figured he was asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.
I wrapped myself tighter around Clutch, and he quieted somewhat, but I could never break through his pain. Sometimes I wondered if he thought he deserved the nightmares and depression because of the things he’d done. He’d never said anything to that effect, because if he had, I would’ve firmly reminded him that everything he’d done was to save lives and that he was a hero. But, those kinds of words would fall on deaf ears. Clutch was the hardest on himself.
In the months that I’d known him, Clutch had opened only a tiniest sliver of himself to me. He kept things bottled up inside, acting impervious all day. But a mind was a pressure cooker. It could only take so much before it must let off steam or else explode. Clutch’s nightmares and killing zeds were his steam.
I was afraid of what would happen if he ever exploded.
Chapter XXIX
“Wake up! Wake up!”
I bolted awake and then grabbed my throbbing head. “Shh,” I ordered Jase as I reached for a bottle of water.
Clutch pulled himself to his feet, and I grimaced at him before taking a long swig. How could he drink three times as much as me yet wake up ready to take on the world?
“What happened?” Clutch asked, stretching his shoulders.
“Captain Masden just called on the radio. Colonel Lendt was killed, and both Dogs have gone missing.”
I got to my feet and stood, in stunned paralysis, as his words cut through my cotton-filled brain. While we’d been drinking and enjoying ourselves, the Dogs had escaped, killed Lendt, and did God only knew what else at the Camp.
We should’ve been there.
Clutch scrambled into his clothes, and I kicked it into gear and hurried as fast I could in a hangover haze. We were loaded into the truck in less than five minutes. Clutch drove while I finished dressing and we all took turns with the Tylenol, food, and water. Twenty-two miles later, I started to feel semi-human again.
When we reached Camp Fox, the gate opened and the guards motioned us through. Clutch sped down the winding roads until we stopped at a familiar brick building. I grabbed my rifle.
We jogged up the steps and through the doors of HQ, which had now become town hall, to find at least half of the Camp’s population milling around. Some looked like they were in shock, others looked downright pissed.
“Tell us what’s going on!” someone shouted.
“We have a traitor!” someone else shouted back.
“String them up!”
The shouting and finger pointing continued. I gave Clutch the look, the one that insinuated we were mice about to step into a mousetrap.