Requiem for a Soldier (Requiem #1)

Chapter 4: Alone

March 28

Ryan

I've been staring at the same page in this book without actually reading any of it for the last fifteen minutes. I hear her quiet footsteps approach. I look up to find Ana watching me. Suddenly I wish she'd go back to avoiding me, as unnerving as that was.

"You said you have stuff delivered." Her voice is quiet and devoid of her earlier cheerfulness.

"Yes," I say, noticing she looks agitated. Is my presence that unpleasant for her?

"So other people come here? Do people know you're out here?"

"A few," I say, confused until I realize how to make my problem go away. How to make her go away. She can't have recognized me, so there's no good reason to keep her here anyway. The solution is beautiful in its simplicity. "The next delivery will be soon. I'll arrange for you to be picked up and you can get back to your life. Just please don't go telling people about me. I came here for peace, like you said, and I don't want to lose that."

"No," she says quickly, and I look back up at Ana, surprised to see she looks near panic. She rushes toward me and sinks to the floor. "Please, don't make me go."

"What?" She's literally kneeling before me. Now I'm even more uncomfortable.

"Please don't make me leave. I can't leave. I have nowhere to go."

Someone else, particularly an attractive someone else, telling me they have nowhere to go is a little bit grating.

"No boyfriend?" I say, hearing the derision in my own voice.

She shakes her head.

"Family?"

"They're dead," she says, and I finally see the tears gathering in her eyes. "Please, I don't have anywhere to go, and I don't have anyone I can trust. This is the only place I feel safe," she says as tears begin to roll down her face. I realize she's trembling with fear. "Please don't make me go," she says, her voice breaking as she begins to sob. She covers her face with her hands and cries into them.

I am frozen for a moment, surprised and dismayed by this sudden display of emotion, and clueless how to make it stop. I lean forward and hesitantly reach for her shoulder, unsure if touching her will make it better or worse. Since doing nothing certainly isn't working, I lay my hand gently on her quivering shoulder.

"You can stay, for a little bit," I say.

The crying continues as though she hasn't heard me.

"Ana? You don't have to leave yet."

Still no change. This approach isn't working. I sigh quietly and regard the distraught girl in front of me. Her family is dead, she claims she doesn't have anyone else in her life, and she's convinced someone is trying to kill her. I suppose I can relate to some of that. My friends, my real family, are dead.

"I don't have anyone either, not really. The explosion killed my best friend. Our squad was patrolling a town, looking for stolen weapons, when we were ambushed. Jeremy and I were running for cover when he stepped on an IED and died instantly. Half our squad died that day. The rest of them died in the attacks that followed."

Ana's sobbing abates, but doesn't stop completely. I decide to allay her fears.

"I moved up here after that. Every month I get a delivery, but I've never seen the man who brings it. Until you showed up, I'd never seen another person since I first set foot in this cabin. No one's going to find you here. No one knows you're here, almost no one even knows I'm here. This place is about as remote as it gets."