Page 34 of Tank
But he’s my disaster now.
I exhale, the breath sharp and thin, stepping deeper into this wreck of a scene, taking in the catastrophe that used to be my cabin. I train my eyes on Ricky, my boots squishing in the sodden mess as I close the distance. The smell, revolting and clinging, grows worse with each footstep, forcing a survival instinct I picked up in the service to kick in hard. I breathe through my mouth in quick gasps. Your mouth can’t smell, so whatever stench you’re trying to avoid won’t hit you as hard as long as you don’t mind swallowing the damn particles of the havoc you’re attempting to sidestep. It’s a foul truth, but I’ve smelled worse rot than this—a rancid camel carcass in the Iraq heat takes the cake; it swam with flies, its belly bulged and roiled as if it were pregnant with the perverse gasses that bubbled inside its fermenting rot—and I’m willing to bet Ricky will come out of this reeking situation alive. If he’ll be grateful is another question.
“You are a disgusting excuse for a human being,” I say, loud enough for him to hear, even if he’s lost in dopesick fog.
Ricky doesn’t react—doesn’t flinch, twitch, nothing. His eyes are glassy, rolling uncontrollably in his skull like marbles caught in a storm. He’s too deep in the hell of withdrawal to even know where the fuck he is. Or who the fuck he is. Part of me says I should just leave him right there, let him drown in his own damn filth, let him ride out the nightmare that I, God help me, understand all too well. But I can’t. I know what it’s like to be abandoned, to feel you’re clawing at rock bottom with broken fingers. I can’t because if I don’t do something, he might not make it through the night, and I need him. I need him in a way that more than justifies dealing with the discomfort and bile that comes along with a man being nothing more than a shit-covered husk. He might be a hopeless fuckup right now, but he’s not a threat, not like Victor and his snake-headed crew. He’s not useful right now, but this skinny bastard will be later. I’ll make sure of that.
“Alright, you junkie piece of shit.” I take the cuffs, unlocking his wrists, trying to ignore the sticky, smeared remains of sickness and sweat that cling to metal and skin. “You need a bath.”
He doesn’t even struggle as I grip him under his arms, dragging his useless, barely conscious ass across the soaked sheets and out the door. I dump him unceremoniously on the grass, breathing hard through my mouth. Then I grab the garden hose, turning the nozzle, holding my finger over the opening to get some blast. The ice-cold water detonates in his face, more effective than a bullet.
He sputters, coughs, gags, struggling for breath and coherence.
“You’re welcome,” I mutter, aiming the stream at his chest and watching him twitch back to life under the assault. “Consider this your wake-up call.”
I keep spraying, watching the filth run from Ricky’s skin in an ever-thinning stream, a mudslide of sweat, dirt, and sickness washing away until it trails off into nothing against the grass. The water, colder than the soul of a loan shark, slams into his squirming body, relentless. I lose track of time, knowing I’m blasting him longer than is necessary, knowing that some part of me wants him to suffer for invading my space, for dragging his mess into my life when I didn’t need it. The water blurs in my vision, an endless stream, and still, I continue with the baptizing. This prick deserves it for turning my sanctuary into a toxic mess, a goddamn nuclear wasteland.
But when I finally stop and roll my neck, I see he’s changed.
A little.
The man in front of me looks almost human again, a far cry from the ruin I found on my sheets. Maybe he even looks like someone who might last long enough to have a future, someone who can be repaired from the shit-stained ghost he was. He’s soaked and bedraggled, but he looks alive in a way he hasn’t before. Maybe he’s not as useless and broken as he lets on. Maybe I can do something with him after all.
I turn, rolling up the hose with sharp, jerking motions, feeling the pulse of the day, Bianca, and this long, grueling night grind at my shoulders. Muscles cramp and flex under the tension, my frame knotting itself into a mass of exhaustion.
A crunch breaks the silent darkness.
The sound of gravel shifting behind me hits my ears—a warning shot.
I tense, instincts firing up.
But I don’t have time to react.
A wet, desperate force barrels into my back before I can fucking blink.
I hit the ground hard; the air ripping from my lungs in a breathless rush. There’s no pause, no hesitation, nothing but wild, raw fury. Ricky is on top of me. His face is a mask of rage and terror, his eyes widened with madness, stoked by anger and pure survival instinct.
He screams like a banshee out of hell. Like a man with nothing left to lose.
Abandoned. Drowned. Desperate.
He claws at me with everything he’s got, wild and reckless, his limbs a fury of motion, hitting, grabbing, holding on. His nails dig into my skin, driven by violent desperation; with every blow, every movement, I feel the manic energy coursing through him like a fucking live wire. The first hit is wild — but solid. It’s square and hard and angry, a bony fist connecting with my jaw, cracking against it with everything he’s got, more than I think he’s got, and then some.
I grunt, twisting, trying to throw him off.
But he’s there and unrelenting, fueling the fight with that feral, animal strength that only someone as strung out and crazed and desperate as he is can have. He’s all bones, but withdrawal has given him something else—the strength of a man who thinks everything's been ripped away. Vicious and reckless and fucking dangerous. I feel it in every hit, every swing, every frantic, pitiful attempt to hurt me. He claws at me, the wild panic driving his fists to fly and try to land.
I block, counter, slam my fist into his ribs, landing the hit like a hammer. He lets out a pained grunt — a guttural noise ripped from his core — but he doesn’t stop. There’s no quit in him, not in this state. He’s too far gone, too caught up in the nightmare and chaos and need. Ricky isn’t fighting for himself; Ricky is fighting for that sick poison that burns through his veins, the sickness that drives him and his fucking mind; that, and something even more potent; something that will burn a man alive quicker than anything he can inject into his body; something that consumes him with the same fiery need, the kind that grabs you by the throat and makes you destroy anyone in your way.
“Vanessa.”
Love. Fucking love.
He says her name like a prayer. Like a curse. Like a goddamn battle cry.
“Vanessa.”
Her name spills out of his mouth, over and over again. “Vanessa. I have to get to Vanessa. She needs me. She’s sick, too. She’s sick, and she’s hurting, and she’s alone. Let me go. Let me fucking go. I’ll kill you if I have to. I’ll kill you.”
