Free Away From You (Back To You Book 2) by Jessica Mastorakos

home. I read
a lot, since there wasn’t much else to do when I was off work and not at the
gym. I had much longer days on the boat, so I was glad to actually have some
down time. The extra gym hours didn’t hurt, either. Most of the guys here were
pretty ripped, I noticed.
    I talked to
Olivia once a day. It was great to be able to hear her voice, but sometimes it
made things harder. She talked to me about hanging out with our friends and
family and it made me wish that I were there. For some reason emails didn’t
have the same effect on me. Maybe talking on the phone made her seem closer
than she really was. It was a painful reminder that she was home doing all of
the things I wished I could be doing.
    As if to
wipe away my depressing thoughts, I rubbed my hands over my freshly shaven
head. As Marines, we were expected to get a fresh haircut once a week. Back
home, Olivia cut my hair every Sunday night. Out here, it was much easier to
just shave my head myself instead of take the bus to the barber for the
traditional fade that a lot of Marines got.
    “Dude.”
Brooks muttered from the bunk beside mine. His tone was confused. “I don’t know
what day it is.”
    I shook my
head at him. “Monday. That’s an easy one. You spent all day in bed yesterday.
What day could you have done that other than Sunday?”
    “Good point.
Except that I spent most of the day napping, so I feel like it was actually
multiple, really boring days.”
    Before I had
a chance to respond, a loud siren went off outside our tent. The tone and pitch
of the wailing alarm sent chills down my spine. I’d been on vacation in Hawaii
once when they had a tsunami warning, and this bell sounded a lot like that
one. It signaled that something – or someone – was coming. Brooks
shot me a look that could only be described as fear. There were a few different
types of alarms that they used to alert the base. This one signaled a rocket
attack.
    The
automated voice of a British woman came over the speakers. The voice was
monotonous and creepy. “Rocket attack. Rocket attack. Rocket attack.”
    Just as we
were trained, we dropped to the floor and got into prone position, lying on our
stomachs with our arms over our heads. I turned my face toward Brooks. He
looked scared. I wondered if I looked scared. The sirens were still going and
the British lady was still repeating the same words. Her voice made the whole
thing sound like something out of a sci-fi movie. I could feel thoughts of
Olivia fluttering around the edges of my mind, but I pushed her back out. I had
to concentrate. I couldn’t think about her right then.
    “Get up and
get to the bunker.” A gruff voice from behind us ordered.
    Brooks and I
looked at each other and then back at the Marine standing by the door. I
remembered that if the sirens were still going after two minutes we were
supposed to take cover in the concrete bunkers peppered throughout the base.
There was a bunker about twenty yards from our tent. I couldn’t hear any shots
or explosions, so my fear that we were going to get blown up on the way there
felt pretty irrational. It was still there, though, making my limbs feel heavy
as I got off the ground and prepared to walk out into the open.
    Outside the
tent, several others were jogging toward the bunker and Brooks and I fell in
stride with them. I couldn’t help but scan the horizon for smoke or other signs
of an explosion. Right when I reached the door of the bunker, I thought I saw a
column of black smoke rising up from the flight line. I stopped to take a
closer look but the guy behind me shoved me into the cramped space.
    “This is
bullshit.”
    I turned to
see an airman with half of his face covered in shaving cream and a razor in his
hand.
    “I know,
man. Another day, another rocket.” Another airman replied.
    “This
happens a lot?” I asked them.
    The first
guy with the razor nodded. “All the time. At first we looked like you guys, all
scared and shit, but now