Surviving Today Read online

  “That was about stinging. He swore he wasn’t going to sting the turtle as he rode his back.”

  She stopped at the edge of the bed, shrugging as she smoothed out a wrinkle in the light blue comforter.

  “Both are poisonous.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Ouch.” He mimed pulling an arrow out of his chest. “Point goes to Shanna, despite the low blow.”

  She shrugged. “If the shoe fits…” She let the sentence trail off as a muffled chime sounded from the back pocket of her blue jeans.

  Great. This can’t be good.

  Groaning, she dropped down onto the edge of the bed as she pulled the phone out of her pocket. Glancing at the number flashing across the screen, she answered with: “This better be good. This is my only day off.”

  Marquell raised an eyebrow and reached for her waist.

  She glared at him and slapped his hands away.

  “’Hi, Griff. What can I do for you on this fine summer morning, while you’re locked in a windowless office dealing with stupid people and I’m at home enjoying my freedom?’”

  Yeah, there was no missing the sarcasm dripping from that question like melting ice cream on a hot day.

  She sighed dramatically while fighting a smile. “Good morning, Petty Officer First Class Griffin. What do I owe the pleasure of hearing your voice on my one day off this week?” she asked her supervisor and friend in the politest voice she could muster.

  A deep chuckle sounded on the other end of the line. “Points for a solid effort, Corelsand, but I know you can do better,” Hank Griffin admonished. She heard a thump and a mumbled curse from his end.

  “I’m not in the greatest of moods right now.”

  Marquell kissed her temple. She elbowed him in the ribs.

  “No? You? Really? You so could have fooled me.”

  She fought the urge to smile. “Smartass. Why the call from the office line Griff?”

  Marquell raised his other eyebrow, rubbing his ribs.

  “I was wondering if you wanted to meet me for lunch. I’m sprung from the second level of hell in about an hour.”

  She glanced at her watch. It was eleven thirty-five. “And which side of the bridge tunnel would we be meeting on?”

  The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel was a bridge that lead to a tunnel underneath the Atlantic Ocean. The open area above the tunnel served as an outlet for the U.S. Naval ships stationed at Naval Station Norfolk, along with other civilian boat traffic, like cruise ships. At this time of day, it could take an hour or more to drive the twenty miles or so to the Norfolk side of the tunnel. “Please don’t kill me, but I was hoping for this side… I have a date with medical after lunch.”

  She stifled a groan. Looking at Marquell, who was sulking—well, what passed for sulking for him anyway—she made her decision. The drive would suck, but it beat being trapped alone in the house with Marquell. If they met Griff for lunch, they could continue avoiding the topic they were tap dancing around like the pros they were.

  She pushed herself off the bed and grabbed her blue tooth off of her dresser. Once it connected, she shoved her phone back into the back pocket of her jeans.

  Marquell followed her out into the living room like a lost puppy. She grabbed her purse and keys off the loveseat and motioned for him to come on.

  Opening the front door, she conceded, “I guess. I mean, since you asked so nicely.” She clicked the unlock button for her silver Ford Focus through the screen door. “Nothing much is going on here anyway. I have a visitor from out of town. Mind if they tag along?”

  More like out of the country, but there were just some questions not worth inviting people to ask.

  “The more the merrier.”

  She didn’t miss the curious tone of his voice. They would cross that particular bridge when they got there.

  She took one step out the door, freezing mid-step when she felt Marquell’s hand on her arm. He cocked his head towards the sound of a motorcycle racing down the street, shattering the twenty-five mile per hour speed limit.

  “Hold up a minute, Griff,” she said, turning to Marquell. “The sun’s playing tricks on my eyes. That’s not really what I think it is in the rider’s hand…right?”

  Marquell glanced up at the two story house across the street, his jaw tight. “Probably, but that’s the least of your worries—”

  Crack!

  “Fuck!” Marquell shouted over her as she swore and dove back into the house, nearly landing on top of him as he kissed the carpet.

  That’s when all hell broke loose.

  The motorcycle raced closer to the house as bullets sprayed the front of her small ranch style house.

  She slammed her front door closed, scrambling over Marquell to get out of the way, thankful that she left the blinds to the wall of windows at the front of the house closed at all times.

  “Son of a—”

  She dove behind her leather sofa as more bullets riddled the front of her house, glass and plaster flying everywhere. She bit off the rest of the oath as pain shot down her left arm.

  It seriously figured that her shoulder would choose this particular moment in time to dislocate itself. She knew that hadn’t exactly been the most graceful dive for cover known to man, but come on.

  She ignored the pain as she became one with the carpet, covering her head the best she could.

  Marquell scrambled for cover behind the kitchen wall, a gun from his ankle holster in hand.

  She felt the shards of glass that had caught her prior to her swan dive to cover biting into her skin. She also felt something warm and sticky run down her arm. She uncovered her head and cautiously pushed herself into a sitting position against the wall.

  “Bitch!” she exclaimed, finishing her previous curse as she realized she was hit.

  Luckily, the bullet had just grazed her right bicep. She tore off the bottom of her pink tank cotton tank top and tied it around the wound.

  The hailstorm of bullets stopped.

  She popped her head up over the couch.

  Marquell peered around the edge of the kitchen wall. He took the opportunity to toss her the Glock he’d confiscated from her closet.

  “It’s loaded,” he mouthed.

  Shanna nodded and ducked behind the couch again. She had so hoped this part of her life was over. She listened as Marquell eased his way out of his hiding spot and cautiously made his way over to the wall of shattered windows.

  She checked the clip out of habit. It was full. She clicked it back into place.

  “Where those…?”

  She froze.

  Shit.

  Griffin was still on the phone. In all the chaos and confusion, she had forgotten about the open phone line.

  Oh, this was going to be fun to explain.

  “Gunshots? Well, they sure as hell weren’t firecrackers,” she managed to answer the voice in her ear. She closed her eyes as sirens sounded in the distance. She fought down a wave of nausea as white hot pain shot down her left arm, which she held cradled to her chest.

  “Those would be sirens I hear, right?” Griffin asked as incredulously as he had about the gunshots.

  “Uh, Shan, I think you need to come see this for yourself,” Marquell called from the windows.

  She pushed herself to her feet. The world began to spin wildly around her like an out of control merry-go-round, but she ignored it and limped towards the windows.

  “Sounds like it,” she mumbled.

  The motorcycle now came from the opposite direction, the gun gone from the driver’s hand. His hands weren’t empty, though. The driver turned towards the house during this pass, flipped them the bird, and pressed the button on the device in his hand.

  “You have got to be—”

  She was cut off by a loud boom.

  She stared helplessly as her car exploded into a large fireball.

  She looked at Marquell and simply stated, “I liked that car and you’re an asshole,” as she dropped onto her now bullet ridd
en sofa.

  “Who was getting shot at?” the voice in her ear demanded.

  She didn’t even try to lie. “Me.” She paused. “Though, in all honestly, they could have been aiming for my unexpected house guest, but somehow I doubt it.”

  “What?!” Griff took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m sorry. You want to run that by me again?”

  The sirens got louder. She swallowed hard as she attempted to focus through the haze of pain. At this point, what filter she had was gone. “A sniper—yellow bellied coward—took a shot at me. Then all hell broke loose when a round of automatic gunfire was aimed at my house. And then someone blew up my car.” She glared at Marquell. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say someone has it out for me.”

  She left out the fact that no had tried to kill her before Marquell showed up.

  “Um… Okay… I guess I’ll go in and fill Master Chief in on what little I know. Get to the office as soon as you can. You know he’ll want to see you. Keep me posted.”

  “Sorry about lunch,” she managed before the world faded to black.

  CHAPTER 2

  She was finally getting released from the ER. The cops had all the information she could give them. Her shoulder had been reset, the scrapes on that arm disinfected, the deeper gashes had butterfly bandages on them and the arm was set in a pretty blue sling. The gash on her other arm, from the bullet, had three paper stiches holding it closed. The scratches on her face had been cleaned up and a small butterfly bandage rested above her left eye.

  She had also somehow ended up with two bruised ribs.

  Shanna walked out of the sliding glass doors with Marquell. As they headed towards his black SUV, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  “I’m glad you’re okay.” He planted a soft kiss on her temple. “Cause, you know, as your husband, I’d kind of be upset if anything happened to you.”

  She snorted. “And you being my husband ever kept you around…when exactly?”

  He tried to hide the slight wince and hint of pain that flittered across his normally stoic features as they reached the SUV, but she saw it clear as day.

  He unlocked the doors and lifted her up into the passenger seat. He strapped her in and closed the door, walking around the Blazer and climbing into driver’s seat. He turned the key and expertly dodged the question. “I take it we’re headed to base before we head out of town?”

  Out of town? What the…

  Oh, yeah. She vaguely recalled a conversation in the exam room about having to take an emergency trip back home to Ohio for some type of meeting. She’d been too drugged up to follow the whole conversation, but apparently he was driving, she had no choice in the matter, and her suitcases were already in the back of the SUV.

  Which was how she was now wearing a clean set of clothes home instead of showing up at base in her tattered and bloody pink tank top and jeans. She’d changed into a light blue tee and tan Capri pants. Her trusty pink flip flops were still on her feet and her long auburn hair was pulled back into a messy bun.

  For the record, this whole trip back to Ohio was the reason the shady man, who claimed to love her and played at being her husband when it suited him, had shown up at her house this morning.

  Shanna groaned and shifted to get comfortable in the leather seat. “Yeah,” she mumbled, “because that is just what I need right now. A freaked out and overly protective first class sticking to me like white on rice and an asshole master chief asking questions and demanding answers to questions I can’t or won’t answer. Sounds like a blast. Party on.”

  “You need to sign you leave chit. Your brother pulled a lot strings to get it pushed through your chain of command on such short notice,” Marquell pointed out.

  Shanna rolled her eyes. He was acting like her brother did it out of the kindness of his unfeeling heart. He had no choice but to play it that way if he wanted this meeting to happen with her at it. She sunk lower in the seat as more of the pain meds wore off, choosing to ignore his annoying logic. She changed the subject instead, putting him back in the spotlight.

  “I meant to ask you earlier… Since I found you in my house, on my bed, does this mean you’ve decided to play at being my husband for another indeterminable amount of time before you disappear off the face of the planet again?”

  “Why?” He grinned. “Aw, did you miss me, Corelsand?”

  “Like an infectious rash. It would just be nice to know beforehand for once.” She smacked his arm. “And stop deflecting, Quinton, and answer the damn question.”

  “Hey! No hitting the driver!” He drove out of the parking lot, shrugging as he kept his eyes on the road.

  She couldn’t read his expression and that was never a good sign. That usually meant he was about to lie. And, if Quinton Marquell was anything, he was a master liar.

  She kept things close to the vest, she wasn’t gonna lie about that. She could lie with the best of them, but he out right looked a person in the eye and lied to them without batting an eyelash. More often than not, there was no thinking involved. The lies rolled off his tongue like honey.

  “I don’t know,” he said softly. So softly she almost missed it. “I guess it will be up to you once this little problem is taken care of back in Ohio.”

  That was interesting.

  Then again, her entire relationship with Marquell had been interesting.

  They had been together on and off for the last four and a half years. More off than on, but to his credit he was gone a lot.

  Of course, they had been married for the last three years.

  Well, technically, like eight months. That was how long he’d been home in the thirty-six they had been married.

  This last sabbatical he’d taken from their wedding vows had lasted six months. One night he’d gotten a call. The next morning she had woken to a note on his pillow telling her that he was sorry, but he’d gotten called away on business and would be back when he could.

  Six months later, she’d found him in her bed and had a sniper and a psycho on a bike taking shots at her.

  Any other wife would be scared. Suspicious and pissed off would probably factor in there somewhere.

  Not Shanna. It wasn’t the first time she’d been shot at. It also probably wouldn’t be the last.

  Granted, it’d been close to a decade since she’d been attacked at this level, but the drill was the same. Someone wanted her dead. Everyone and their mother knew who was after her and why, but no one thought to fill the poor, helpless female in until it was too late.

  Yes, that was sarcasm.

  It really wasn’t all that hard to fill in the blanks, even after almost ten years, but damn it, some advanced warning would be nice every so often. Especially seeing as her husband was supposed to at least pretend to be the one person on her side.

  To say Marquell was great at handling emotion was like saying Jeffery Dahmer was okay with being gay and didn’t turn out to be a serial killer. Yeah, she went there.

  Marquell was more the silent, distant type. He didn’t play well with others, but that was okay. She didn’t play well with the other kids on the playground most of the time either and, honestly, that was something one got used in their group of friends.

  Their relationship was just as complicated as everything else in her life.

  “All that tells me, Marquell, is that somewhere along the way you screwed the pooch and the shit’s about to hit the fan. So, why don’t you grow a pair and tell me what the hell is going on?”

  He kept both hands on the steering wheel and his chocolate brown eyes on traffic. “Screwed the pooch? Seriously? You couldn’t come up with any other phrase?” He risked looking over at her, quickly looking back out the windshield as she narrowed her green eyes. “Look, you have a gun holstered to your hip. I’ll take my chances and wait until we get back to Ohio.”

  “Honey, if I wanted to shoot you, I would’ve done it when you tossed me the gun after it stopped raining bullets.” Her voice was all sugar, s
pice, and not everything nice.

  “You were bleeding and wounded then. You’re perfectly fine now.”

  “So I’m right.” She stared at the water lapping at the concrete pillars supporting the bridge as they came to a dead stop about a mile before the tunnel.

  “What makes you say that?” He looked at her, eyebrow raised.

  “I don’t know. It could be the fact that I haven’t been shot at in years or attacked at that magnitude in almost ten years. Then, the day you get back from some mysterious job overseas with the intention of bringing me back home to the place nightmares hail from for some cryptic family meeting, the lead starts flying again.” She looked over at him. “Quinton, they came heavily armed and ready to party. I’ll bet my next paycheck that they weren’t aiming at you.” She shrugged her good shoulder. “It’s just a hunch I have.”

  “I’m not going to get into that right now because all will be explained in time.” He ignored her exasperated sigh and continued. “God help us all. I will tell you, though, that no matter what goes down over the next several days, I love you. There are just some things that sit between us like a big blue elephant and that prevent us from making whatever this is between us official.”

  That made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Honest.

  Cryptic much?

  She glared at him. “It’s called a marriage. Go ahead and say it. I swear it’s not a bad word. And, unfortunately for you, it’s as official as it gets.”

  “There are way to make it unofficial. Not all mistakes are irreversible.”

  “Did you just call our marriage a mistake?” she asked incredulously.

  “No. I just simply stated a fact that may or may not apply to our marriage.”

  “You’re just going to leave it at that, aren’t you?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “That figures.”

  “You look like hell.”

  Thank you Captain Obvious. Shanna barely managed to keep the smartass thought to herself as she stepped into the conference room next to her office. Marquell followed at her heels like the over protective guard dog he was.