Intermix titles by June Gray
The Disarm Series
DISARM
BESIEGE
RETREAT
THE HENRY SESSIONS
ENGAGE
CAPTURE
BESIEGE
A Disarm Novella
June Gray
INTERMIX BOOKS, NEW YORK
INTERMIX BOOKS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
BESIEGE
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
InterMix eBook edition / May 2013
Copyright © 2012 by June Gray.
Cover photo by Artem Merzlenko.
Cover design by June Gray.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-0-698-14965-6
INTERMIX
InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
DEDICATION
To the ones who never find their way back home:
your bravery and sacrifice will never be forgotten.
1 | TENDING THE HOME FIRES
Henry Logan was gone. Just like that, the bus turned the corner and he was gone from my sight.
Not going to lie, that was one of the hardest things I’ve endured.
I drove his Mustang home from base with tears streaming down my face. I didn’t care. I’d just said goodbye to my best friend, my roommate, and the love of my life. If that doesn’t make me deserving of a moment of blubbering weakness then I don’t know what does.
Even the cop who pulled me over for speeding on I-45 took one look at the hot mess and knew. “Coming from base?” he asked.
I nodded, wiping at my face, not wanting him to think that I was turning on the waterworks to get out of a ticket. “Yeah.”
“Deployment?”
I nodded again. I was going to get my very first speeding ticket on the same day I lost the first love of my life. And thus, I brought balance back to the Force.
“My step-son left today as well,” the cop said.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” I asked, sniffling.
He laughed. “Not for me.” He looked at my license and Henry’s insurance card and handed them back. “I’ll let you go with just a warning.”
Really? “Really?”
“Deployments are tough,” he said. “Just keep it under sixty-five, alright?”
I gave him a smile, his mercy the bright spot in my otherwise bleary day. “Thank you, officer. I will.”
~
I dreaded walking into our apartment, and justifiably so, because as soon as I walked inside, the loneliness almost suffocated me, as if Henry’s absence sucked all the oxygen out of the building.
“I can do this,” I said out loud.
Immediately I wished I hadn’t taken the entire day off from work. It was a Friday so the whole weekend stretched out for miles in front of me, with wallowing and crying as my unwanted passengers.
Determined not to go down that road, I changed into my running gear and went to Earlywine Park, hoping the running endorphins would do something to lift my mood.
After an hour of running, I didn’t feel the high that often comes after a great workout. Instead I’d successfully exhausted my body so that I could barely stand straight as I took a shower, which only added to the general feeling of gloom that I wore like a second skin. That night I crawled into Henry’s bed, afraid of waking up alone from a nightmare.
I slept on the center of the mattress, hugging his pillow to my chest and inhaling his scent. With my eyes closed, I could almost convince myself that he was sleeping beside me but almost, in this case, just wasn’t good enough.
The next six months were going to be hell.
~
Beth Belnap invited me out to dinner that Saturday night. Her boyfriend Sam had also deployed so we were in the same shitty boat with a six-month long horizon ahead of us. This was the second deployment Beth had endured and had all sorts of nuggets of wisdom to impart.
“It’ll get easier, promise,” she said as we sipped our drinks and waited for our dinner.
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