Read The Four Horsemen 2 - War for Free Online

would be standing there, watching him like that? He reached out to grab the call button. He hoped it wasn’t anyone dangerous, because he didn’t want to get the nurses hurt.
“Don’t.”
    Russell frowned as the heavily accented command was issued from the dark. His hand hovered over the button, but he didn’t push it. Something familiar about the voice tickled his memory.
    “I came to see how you were doing.”
“Come out in the light where I can see you,” he suggested.
The stranger shook his head. “It’s best you don’t see me.”
Putting his hands down, Russell levered himself to a sitting position, but not without
    pain. The shadow rushed from the corner to operate the bed, making it come up to support him. Causing himself pain to get the man to move wasn’t the best idea Russell had ever had, but it had worked.
“It’s you,” he gasped, as the man’s red hair gleamed like fireworks in the night sky.
    “Shit. You weren’t supposed to remember me,” the man muttered as he slipped back into the darkness.
“Right. I might have been injured and sure I was going to die, but there’s no way I was going to forget you. I’ll admit I thought I’d imagined you, though.”
The man snorted. “I get that reaction a lot from people who actually see me.”
“Actually see you? What are you, like the Angel of Death or something?” Russell shifted in the bed, grimacing as the ache from his wound grew.
“Something like that.” The man eased closer, still sticking to the corner where he couldn’t be seen.
Russell hoped his nurse didn’t stop by on her nightly rounds. For some reason, he didn’t want his visitor to leave him. It didn’t matter that the man was a complete stranger or that they’d never talked except for once before on the mountain.
“The doctor said when I showed up at my base in Afghanistan I had some strange poultice on my wound. They figured it was some kind of folk remedy.”
Bracing a shoulder against the wall, the man folded his arms over his chest and chuckled. “Did they figure out what it was made of?”
“No. It’s a puzzle and I can’t help them because I wasn’t awake for it. What do I call you?”
“Call me whatever you like.”
Russell heard the shrug and the evasion in his voice.
“Okay, so Red, do you know where the plants came from that made up the poultice?” He grinned at the huff of annoyance Red gave at Russell’s nickname for him.
“I can’t say I’m happy with Red,” he admitted.
“Then tell me your name or I’ll just keep calling you that. What did you expect considering the colour of your hair?” Russell picked at the frayed edges of the sheets covering him.
“True.” Red stepped closer to him, bringing the smell of grass and heat with him. “I have a good guess where they came from, but I’m not sure I should tell you. It’ll just confuse the hell out of you and the doctors.”
Tilting his head, Russell tried to catch Red’s gaze, but Red wouldn’t look directly at him. Russell wanted to see if Red’s eyes really were all black without any whites to them. Yet, if they were, what did it mean? Was Red a real person or merely a figment of Russell’s weary brain? Did he have enough imagination to create a person who looked like Red?
“How did you and your horse get down on that ledge with me? Why didn’t the ledge break and why didn’t we fall off it?”
Red snorted. “I knew coming here wasn’t a good idea. Too many questions and I can’t answer any of them.”
“Why’d you come to visit me anyway?” Russell clenched his hands, fighting the urge to touch Red, who by now stood right next to Russell’s bed.
Broad shoulders lifted in a shrug as Red stared down at Russell’s blanket-covered thigh. “Not sure. You’re not the first soldier I’ve rescued. Yet you’re the first one I can’t forget.”
The confession slipped out almost as though something had forced it from Red’s throat. Red’s entire body relaxed and Russell finally