“On it,” he nods.
I’m ready to get whatever medical attention is necessary so that I can make sure Scottie’s okay. She’s all that matters. As long as she makes it back to her little boy in one piece, and as long as I can see her smile again, I can live with whatever hand I’m dealt.
The rest of the night goes by in a blur. I hear the buzz of the machines as I fight the meds to get updates on Katy. I hear “dislocated shoulder, severe dehydration, slight atrophy,” and some melodramatic shit about muscle loss. The list is endless, and I don’t give a fuck. Whatever fight I have left I lose as the burn in my arm spreads through my veins, and the meds take hold and whisk me away.
My eyes flutter open to blinding fluorescent lights. Squinting, I look down to find that I’m dressed in a blue and white hospital gown, with an IV in my right hand. My throat’s so dry that I feel like I’m swallowing shards of glass.
“Good morning,” I hear from across the room. The accent is thick, German.
“Where am I?” Blinking a few times, I shield my eyes with my hand, trying to adjust to the bright lighting.
The nurse comes into view to fiddle with my IV stand as she jabs at the buttons on my monitor. “You’re at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.” She stares down at me with sympathetic eyes.
“How is your pain?”
Pain? I can’t feel shit. Why am I in the hospital? “Uh. I feel fine. What happened? Why am I here?”
“Can you tell me your name?”
“Christopher Briggs…Sergeant Christopher Briggs,” I add, straining to read the nametag on her scrubs. Mila.
Mila writes something in my chart. Her head lifts from her clipboard, and her green eyes meet mine as the corners of her mouth curl up into an encouraging smile. “Good. Do you know how old you are, Christopher?”
I scratch at the medical tape holding the needle in my arm. God, this fucking itches.
“Twenty-five.” I can’t shake this anxious feeling, and I’m not sure why.
She uncaps the pen dangling from the lanyard around her neck and again scribbles in my chart, immediately sliding it back into the cap. “I’m going to check your vitals. You let me know if you’re feeling any pain. The doctor will be in shortly.”
My vitals? Iraq…the ambush. I retch as I recall the pungent smell of Jones’s burning flesh. My heart beats erratically as I gasp in an attempt to find enough air to fill my lungs. Gunfire…the smoke…the girls…I have to get to the girls—
“Sergeant Briggs!” I barely hear the nurse’s voice through the chaos that’s wreaking havoc inside my head.
“Scottie!”
There’s a commotion, and I realize I’m being restrained as a white coat appears at the side of my bed. Warmth snakes through my veins, luring me back into a daze. The room goes quiet as I concentrate on the sounds around me.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Christopher Briggs. I’m Dr. Porter.”
“Stop drugging me,” I demand as the sedative filters through my body, and I again have to fight to keep alert.
“Scottie.”
“Staff Sergeant Scott is in recovery.”
My entire body sighs with relief. “She’s going to be okay?”
“She suffered significant trauma, and we’re monitoring her closely, but we feel good about her progress at this point.”
“Her progress. How long have I been out?”
“A week.”
“A week? Jesus.”
“I assure you she’s getting the best care.” He looks down at me with raised white brows. “She wasn’t the only one who suffered trauma. You’ll need some physical therapy to regain strength, but despite your list of injuries, in a couple of weeks, you should be up and walking. You’re very lucky, considering.”
I stare at the tiny holes in the tile ceiling above me.
“I have a referral for an in-hospital counselor—”
“No, thank you. When can I see her?”
“Her body’s been through quite a bit of stress.”
“Understood. When can I see her?”
“She’s not capable of conversation at the moment.”
Unable to hold back, I flick cold eyes to his. “I don’t want to talk about the fucking weather, Doctor.”
He nods. “She’s just down the hall. But I’d advise you to keep your visits brief.”
It takes me all of half an hour to sweet-talk my night nurse into swapping my bed for a wheelchair, and minutes later I’m staring through the window at Scottie as she sleeps. I watch her for hours until I’m forced back into bed. I watch her the night after, and the horror that covers her features as she comes to and has to be sedated. Her eyes meet mine just as the medicine takes hold, and they flutter closed.
My days are spent pacing the halls in rehabilitation, and my nights watching her sleep. Scottie suffered a second-degree burn to her abdomen from the explosion, her wrist had to be rebroken and set, and she’s being treated for dehydration and malnourishment. I’m sure she has her own list of things I’m not privy to, but as long as I can see with my own eyes that she’s okay, I’ll deal with it.
Fear flickers through my thoughts briefly as I watch her through the glass, wondering what I’ll feel when the day comes that I can’t lay eyes on her anymore.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gavin
Noah sleeps in the bed next to me as I search through the docs in my lap until my eyes blur. I rip off my reading glasses and give myself a minute to breathe through the rip in my chest. My wife has been missing for fifty-six days, and every single one of those days has been hell on earth. Training my eyes on our wedding photo, I sink back into my search as my cell begins to ring.
“Walsh.”
“Gavin, they found her.”
“Hold on.” I slip out of bed and race down the hall to shield Noah from my reaction. Heart thundering, I step out onto the back porch and don’t recognize my voice when I speak. “Tell me.”
“She’s recovering at Landstuhl. She’s going to make it, man. She’s coming home.”
Pulling my head away from the mouthpiece, I grunt out my relief as my eyes sting. Roger speaks to the extent of her injuries as I take a seat on the foot of our steps.
“Jesus Christ,” my voice cracks, unable to disguise my anguish at the truth of what they’ve done to my wife.
“That’s not all.” His hesitance has my hackles rising as I brace myself for the worst.
“Tell me.”
The clarity of the night sky mocks me as I fall to my knees in a cloud of disbelief. Hope turns to despair as I disintegrate, clutching my chest. No. No. No! Not my Katy.
It takes me minutes to speak before I hear myself finally ask, “The responsible?”
“We got them. All of them.”
“Doesn’t fucking change anything, does it?”
“I’m sorry, Gavin.”
“I’ll leave tonight.”
“They’re still treating her, and she hasn’t been debriefed yet. You know the drill.”
As brutal as this is, there is no way for me to get to her until she’s been through the process. My hands are tied. For the first time in my life, I resent the army I’ve pledged my allegiance to.
“We’ll get her on a plane the minute it happens.”
I take my first full breath in fifty-six days.
“Thanks, Roger.”
“She’ll get through this. She’s a good soldier.”
“What about her company?”
“Recovering as well.”
“Good to hear.”
“Hang in there. We’ll have her home soon.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Katy
I come to sometime in the middle of the night, feeling the strain on my stomach as I lurch forward. Sweat covers me while I fight to get my breathing under control. I turn my head, giving in to the sudden urge to look for him on the other side of the glass, and find his eyes fixed on me. I’ve been trapped in this room for nearly two weeks, doctor’s orders keeping us apart. They wanted to limit my interaction to keep my environment sterile while my burn heals. While I heal. But my head refuses to let me rest, while my mind swims in the horrors of what I just survived.