CHAPTER 23
Bodie
My eyes flutter open, and I can’t help the groan of pain that slices through the center of my brain as the light filters in. I snap them shut again, the blessed dark providing some relief.
“Bodie?” a voice calls. It sounds hollow, like it’s at the end of a long tunnel. For a moment, I think maybe it’s God calling me to join him in the light or something, but fuck that… I’m not ready.
Plus, that light hurts like hell.
“I think he’s waking up,” the voice says.
Another one says, “I’ll get Kynan.”
Kynan?
Kynan’s here?
I struggle out of the black, open my eyes to barely slits so it turns gray. Two figures are hovering over me.
Pain throbs in my head, causing me to groan. It feels heavy, and I can’t lift it. I try to lift my hand to rub against the ache, but it won’t move.
“Don’t move that arm, buddy,” the first voice says, and I recognize it now.
Jerico Jameson.
I push against the pain and open my eyes. The two figures go from blurry to just fuzzy. Jerico is to my left and Kynan is to my right.
“About time you fucking woke up, slacker,” Kynan says with a grin. I have no clue what’s going on, but I can hear the relief in his voice. I try to smile, but fuck… even that hurts, so I don’t make it past a grimace.
“What happened to me?” I say, but my words are slurred as they try to make their way past a thick tongue that feels like it’s glued to the top of my mouth.
“Get him some of that water,” Jerico says. The next thing I know, there’s a straw pushing in my mouth. “Just a few sips.”
I try to pull hard because I’m so damn thirsty, but I get no more than a few drops down my throat before the straw is pulled away.
“Where am I?” I ask as my eyes sluggishly move around what is clearly a hospital room.
“You’re at University Medical Center,” Kynan says. “They had to put some pins in your elbow. You smashed it good on a rock or something.”
I lift my head to look at my arm, but the resulting pain makes me squeeze my eyes shut for the sweet dark again.
“Yeah, don’t try to do that either. You had a pretty bad head wound. I’m guessing another rock—”
“Rifle butt,” I mutter when it starts to come back to me. I let my eyes open again. “Cage and I slid down a really long rocky embankment trying to take cover. I took a bad tumble; hit my elbow on a rock. Later… when they found us, I took a hit to the back of the head when I tried resist. Cage was—”
I stop a moment, horror filling me. My entire body lurches upward despite the pain and immobility. “Cage… what happened to him?”
“Easy,” Jerico says with a hand to my shoulder to ease me back down. “Cage is fine.”
“He was shot—”
“And he was rescued right along with you. He’s recovering on the next floor up. He got out of surgery about the same time you did. He’s going to be completely fine.”
I sag in relief. He’d taken a bullet to his calf. While I’d managed to dress it sufficiently to stop the bleeding, I knew that every hour that went by without some real medical help might mean he could lose it.
“And everyone else?” I ask. All I remember is being ambushed in the middle of the night while we were set up on a short perimeter to gather photos and take notes of our observations to report back. It was on a small town at the base of the Tahtali mountains where a small suspected ISIS cell was developing. We were getting details on the number of people in general broken down by men, women, and children, as well as an estimate on the weaponry.
“Everyone is fine. The rest of the team made it out, and we sent in a SEAL team to get you and Cage.”
I give a slight nod and learn very quickly it’s better to keep still. “How long do I have to stay in here?”
“I’m not sure,” Jerico answers. “Your head is apparently hard as hell; that’s all checked out. Your elbow was pretty bad, so they had to put some hardware in to piece it back together.”
I glance down. My arm is bent at the elbow in a natural forty-five-degree angle, and splinted and wrapped from wrist to shoulder. It’s absolutely immobile.
That’s going to make it a little difficult to fuck Rachel properly, but I’m sure—
I lurch off the bed again. “Where’s Rachel?”
“Jesus, you’re a mess,” Jerico mutters as he gently pushes me back down. When my head settles onto the pillow, which feels about as hard as the rifle butt, Jerico steps to the side. Rachel is sitting across the room in a chair.
She sits straight, her hands held together in her lap, legs pressed together. She just stares at me, and I can’t read a thing on her face.
She finally stands from the chair, wiping her hands on the denim covering her thighs, and it seems her movements are hesitant. Her face is impassively blank.
“Let’s go get some coffee,” Jerico suggests to Kynan, but I don’t bother looking at either of them.
I only have eyes for Rachel. I’d imagined her face… her body… our baby… practically every minute of every hour we were held prisoner. I’d like to be the hero and have some glamorous story about how Cage and I were tortured for information, but they actually dumped us in an abandoned house and left us there. I was confident we were being held for some higher-ups within ISIS to question us, but thankfully we were rescued before then.
So, I thought of her incessantly. Sadly, I had no chance to dream about her because sleep was impossible with a crushed elbow and what felt like my brains leaking out of the back of my head.
When Rachel makes it to the side of my bed—the side with the busted elbow—I can see the dark circles under her eyes and the grim set to her lips. I want to reach my hand out to touch her.
To comfort her.
But I can’t.
Her eyes roam all over my face. I have no clue what it looks like, but I try to put on a cheerful look despite how crappy I feel. None of that matters now that I’m back home.
“You scared a lot of people back home,” she says quietly, her hands gripping the bed rail so hard her knuckles are white.
“Are you okay?” I ask, my eyes drifting to her belly.
“Yeah,” she says in a raspy, dull voice. “Me and the baby are fine.”
“You don’t sound fine,” I say flatly. I sort of imagined she’d be overjoyed to see me alive and well.
“I thought you had died.” I didn’t think it was possible, but her voice is flatter than mine.
“But I didn’t,” I reply in a singsong voice, trying to make her smile.
It doesn’t work. Her expression darkens, and her blue eyes turn almost gray with pain.
“Hey,” I say softly, my busted arm involuntarily trying to move to her, but it’s held in place. I sigh with frustration, and use my voice only. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“I can see that,” she murmurs. She even attempts a half-hearted smile, but it doesn’t obliterate the gray in her eyes.
“I heard my boy was awake.” It’s my mom’s voice coming through the door. Rachel turns and looks over her shoulder.
My mom walks in followed by my dad, who is carrying a cardboard tray with three large Styrofoam cups with lids.
Rachel backs away from the bed so my mom can come in. She smiles down at me the way I wanted Rachel to, eyes brimming with happy tears. Her hand comes to my face. “You had me so scared, Bodie Allen Wright.”
“Uh-oh,” I say jokingly. “Used my middle name and everything. I must be in trouble.”
My eyes cut to Rachel. My dad hands her a cup—tea, I imagine—setting the tray with the other two still entrenched on a rolling bedside table. He steps up beside my mom, completely blocking my view of Rachel.
Dropping her hand from my face, my mom holds onto the rail with both hands and leans over me. Her eyes shimmer with love and relief. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I’m so damn happy you’re going to be coming to Nebraska after the baby is born. Then I can stop worrying about you getting killed.”
I chuckle but that hurts my head, so I cut it off sharply. “Sorry to disappoint you, Mom, but I’m going to be staying. Rachel wants to keep the baby… raise it with me. So I’m staying here, and we’ll both continue at Jameson. Didn’t she tell you?”
My parents have been here long enough—given they were all sitting in my room waiting for me to wake up—that I assumed the subject would come up. I didn’t get a chance to tell them before I left last week, figuring I’d call them with the news when I got back.
I lean slightly to the left to try to see around my mom to Rachel, intent on perhaps giving her a reproachful look for not telling my mom. She probably felt it wasn’t her place, though, so I decide just a smile will be good enough.
Except I don’t see Rachel.
I try to lean further, and my mom gets the picture. She steps back, and she and my father both turn to Rachel.
Except… Rachel is just gone.
Silently ghosting out without a word.
“She probably stepped out to give us some privacy,” my mom says in a cheery voice. “Although why she would do that is beyond me. We’re almost family, you know.”
My mother’s eyes are on me expectantly, wanting me to be happy just to be alive the way she is. I’m feeling all kinds of dark inside, though, because I know damn well Rachel didn’t step out just to give us privacy.
She ran away from me.
“Bodie?” my mom says gently, calling my attention to her rather than the empty doorway my eyes had drifted to.
I pull a smile on my face, turning to look at my mom. “Yeah… I’m sure she’ll be back soon. Now, tell me the details that Kynan and Jerico left out. I don’t even know what day it is.”
My mom starts to chatter. She tells me we had been rescued day before last and somehow ferreted out to a U.S. Naval ship on maneuvers close by. I vaguely remember this, but I also remember them giving me painkillers, so I was floating high. After talking to the Navy doctors on the ship who felt we were well stabilized, Kynan made a judgment call to have us flown via a C17 medical flight to March Air Force Reserve Base in California. From there, we took a private medical flight home to Vegas, making it back in thirty-two hours from the time of our rescue. Surgeons were on standby and waiting when we arrived.
I continue to get the low down on my medical condition. Listening half-heartedly, I know there’s not a damn thing I can do to change circumstances.
A doctor comes in and checks me over. He says if I do well overnight, I can go home tomorrow.
A nursing assistant comes later and takes my vitals.
Lunch arrives, and my mom has to help feed me because I’m still groggy and awkward with my busted arm.
A nurse brings pain meds, and I have no choice but to nap.
When I wake up, my parents are still there.
Rachel never returns.