If something doesn’t feel right, trust your gut. I always tell my guys that. And right now, something just doesn’t fucking feel right. We’ve landed, but they’re holding us on the plane. I can see a few people running around on the tarmac, but it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary, outside of how frenzied they look. I feel antsy. Why are they running around in such a hurry?

I hear the boom and the gunfire, but that stuff is commonplace for me. I don’t really realize what’s going on for a solid fifteen seconds, which is way too long when anyone is unloading bullets into innocent civilians and blowing things up with who knows what.

This feels like those moments when I’m picking a patient up and the communication is so out of fucking whack that no one has any idea what the fuck is going on. Intel is bad. People are taking fire. The heat seeking missile flairs are going off. Patients are screaming in the back. I have no idea what in the actual fucking fuck is going on right now. Was that a goddamn bomb? In an airport? Full of military? Full of our fam—? Fuck. Fuck. I’ve got to get up. My wife and child are here, and I need to find them, sooner rather than later.

All of the guys with me now have begun to wrap their heads around the situation, and while we’re not armed, we take no orders from flight attendants when we de-board the plane together, all of us knowing how to cover one another as we enter the terminal from the gate.

It’s complete chaos. People are running everywhere. People are injured. Some people are just standing there confused and in shock. We all start assessing injuries, and when I see the guys in my unit taking care of everyone in the current area, I don’t think about it. I just go.

I begin jogging through the crowd, yelling her name. I don’t want to full pace run. What if they’re injured and can’t yell out? I’ll miss them. As I check on those wounded on my way through the terminal, I yell Maddie’s name. It’s a fucking horrifying sight, but none of them are hanging on the edge of life. I triage them as quickly as I can to keep them stable until the EMTs arrive. I close the eyes of those who have no pulse. I remember each of those faces.

What if I have to close Maddie’s eyes? Or Liv’s? I’ll never be able to survive without my girls.

I keep going. I know she’ll be close to where they keep the immediate family corralled. I need to get to her.

When I find her, she’s actually nowhere near where I thought she’d be. She’s not huddled behind a chair or barricaded in a small room. She’s not hiding from terrorists. But she’s also not moving.

She’s lying on the floor, not too far from a bathroom door, which is ajar. If I know Maddie, she got Liv to safety and then put her own life on the line. I push the door open quietly, knowing someone could be in there waiting for me. No one. Where the fuck is my daughter?

I shake off the sense of impending doom and run to Maddie’s side. I drop to my knees and immediately do a blood sweep. Jesus fucking Christ. There is so much blood. My hands come up redder and wetter every time I sweep another area of her body. She’s got a bullet wound in her leg, just above her knee.

I keep sweeping.

There’s blood everywhere, but I can’t find any massive bleeders outside of the gunshot wound.

“Maddie, talk to me,” I tell her through my teeth, swallowing the lump in my throat as I pull her shirt up to find more blood from shrapnel wounds. Her eyes are rolling back into her head, but she’s trying to talk. She looks like she’s been swiped by a bunch of tiny razor blades. It’s fucking terrible. I need her to keep talking.

“I couldn’t hear you. What’d you say?” I ask her as she starts to mumble things that make no sense. I can’t even make out a single word of whatever she’s saying, but it’s okay. I need her to keep talking to me.

“Talk to me, baby. Please fucking talk to me,” I mumble under my breath. “I saw the bathroom door open. Looks like people were barricaded inside. Did you do that? Where’s Liv? I need you to tell me where Olivia is. Please try. Is she okay?”

I find shrapnel wounds all over the place. There are thumbtacks in her clothing. What in the actual fuck?

“Mads, look at me!” I yell as I continue sweeping for blood. I need to find the worst bleeder. I have no MIST on her. I have no idea what her condition is. There’s been no medic here to assess her before I got to her. It’s a lot harder for me to do my job when I’m going in blind, but I’m going to get this job done if it’s the last thing I fucking do.

She’s shaking her head and moaning Olivia’s name.

I nod. “I’m looking for her. Tell me what happened.”

I’m searching around our perimeter, knowing Liv can’t be far. I call out for our daughter again.

“Cash,” Maddie mumbles.

“What about him? Tell me about him,” I beg her.

Then I see Cash running up to me. “It was supposed to be a surprise. We were going to party. Fuck. Is she okay?”

I shrug, checking her pulse and holding my hand over the wound in her leg, scanning the area for my daughter as I do.

“What can I do?” he asks me.

“Find my daughter, Cash.”

A look of awareness crosses his face when he realizes she’s not next to us.

“Oscar Mike.”

I keep sweeping Maddie for more injuries. “LIV! It’s Daddy. It’s okay to come out now!”

I yell, not giving up that Olivia is somewhere near me.

Maddie is a Tango 1. She needs surgery like yesterday. I really need to know my kid is alive. I can’t focus like this.

I yell out for Olivia again.

Nothing.

Maddie’s wounds are severe. I tear off a piece of her shirt to place a tourniquet above her right knee. Then knowing it’s risking infection, I tear off another piece and apply pressure to the open wound. The gunshot wound is a little worse than I first assessed. This thing is bleeding profusely, and Maddie needs blood quickly to resupply what she’s lost so she can keep fighting.

“LIV. Daddy needs your help!” I yell out.

Nothing.

“Blaze, I got her,” I hear from behind me. It’s Cash, and he’s holding Olivia on his hip.

Thank everything holy. She has a couple of scratches but mostly just looks fucking terrified.

The paramedics finally arrive, eager to help. “Set your shit down and help that guy over there,” I yell. They stand there for a second, trying to decide what to do. These guys don’t have training for combat wounds like this.

“She’s in bad shape. Do it. He’s a pararescueman. He’s got this covered. Can one of you stay to help him get her stable and one of you check that guy out?” Cash is rubbing Olivia’s hair, while talking to the paramedics. I’m rummaging through their medical bag, looking for their IV line kits.

As one EMT heads over to check out a guy in and out of consciousness, the other squats down beside me. “What can I do?”

“Please set up an IV. I can’t find shit in this bag.” I push his bag toward him after I pull out a bag of saline and ready the tubes and wires to hit the catheter as soon as it’s placed.

“Are there more on the way? What’s going on? Do you have news?” I place the IV tube just as he finishes taping the catheter to Maddie’s hand.

“No idea, but from what I can tell on the radio scatter, it’s terrorism.” The medic begins checking Maddie’s vitals as I keep applying pressure to her leg and look up to Cash and my daughter.

“Cash, how is she?” I ask, digging through the paramedic bag.

Maddie is trying to talk as I place an oxygen mask over her face. “Liv... is... behind... you,” she gets out before her eyes roll back in her head. She’s trying to pass out on me, and I’m not having it.

“I know. Cash has her. She’s safe. Stay with me, Madelyn. Talk to me. Tell me about your day.” She nods and starts talking. I can’t understand her, and she’s slow to form sentences, but that’s okay. She’s talking.

“Cash. Update,” I say as I realize Maddie is having trouble breathing.

“Shh. Deep breath. Take a deep breath for me.” I meet her eyes with mine. She’s still with me.

I push harder into the wound on her leg as I see blood starting to spill out from underneath my hands. She’s getting anxious. Her heart is pumping blood faster, and she’s already lost too much. I know it hurts her, but I’ve got to stop the bleeding the best I can. I take a deep breath, remove my man-made tourniquet, and dig my fingers into the gunshot wound.

She screams.

“I know, baby. Hang on. I’m going to get you something.”

“GARRISON!”

Cash Garrison is holding Olivia so her back is to us, pushing Olivia’s hair behind her ear. “She’s scratched but not seriously injured.”

“Take her to the hospital please. Get her checked out and please don’t let her out of your sight.”

I don’t want her to see her mom like this. I say as much to Cash, and he tells me there’s a staging center at the trauma hospital. They’re taking her there to get her minor wounds cleaned up. I nod as he leans her toward me. I cover the view of Maddie’s body with my own as I smile and kiss Olivia’s forehead. “I’ll see you soon, baby.”

Olivia looks from me to what she can see of Maddie and then back to me again, as if she’s asking what’s going on.

“Daddy’s doing everything he can. Go with Mr. Cash. Daddy will come get you soon.” I kiss her again, holding on a little longer than I should. The paramedic finds a particularly deep wound and starts to wrap it tightly.

Maddie screams again.

“Go, baby,” I tell her sternly. “I love you.”

“Anything else I can do, man?” Cash asks me.

“You’re doing the most important job for me right now. Don’t let her out of your sight,” I tell him, turning back to Maddie.

“Wilco, brother,” Cash says as he jogs off to get Liv to the staging area. I tear through the shitty civilian tools I’ve got at my disposal. This is nothing like what I’m given overseas.

“FUCK!” I yell to no one as I notice her fluids aren’t hitting her veins as quickly as they should. Her veins are too weak. I slow the drip down and kink the tubing with my hand, trying to let her veins take a break and recover before they blow completely. I slowly let go of the kink and allow the fluids enter the catheter at a slower pace. As soon as I see her body is tolerating the intake of fluids, I yell to another medic nearby that I need blood and transport.

I take her vitals. They’re not good enough to knock her out. They’re not good enough to give her much of anything for pain, for that matter.

She’s screaming in pain as I hang the blood to the IV line when the medic tosses it to me. We get a call that the helicopter is ready, and it couldn’t come quickly enough. She needs immediate transport. This can’t wait for an ambulance.

We’re still within The Golden Hour. She’s going to be okay. That becomes my mantra for the next few minutes. Over and over in my head, I repeat that we’re within The Golden Hour and she’s going to be fine.

The medic comes over to help me get her on the stretcher. I tell him I can handle it when he looks to be getting ready to push her to the copter with me. He goes back to a less critical but still very seriously injured patient.

I run Maddie to the awaiting trauma helicopter and get her on board with the help of some civilians and the onboard medics. The medics on board try to take over. I want to fight them on it, but I know it’s not in Maddie’s best interest. I tell them everything I did in the field, giving them a MIST. They look momentarily boggled as to why my report is thorough and how I know what’s going on, being that I’m dressed in my camis.

“I’m pararescue,” I tell them gruffly. “Are you going to get to work, or should I take over? This is my fucking wife.”

There’s this look of sheer determination that crosses their faces when I say it. One brings me a headset, and they get to work stabilizing her a little better than I could in the field with minimal equipment.

I want to push them out of the way or interrupt them with a different option every time they do something, but I know she’s in capable hands and fuck, I need a moment to re-center.

I finally let my emotions show and nod solemnly as they report her vitals. She’s tachycardic, and her breathing is slow and shallow.

We take off, me kneeling at her head, brushing her hair out of her bloodied face and talking to her. She’s looking at me with that lost look in her eyes I’ve seen too many times, and I shake my head at her.

“No, ma’am, don’t you even fucking think about it, Mads. Stay with me,” I yell over the helicopter noise. She’s nodding, gripping my forearm. I can’t do anything else, so I start talking. I’m just rambling. I’m telling her Cash has Liv, that Olivia is okay. I’m telling her so many people are going to be alright. I’m telling her how beautiful she is and how much I missed her. I’m telling her how beautiful our daughter is and how I can’t wait to hold them both at once. I lock eyes with her to keep her with me as I talk. Her grip loosens as she relaxes a little, so I lean down, resting my forehead on hers. I lock eyes with her again and start talking lower.

“Stay with me. That’s the deal,” I keep reminding her. Every time I do, she nods. She’s nodding for what seems like the millionth time when she suddenly starts gasping for air again.

Fuck. No.

I alert the medic on board that I need more oxygen flow.

Maddie still can’t breathe.

“Breathe. Deep breaths,” I yell at her. I’m shaking her sternum with my fist, and I’m taking breaths with her because I feel like I’m dying, too.

She shakes her head. She starts clawing at my forearms. She’s wheezing, and I can tell from the short, quick gasps she’s taking that the oxygen flow isn’t doing the job. I yell for one of the medics on board to take a listen. After listening to both of her lungs with his stethoscope, he yells back that her breath sounds aren’t good.

I have a hunch as to what’s going on, but I don’t want to believe it.

She’s got a tension pneumothorax, probably from being so close to the bomb that went off. I’ve seen it a lot, but it doesn’t make me feel any more prepared for what’s going to need to happen.

I need to get her stable, because the worse this gets, the harder it’s going to be for her to breathe, and it could kill her quickly. Her body needs that oxygen supply; otherwise, all this blood we’re hanging does no fucking good.

I turn her over on her side to see if I can get her body to absorb more oxygen and deal with the trauma on it’s own. It doesn’t seem to be helping at all so one of the medics places a new oxygen mask over Maddie’s mouth and nose.

She fights against the oxygen mask the medic is desperately trying to keep in place.

I reach over, placing my hand over the mask and rubbing her cheek, but she doesn’t stop. She’s writhing, acting seriously fucking belligerent. I can see the veins in her neck popping out with a fury, and I realize her trachea is likely deviated. She needs help, and now. Her lung is in the process of collapsing on me. I know it. She knows it. She knows something is going really wrong. I can tell by the way her eyes frantically search mine, begging me.

“Fuck, Maddie. Stop fucking fighting with me, love. Please.” She moves her hand and grips my forearm, squeezing over and over, her eyes darting back and forth watching mine, between the moments that they roll back in her head.

She begins gasping quicker, really working for oxygen, as the grip she has on my arm tightens.

This isn’t happening right now.

I lean closer to her ear and yell so she can hear me over the helicopter. “Maddie, I need you to stay with me. Watch me. Don’t try to talk. Just stay with me.”

She nods, her mental alertness dropping off way more quickly than I’d like.

Fuck me. Why?

I don’t have time to think this over. Maddie needs oxygen, and she needs it now. I know what I have to do, even though I fucking hate every single motherfucking time I’ve ever had to do it.

I motion to the medic that I need a syringe to relieve some of the pressure in her lungs, but he doesn’t understand me. I lean over and yell for a syringe. She won’t survive without the ability to replace the oxygen she’s consistently losing with her gasps. I don’t have time to try to figure out where they keep their shit. He doesn’t really question me. He knows the situation is dire now, too.

Another medic reaches over and hangs a second bag of saline fluids and another bag of blood. At least she’s on my level. The male medic passes me a syringe, and then he pulls out morphine and moves to pull it with a syringe.

“No! Get Ketamine,” I yell. “IM!”

I’ve got to be careful here. This is a last resort, and I’d much rather wait to get her to the hospital for a chest tube, but Maddie doesn’t have time to wait to land and get into a trauma bay. She needs to breathe, right fucking now. Since she can’t do it on her own, I’m going to do it for her.

I yell for a vital check as I ready the syringe again. Good news. Now that blood is on board, her vitals look at least a little better. They don’t look great, but they’re stable enough for being on pain medication. Thank God because she’s gonna need something to be still. Plus, it’ll really help with her pain… if I don’t fucking kill her.

The medic with the drugs nods and pushes ketamine into her arm. She relaxes against me moments later. I quickly slip out from behind her, and as I’m about to push the needle into her rib space, we hit some bad air. That’s not great for my psyche. She needs this oxygen, like, yesterday at this point. Without it, she’s most certainly going to die.

“DAMMIT!” I yell aloud again to no one but myself and take a deep breath.

I can do this. I don’t have time for a pep talk. No emotions. Just place the needle and give my girl some relief. I steady my hand, and I insert the large syringe into her rib space with one silent prayer, even though I haven’t prayed since my first deployment.

The medic pumps the oxygen bag for her.

Somehow the fuck-everything-in-your-life gods haven’t had quite enough fun with me yet. Her vitals bottom out for a second, and all I can do is worry that I’ve done unnecessary damage to Maddie’s lungs.

I watch, and I wait.

I can’t hear the sound because of the copter, but I see the whoosh of air as Maddie’s lungs start to even out and she takes a deep breath. She’s still not comfortable. It doesn’t feel good and now her risks for complications have gone up even more, but at least she’s getting oxygen. At least she’s breathing.

I see the medic replacing the oxygen mask on her face to make it more comfortable for her. It feels a little like my prayer was answered when this medic chick matches me pace for pace on this procedure, and I silently take back my asshole statement about gods having fun with me.

The female medic continues watching and adjusting the oxygen levels for Maddie, and finally, after way too fucking long, Maddie’s vitals start to look better.

She can breathe again.

“That’s it, baby. Good girl.” I kiss her forehead. One tear falls down my face onto hers, and I see her hand moving out of the corner of my eye. I take hold of it, and she squeezes three and a half times.

I smile as I feel tears really start to come on. We used to do this in high school when we couldn’t kiss. It was our way of saying I love you. We’ve used squeezes our whole relationship to say what words couldn’t always say.

I squeeze her hand two and a half times and kiss her bloodied forehead once again.

Everyone looks relieved we made it over that hurdle. Two scares too many in my opinion.

The medics on board pat me on the back as I move over to lean on my knees with my head against the wall of the helicopter.

Jesus, this is the worst day of my life.

I never thought a day in the life stateside would be as bad as my time spent rescuing people from a war zone. I definitely never thought a day here could be worse than any of my days at war.

Once on a deployment in Afghanistan, I had my finger knuckle deep in an American soldier’s neck. He was screaming that he didn’t know where the fire was coming from. He was screaming at me not to let him die. Other casualties were screaming around him. I was trying to keep him from bleeding out and hoping there wasn’t a rifle aimed at my head from a click or two away. And this? This was a fuck-of-a-shit-ton worse than that.

I lost people I knew way more often than anyone should have to. I had to push guys to keep going when all they deserved to do was mourn. I deserve to be angry. I deserve to be hurt. But I’m going to keep going because the same shit that happened in war is happening now. Just on a different battlefield. I’m going to make her better. Not snuggle myself up and cry about it. I can’t let my emotions get to me.

“Approaching hospital. Five minutes out,” I hear over my headset. I breathe a sigh of relief. She’s stable, and we’ve almost made it to the hospital.

Now I just need her to hang on through the surgery and recovery part of this new flightpath we’ve just been placed on.

There’s not much we can do except keep her stable until we land, and the minutes seem to be ticking by. Over the headset, I ask for an updated landing time, checking the estimated attack time with how much time we’ve spent stabilizing her. I need to know I still have her within The Golden Hour.

“Just about two minutes out,” the pilot advises me.

“Roger. Thanks,” I tell him, pulling myself together and moving back to Maddie, who’s now resting because of the drugs. My strong girl stayed with me through the pain and confusion. She stayed with me through the blood loss and oxygen deprivation. She is a beast that has never gotten enough credit in her arena of badassery. My stomach is in knots. I am so fucking anxious to get to Olivia but happy she’s in the capable hands of Cash Garrison. I stop for a second, to be thankful, something I learned to do on my first deployment when shit looked grim.

Garrison being here, trying to surprise me (probably at the expense of Maddie begging) was really nice, and I’m lucky to have a friend in him. I am so motherfucking glad he was there to be strong for my little girl while I was being strong for her mama and myself. I make a mental note to thank him for being such a good friend and such a good man. Such a good soldier.

As the medics on board begin readying Maddie for transfer to the hospital, I continue to check for any other wounds that might need attention and wrap the big bleeders. There are thumbtacks in her skin. I noticed the thumbtacks in her hoodie at the attack site, but I hadn’t realized until now that they had actually pierced her skin. Whoever is responsible for this attack is going to feel my fucking wrath if it’s the last thing I do for my family.

This is some of the worst shit I’ve ever seen in my life.

We get her to the hospital where my medic training and rank gets me nowhere. I have no pull. The trauma surgeon on call tries to kick me out of the room after I give him the report from the scene, transfer, and last check. I advise him of all wounds I’ve found. He tells me they’ve been seeing similar wounds. I nod and tell him the wound in her leg was the worst and advise him of the needle thoracotomy. “Thanks” is all he tells me as they go to work.

I feel so fucking helpless.

“Paperwork office is over there.” A nurse nods.

“I can’t do that right now. This is my wife,” I tell the nurse numbly.

The doctor looks up and nods to me. “We’ve got her. Thank you for your service, brother. It looks like you’ve saved her life and her leg,” he tells me just before another nurse leads me into the hallway where I want to collapse but can’t.

I need to find my little girl. I ask the nurse where the staging areas for non life-threatening wounds are and give her my cell phone number as well as Garrison’s.

“Call me with updates every ten minutes. Please,” I say as I pass a small pink square of paper to her.

She stares at me for a few seconds too long and never tells me she’ll call. I start to give her a piece of my fucking mind when she interrupts me during my opening breath.

“Sir, you need to sit. I think you’re bleeding.” I look at my body, checking my hands, torso, and legs. I don’t see anything that’s mine.

“It’s my wife’s blood,” I tell her with no emotion in my voice. I bet she thinks I’m a dick. She’s probably not wrong.

“No, your head,” she tells me. “In the back. Please sit and let me have someone look at it.”

I vaguely remember hitting my head on the doorway of the airplane.

“I’m fine. I know what to look for. I need to get to my child,” I tell her, reaching to the back of my head and bringing my palm to my face to find fresh, warm blood. Now that my adrenaline has calmed a bit, my head does hurt a little. But nothing’s going to stop me from getting to my daughter.

She groans under her breath. “Military guys are impossible. I’ll update you on your wife,” she says, hugging dog tags hanging from a girly ass necklace around her neck. They look a lot like Maddie’s. I close my eyes and bring myself back to the moment.

“Deployed?” I ask her.

“Yeah, Marine,” she says.

“He’ll be fine. Marines are tough as nails,” I tell her truthfully.

She nods. “Please get that checked out soon, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I head down the hall to find Cash and my daughter.

I go to the staging area and look for them, but they’re nowhere to be seen. It’s total chaos down here. I ask the nurse trying to man the desk if she’s seen Cash and Olivia. She shakes her head and gets back to work. I ask a couple of other nurses on the floor, even some patients. No one has seen them.

I pull out my phone to call Cash and see a text.

Head up to room 405. It’s from Cash. What? Why is Olivia in a room?

I take off running and hit the elevator button about twenty times. It’s moving too fucking slow for me, so I take the stairs up to the fourth floor. When I get to her room, she’s sitting on the bed as a nurse applies butterfly bandages to a couple of scratches on her face.

“Damn man, everything okay?” Cash asks me when he sees me a little winded.

“Is everything okay here?” I ask, nodding to Olivia, who’s now squirming to get to me.

“Yeah, brother. I sent another text letting you know she was okay. Communications must be jammed with everything coming in and out. I’m fu—” He stops, remembering Olivia is in earshot. “Uh, I’m sorry, man.” He pats my shoulder.

I let out a sigh of relief and head over to Olivia. The nurse moves out of my way with a kind smile on her face, and I scoop Liv up in my arms and kiss the scratches on her face.

“You alright, munchkin?” I ask her.

“Daddy.” She smiles.

Thank all the holier than thou powers for video calls. My daughter knows me because of them. I smile down at her. “Hey, munchkin.”

“I can handle those bandages,” I tell the nurse.

She nods and hands them to me. “She’s had some pain medication. At about 1500.” She nods toward the clock and turns to exit the room.

“Thank you,” I tell her.

She smiles kindly and walks out.

“Why the room?” I ask Cash. “There are a lot of people down there who need a room.”

“So do you guys. I know people. Don’t worry about it,” he says like it’s no big deal that he just pulled a private room in a major trauma hospital near the scene of a terrorist attack.

I shake my head but know better than to ask. He’s on some next level shit.

“How’s Maddie?” Cash asks as he sits down in the chair next to the bed. I apply a couple of extra bandages to Olivia’s face as I mull over how I want to word Maddie’s condition. Cash will want to know more than just “critical.”

“She’s critical but stable,” I tell him, picking a piece of metal out of Olivia’s clothing.

“Right, so how is she?” Cash asks me again.

It was worth a shot.

I let out an exasperated sigh and look to Olivia, about to make a gesture I didn’t want to talk about it in front of her, only to find that thankfully my sweet angel has fallen asleep and I can talk freely without worrying her.

“She’s got a long way to go. The surgeon said he thought her leg was salvageable. She’s got a collapsed lung, but that’s really the least of her worries. There were thumbtacks everywhere, man,” I say, probably sounding at least a little defeated. I sure feel defeated. I scoot back on the bed with Olivia curled up in my lap, and I toss the bandages down at the end of the bed, frustrated.

“Thumbtacks?” he asks.

“Yeah. Exactly. They were everywhere.” I groan, closing my eyes. “It’s so fucked up.”

“I agree. Fuck.” He texts someone and then quickly puts his phone away. “She’s in surgery then?” he asks.

I nod. I realize I’m having a bit of an adrenaline dump, but I’ll power through. That’s what I’m trained to do.

There’s no bigger adrenaline rush than being shot at. I was one thousand percent sure of that twelve hours ago. But seeing my wife in grave condition? Biggest adrenaline rush I’m sure I’ll ever experience in my life. I know because now my head really fucking hurts. I reach my hand back to see if it’s bleeding any less.

It’s not. I ask Cash to see if he can find me some gauze, and he exits the room for what only seems like seconds as I stare at my daughter sleeping so peacefully.

Her injuries consist of scratches, some of them deep enough for stitches and probably a few bruises. She’s got a concussion, which they’re going to monitor overnight. Nothing alarming.

According to the nurses, people in the staging area said it’s because Maddie shielded her, and I don’t doubt that for one second. I just hope I wasn’t too late to shield my wife.

I start to feel a little lightheaded, so I decide to slowly slip out from under Olivia’s sleeping body, curled up in my lap. When I get vertical, the room starts to spin.

I hear Cash come in. “Found some gauze.”

I feel hazy and dizzy. Fuck. My day is about to get worse.

I collapse on the floor.

The next thing I know, I’m in a hospital bed getting stitches in the back of my head. I try to sit up, and a nurse comes to my side.

“Stay calm, sir. Do you know where you are?”

I inhale deeply. I hate being a fucking patient. “I’m in the same hospital my wife and daughter are in. I need to know they’re okay,” I tell her as the intern stitching up my head places a bandage over the spot they shaved down more than the rest of my head. When he’s done, I sit up with my feet on the floor and my large frame feels heavy. My whole body feels like it’s ready for a giant nap, but my brain is interested in nothing of the sort.

“No bleeding in the brain?” I ask the nurse.

“None. Serious concussion and deep laceration. You just went into a little shock. We gave you a morphine IV during your scans.”

Well, that explains the heaviness.

I stand slowly. “I need an update on my wife, Madelyn Blaise.” She nods curtly and I look for my phone in my personal belongings bag. Once in hand, I call Cash.

“Blaze, you’re such a dumbass,” he answers.

I smile a little, rubbing the back of my head. “How’s my baby?”

“Still sleeping like it’s her job. Don’t worry, bro. I’ve got her.”

“Thanks, Garrison.” I mean it more than I will ever be able to express. This fucking chaos is insane.

“Any word on Maddie? I checked and they said still in surgery.”

“They told you?” I ask perplexed.

“Connections, Blaze,” he answers.

“I have someone checking on her now.” I sit down in the guest chair across from the hospital bed, rubbing the back of my neck and sighing.

“You good, man?”

“I’m good.” He knows I’m lying, but he doesn’t press, knowing I would tell him if I was past my breaking point. “Call me the second she starts to wake up, please,” I say, seeing the nurse outside of my room hang up her phone.

“Wilco, brother,” Cash says before hanging up.

I call Matt next. He was on a different flight than me heading home, so I know he’s unharmed.

“Hey, man. Everything okay?” he answers.

“Yes and no. You?”

“We’re good. Katie hadn’t gotten to the airport yet. Said she didn’t ride with Maddie so that you guys could have family time. She’s in pretty bad shape, worrying. Please give me some news I can pass along,” Matt says, and I can tell he doesn’t want anything to be wrong either.

“She’s in surgery. I’m waiting on a condition update. I hit my head and passed out. Olivia is okay. Very minimal injuries. I’m pretty sure Maddie will be okay… but, it’s grim, man.”

“Damn.” He sighs. “I’m glad Liv is okay. We’ll be up there soon.”

The nurse still isn’t back, and I’m getting antsy. I shoot my dad a text.

Am alright. At hospital with Madelyn and Olivia. Madelyn in surgery. Will update ASAP. Please call her parents.

I don’t wait for a text back. I have no time to worry about contacting the whole planet right now. I know they as parents need to know we’re okay, but I’ve got to make sure of that myself before I can pass any news along.

I grab my wallet and slip it into my pocket, making sure the picture of my girls is still where my ID should be. For the last couple of hours it’s been nonstop for me. It’s been a lot like being in a firefight. The adrenaline rush I get when I’m taking fire isn’t much different than the adrenaline rush I’ve had over the last few hours. I’ve been so amped up, and now I just have to sit. It’s a weird thing, adrenaline dumps. I’m so used to them. I’m not used to going through them alone, though. I really need to be with someone I know. It’s making me antsy sitting here alone, waiting to hear something more than “She’s in surgery.”

Thanks, people with a wealth of knowledge; I already know that part.

The nurse comes in and looks me up and down. “We can get you some hospital scrubs if you’d like to change out of your clothes.” She stares at the bottom of my pant legs.

I look down and notice all of the blood on my legs.

“Damn,” I say aloud. “That would be nice of you. Thanks. But I really couldn’t care less at the moment. I’m not trying to be rude, ma’am, but I really need to know what’s going on with my wife.”

“Still in surgery.” I can tell she knows it’s not what I want to hear.

“Status?”

“Stable.” She pulls up the doctor’s stool and sits across from me.

“They’re saying if it weren’t for the care she got in the field, she wouldn’t have made it. You did a good job.” She pats my knee before getting up to go get me a clean change of clothes.

“How did you know it was me?” I ask her.

“Everyone knows. You’re kind of a hero,” she says, walking out of the room.

I lean back against the chair and close my eyes.

I don’t need to be a fucking hero.

I just want my wife to stay alive.

My phone buzzes with a text from my dad, telling me he’s glad everyone is okay and that he’ll update Maddie’s parents. That’s all they need to know until I know more. The less worried they are, the better.

I send him back a thumbs-up emoji and start to pace the room.

When the nurse brings me new clothes, I stop pacing and start changing my shirt before she can get all of the way out of the room. My boots were taken off when I passed out, I guess, and they are sitting neatly next to the chair I was occupying on and off.

“Uh. I … uh ... I have an update,” she stutters, staring at my chest, turning red, and not making eye contact with me.

I run a hand over my short brown hair before slipping on the scrub top and smiling nicely in her direction. “So sorry, I thought you were just gonna head out.”

“It’s okay. I’d want my spouse’s blood off of me, too” she says quietly.

I nod. “What’s the update?”

“She’s out of surgery. They’ve got her in recovery and say she’s doing okay. I can take you up once you finish changing, if you’d like.”

“Alright, thanks. Give me two seconds.” I turn around and pull my camis off. I slip into the scrub pants, tie them quickly, and slide my boots back on. “Let’s go,” I say, determined to see Maddie how I remembered her. It may take some time, but she’ll get back to herself. I’ll make sure of it. Beautiful and in no pain, just like she deserves.