Grudge (Virtue & Vice Book 5)

by Cait Forester

  “Er, no,” Martin said. He bit his lip, wincing at just the thought of Taggart’s leg. “He became a marine, apparently. And lost his leg.”

  “Oh, fuck.” Colton muttered, his glass halfway to his lips. He put it down. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” Martin confirmed. “And I think he might be like — messed up from combat. Although, he was always an asshole so maybe the Marines just honed him into a massive prick.”

  “I had a bully,” Colton said casually. “But I ended up fucking mine.”

  Martin laughed. “I’m sure you did, Colt.”

  “I admit I was a messed up kid — still am, probably — but honestly, like, there was just something super hot about being manhandled all the time.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  This was part of why the two of them didn’t quite make it past a casual, near-accidental hookup. Colton was a total bottom who liked it rough and painful. Hell, maybe that all went back to his own childhood bully.

  Martin wasn’t really in a position to judge though. “I mean, I guess I got turned on a couple of times. Taggart was always so full of himself and confident. Like nothing touched him. In a weird way, when I was that age and still in the closet and everything, the fact that he noticed me at all probably just messed with my head.”

  “Alternatively,” Colton postulated, as if delivering a mathematical theorem, “it is well known that there is a degree of intimacy involved in the aggressor-victim dynamic. It’s the basis for like, Stockholm syndrome and stuff.”

  “Great,” Martin laughed. “I think it was more Taggart’s chest and arms. And the fact that we had gym together junior year and I saw him mostly naked in the locker rooms that one time that I was stupid enough to try and change clothes there.”

  Colton’s eyes widened a little, and his eyebrows crept up. “Oh, did you like catch him jerking off?”

  “This story is never going to go where you want it to, Colt,” Martin chuckled.

  “You could just make it up, you know,” Colton complained.

  “Well whatever the case was, or is, the thing that hasn’t changed is that he’s still an asshole,” Martin sighed. “And I’m assigned to work with him. For like six weeks.”

  “You can just tell someone to reassign you, can’t you?” Colton asked.

  Martin shook his head. “It’s not that easy. He can’t hit me or anything, or he could lose his status as a VA patient but short of that—it’s a VA hospital. Veterans with all sorts of combat readjustment issues or even PTSD are part of the job. I can’t just complain to my manager every time someone mouths off.”

  “That’s rough,” Colton said. “This is why I changed my major to accounting. Numbers don’t flip out on you out of nowhere.”

  “Fair point,” Martin said. He was quiet a moment, finishing the rest of his beer.

  “So are you going to, like, confront him over the whole high school thing?” Colton asked when they were leaving.

  Martin shrugged. “I don’t think so. He lost a leg, you know? Kind of feels like he paid for it.”

  “Just because he got hurt in this stupid war,” Colton pointed out, “doesn’t mean that he doesn’t owe you an apology. Those are different things.”

  Martin pursed his lips, before he nodded agreement; but mostly it was just to end the conversation. That fact was, Taggart still terrified him, even with a missing leg. As far as he was concerned, their past was behind him and he only had to deal with Taggart for the next six weeks.

  There didn’t seem to be any point in making things worse than they were already likely to be.

  6

  “Did you see your family this week?” Doctor Kate asked when Taggart met with her for therapy that Friday.

  “I’m supposed to see Angie tonight,” he said.

  Kate raised an eyebrow. “Supposed to?”

  Taggart sighed and shifted on the chair. “I mean I’m going to.”

  “I see,” Kate said. “Well, that’s good.” She smiled. It made the lines at the corners of her eyes deepen.

  She had a way of looking at Taggart that made him uncomfortable. He shifted again and rubbed his left thigh.

  “How is the new prosthesis working for you?” Kate asked, nodding toward the new device.

  Taggart shrugged and looked at his knee. It was covered by his jeans at the moment, but that didn’t really disguise it. The shape of his ‘knee’ was wrong; too angular, too lumpy. “It’s fine.”

  “That’s not really an answer,” Kate said softly. “Are you getting around on it better than the other one?” Her eyes drifted briefly to the cane he’d brought with him. Angie had gotten it for him to replace the plain aluminum one the VA had given him when they fitted his temporary leg and he’d hated it. Made him feel like a grandpa.

  This one was nice. Smooth wood, a leather wrapped handle. There was no way to make a cane look like it belonged to a young person but it was at least better than the cheap one.

  “I’m still getting used to it,” Taggart muttered.

  Kate nodded. “Your file says you start physical therapy today.”

  “Yeah,” Taggart grunted. He rolled his eyes before he could catch himself.

  “Taggart,” Kate said, “going through PT is part of compliance. You know you can’t skip it, right?”

  “Can we just get to the shrinking?” he asked.

  Kate eyed him, and then his fingers.

  Taggart stopped tapping them and balled his hand into a fist to keep them from starting up again.

  She was quiet for a moment, regarding him with that infuriatingly patient look she had. She never raised her voice, never took control of a session. It was irritating. How hard was it for a head shrinker to just get to the point? Taggart wasn’t here to socialize and catch up about his family and his ruined leg.

  “I had nightmares,” Taggart said. He looked around the room. There were pictures on the walls — mostly nature stuff — and a shelf with a bunch of doodads and bullshit; crystals, little metal sculptures of nothing. One in particular always caught his eye. It was just a tangle of wire, basically. It seemed ridiculous that someone out there made that thing and sold it when it was just a mess on a pedestal. “Every night.”

  “What about?” Kate asked.

  He snorted and glanced at her before he went back to looking at the wire mess. “What do you think?”

  “I’m not a mind reader, Taggart,” she reminded him. She did that a lot.

  “They were about Mosul.” The word hurt to say. Literally—he felt his leg, or the place where his leg used to be, aching down to his non-existent toes. He clenched his jaw against the pain.

  “Breathe,” Kate urged.

  As if Taggart needed someone to remind him to breathe. He inhaled with some effort against an abdomen that had gone rock hard. It relaxed, gradually.

  “We can talk about something else if you need to,” Kate said. “But at some point we will have to talk about what happened. Do you think you’re ready for that yet?”

  “What the hell is the point?” Taggart asked. “Talking about shit doesn’t change what happened. Am I gonna grow back a leg like a fucking lizard just because I go over it again and again?”

  Kate shook her head slightly. “Of course not. But if we start exploring those memories, those experiences, we might be able to take back some of their power over you.”

  Taggart flinched, and scratched at the itch on his knee. He couldn’t feel his fingers scratching and under them he just felt the smooth, featureless metal of the prosthetic. He shook his head and folded his arms. “What do you want to know?”

  “It’s not about wanting to know,” Kate said. She tilted her head a bit at him, looking over her glasses. “I’ve been seeing you now for almost two months, Taggart. We haven’t talked at all about your accident —“

  “It wasn’t an accident,” Taggart snapped. His heart leapt to a gallop. If there had been a lamp or something in reach he might have hurled it across the room. As it was, his vision fla
shed red and his missing leg felt like it was on fire again. “It was an attack, got that? Someone did this to me. Someone wanted to kill me and they tried to do it. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

  Doctor Kate watched him for a moment, her face impassive, until Taggart realized he’d nearly come out of his chair.

  He sank back into it.

  “I don’t know what that’s like,” she said when he’d settled back down. “But I do understand trauma, and what it takes to heal from it, Taggart. Have you thought about going to the support group like I suggested?”

  “Trading old war stories isn’t going to help me,” Taggart sighed. “I know I’m not the only soldier that lost something, Doc. I don’t need to hear everyone complaining about their shit, I got enough to deal with.”

  Kate gave a small, quiet sigh.

  Taggart snorted and shook his head. “I know. I’m a mess. More than you bargained for, right? Let me guess — those notes there say things like, ‘non compliant’ and ‘hostile’ and ‘screws loose’.”

  “Would you like to see my notes, Taggart?” Kate asked. She held the legal pad in it’s black leather folio out to him. “You’re welcome to read them over. You have complete access to your file with me anytime you want.”

  His jaw muscles twitched, and he eyed the folio like something poisonous, coiled up and waiting for him to reach out so it could bite him. Finally he waved it away. “Nah. I don’t care what you think about me, Doc. I’m only here because I have to show up or they kick me out. Isn’t that right? Get while the gettin’s good, or I get nothing. Uncle Sam’ll toss my ass out on the street, just another broken toy soldier.”

  “You’re not broken, Taggart,” Kate said gently. “You’ve just got some cracks. There’s a lot of life ahead of you. Do you realize that?”

  “You can’t qualify that,” Taggart muttered. “Nobody can.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” Kate smiled, and set her legal pad and folio aside so that she could lean forward. “But one day, Taggart, we’re going to have to work on patching those cracks. Not just so you can continue to get VA aid — but so that however long you do have in this life, you can remember what it’s like to feel like you’re really living it. Like you’re whole. That’s all I want for you. That’s my job. Not to tell your commander you’re all better, or to justify why you’re here.”

  “You’re a professional, Doc, right?” Taggart asked. He watched her eyes, waiting for them to twitch one way or the other, or just drop away. “You’ve seen plenty of cracked soldiers. Tell me you know a lost cause when you see it.”

  She didn’t look away.

  “I do,” Kate said. “And Taggart? You’re not it.”

  7

  Martin was already exhausted by the time he picked up Taggart’s chart, outside the PT room they were scheduled for. Most of the work today was introductory rather than functional, but that didn’t mean it would be easy for Taggart — and that meant it was likely to be difficult for Martin.

  He sighed as he flipped the chart to the assessment page. Just treat him like any other slightly hostile patient, he reminded himself. Their history didn’t make a difference here. He just had to be professional and remember that this wasn’t high school anymore.

  Taggart was sitting in a chair and staring out a window when Martin entered the room. He glanced at Martin when the door opened, but didn’t say anything.

  “How are you, Mr. Coulson?” Martin asked. He crossed the room and put the chart down on the massage table. With one foot, he tapped a pedal underneath to lower it down to just below waist height. Taggart’s jeans were folded and laid on top where he’d changed out of them in favor of loose black gym shorts. Martin set them aside, noticing a peek of some other fabric just inside the waist — compression shorts, maybe?

  Taggart groaned. “Don’t call me that, Marty. Tag is fine. We’re not strangers.”

  “Alright,” Martin said. “And I’d prefer it if you called me Martin.”

  That got Tag’s attention. He looked Martin over once then nodded. “Sure.”

  “Can you get to the table here or do you need help?” Martin asked.

  Taggart’s expression was tense before he put his hands on the edge of the chair and stood up, balancing most of his weight on his right leg. He wobbled briefly, but held his hand up when Martin went to help him.

  A patient who didn’t want help was going to be a consistent chore. Still, Martin waited, and the man ultimately grabbed his cane and leaned on it as he made his way unsteadily to the table.

  The short walk from the chair to the table, however, was enough to give Martin some idea of how Tag’s therapy would likely proceed. He was treating the leg like a plain wooden peg — as if he didn’t trust the knee to swing properly, and he preferred to put his weight on it only when it ‘caught’ in an extended position.

  Perhaps because of that, Tag’s left thigh didn’t move quite as much as his right one, and there was a slight twist in his hips as he moved and had to compensate for a largely immobile right side.

  Martin made these observations right up until Tag turned on his right heel and sat on the table with a thud. “What now?”

  “I need to remove the prosthetic,” Martin said. “Let’s have you lay back. I’ll take this —“

  “Well what the hell’s the point of this shit if I’m not gonna walk on the damn thing?” Tag asked. He rubbed his left thigh, all the way down to the false knee.

  Martin sighed. “It’s not just about learning to walk on the prosthesis, Mister — sorry, Tag. I need to find out how your musculature has changed, how you’re compensating, where you’re weak, how to balance out—“

  “Jesus,” Tag breathed. “Never mind. Fine.”

  Martin set Tag’s cane out of the way while Tag laid down on the table. Once Tag was on his back, Martin reached for Tag’s gym shorts and started to work the left leg up to expose the cuff of the prosthesis.

  “Watch them roaming hands,” Tag muttered.

  It didn’t warrant a response so Martin kept his face impassive and focused on removing the leg. He found the release button and depressed it, and gave the prosthetic a gentle tug, listening for the hiss of air escaping.

  Tag twitched and Martin looked up quickly. “Painful?”

  “It’s fine,” Tag grunted. “I’m a grown ass man; just take the damn thing off.”

  Martin sighed and went back to it. The leg slipped off with just a little more effort, and he carefully sat it aside. Underneath was the silicone cuff which covered Tag’s residual limb and secured the new prosthesis to it. The top of the cuff would be too close to Tag’s crotch for comfort. “Let me, ah — have you take this off.”

  Tag lifted his head off the table and looked down at Martin. “That’s easier if I’m sitting up, you know.”

  “Yeah, I — sorry. Here,” Martin held his hand out.

  Tag hesitated a moment before he took Martin’s hand and let himself be helped upright. He pulled his shorts up, and reached under them to peel the cuff down until it came off. Like his right leg, Tag’s left was hairy. Already, the muscle was starting to show the signs of changing to accommodate the new order of things.

  The surgeons had done a good job of keeping the scarring to a minimum, but some of the scars around the end of the residual limb weren’t from surgery.

  Tag cleared his throat.

  “Sorry,” Martin said. “I wasn’t staring. I was looking at the shape of the muscle.”

  “It’s fine if you were anyway,” Tag said. He handed Martin the cuff.

  Martin set it aside with the leg. “You get an ache, right? From just above where the knee was, along the top, to the hip?”

  Tag shrugged.

  They were quiet a moment. Finally, Martin swallowed. “The, ah . . .other scars, here. They look like burns?”

  “Because they are,” Tag said. “IED. Missed it in the initial sweep.”

  “I’m sorry, Tag,” Martin breathed. “Really sorry thi
s happened to —”

  “Shut up,” Tag groaned. He lowered himself back down onto the table. “I don’t need any more fucking pity. Do whatever it is you’re here to do and let’s just get this over with.”

  Martin’s hands shook a little when he reached to Tag’s leg, and he had to will himself to calm down. He’d worked with dozens of amputees in school, there was no reason to be nervous around Tag. He just had to not think about it too much.

  That thought helped him focus. It wasn’t “Taggart Coulson” Martin was working with — it was a body that was out of balance. Something mechanical, like a machine with a few belts too tight, a few pistons firing out of time with the others.

  He touched Tag’s corded muscles, top, sides, and back. All of them were locked tight, like bundles of steel cable under Tag’s skin, right up to the hip. Tag kept his eyes shut for the duration of Martin’s exploratory touch, but continued to occasionally twitch or fidget.

  The next step was to assess range of motion, which Martin did methodically as Tag sighed and grunted but kept his commentary to himself at least. Most of the musculature was so tight that there was hardly any movement at all. Probably, Tag was keeping every muscle tensed when he walked, to keep the movement under control.

  Finally, Martin had Tag push against his hands in different directions as Martin got a sense for what muscles were weak compared to the other leg.

  All of this happened in relative silence. When he was done, Martin picked up the chart and made notations quietly.

  “How’d I score?” Tag asked.

  “It’s not a scoring system,” Martin said. “But you’re pretty much a mess. I have a good idea of what we should be doing, though.”

  “Great,” Taggart said. “How long’s it gonna take?”

  Martin looked up from his chart. “Maybe four to six months, if there aren’t any complications.”