by T. L. Haddix
“Well, you took a pretty good hit, I’m told,” she said cheerily. “But you’re doing much better now. You’re going to have to wake up, though. We don’t want to have to give you anything to bring you around if we can avoid it.”
Eli sighed. More to get her to stop pestering him than anything, he tried to open his eyes. To his surprise, his eyelids wouldn’t cooperate. “Can’t open ‘em.”
“You will. It might take a few minutes. Now, on a scale of one to ten, how bad are you hurting?”
“Six?”
“That’s a start, then. Now, let’s see if you can open those eyes.”
“Where am I?” he asked. Everything was a blur. He knew he was injured, but he couldn’t remember what had happened.
“You’re at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. Here, I’ll turn this monitor down so it’s not so noisy.” A moment later, the beeping faded, creating a void of sound for a few seconds as his ears caught up to the ambient room noise.
Landstuhl. Crap. That meant his injuries had required more attention than they could be given in the field. Exactly how badly was he hurt? A surge of adrenaline jetted through him, and with that on board, he finally managed to open his eyes.
The first thing he saw was his mother’s face, pale, her own eyes red from crying, he thought, as she stood beside him. “Mom?”
Zanny nodded, fresh tears spilling over as she broke into a trembling smile. “There’s my baby boy. You’re okay, Eli. We’re here, and you’re okay.”
She leaned in and kissed his forehead, then pressed her cheek to his. He could hear her shaky breath as she struggled with her emotions, her hand running across his head again and again, smoothing his hair back. It was a movement he’d felt a hundred times, a thousand times, growing up.
Eli had to swallow back his own tears. “Where’s Dad?”
“I’m here,” John said. Zanny moved back, letting him in.
When Eli saw that his father had also been crying, he knew he was gravely injured. “How bad?” he asked as he accepted his father’s hug, holding on as tightly as he could.
“You’ve had some modifications,” the woman from before—a nurse named Heather, he saw—said as John moved, letting a young redheaded woman come in for a hug.
“Molly?” Eli whispered. “Oh, my God. Hey, it’s okay. Well, I guess it’s okay,” he said as his sister cried on his shoulder. Moving awkwardly, he patted her back with his right hand. “You’re going to get me all soggy.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to kick your ass for scaring us like this as soon as you’re up and around,” she told him.
“She’s been plotting the whole way here,” Noah said quietly from the end of the bed. “Fair warning.”
Eli stared at his brother, his breath frozen for an instant as the shock of seeing Noah in the flesh set in. “You were there.”
Noah gave a single nod, his face drawn. He looked tired, haggard in a way that Eli never expected to see. “I was.”
Everything rushed back in then, the accident, being pinned, his conviction he was dying. “I survived?”
“You did, thank God.”
“When I saw you, I thought…”
Noah’s eyes were haunted. “I know. So did I.”
Eli looked down his body, sucking in a breath when he realized there was an asymmetry there that hadn’t been before. The elevated end of his left leg was wrapped in huge bandages, and when he moved his the limb, it didn’t feel… whole. “Dad?”
John clasped his right hand. “I’m here.”
“Where’s my foot?” Tearing his gaze away from the empty spot where it should have been, he looked at his father. The sorrow on John’s face told him before he even opened his mouth.
“They did everything they could. I’m sorry, Eli.”
He managed, barely, to tamp down the rising panic he felt. “Those modifications you mentioned,” he said to the nurse. “What else?” He was almost afraid to ask, but at the same time he had to know.
“You have a concussion, a cracked collarbone on the left side, which is why your arm is immobilized. Two broken ribs, one that punctured your lung, so we had to do a chest tube. An assortment of scrapes and cuts and bruises, and a below-the-knee amputation of your left leg. They were able to preserve most of the lower leg, which is good news for prosthesis, even though it probably doesn’t feel like it right now.” She delivered the assessment in a matter-of-fact tone, watching him carefully. “Do you have any questions?”
“How’s my team? Were there any other injuries?”
She smiled down at him sweetly. “Nothing that couldn’t be handled in the field. They’re all fine.”
“Thank God for that,” he said, letting his body sink into the bed. “Stupid damned dog ran across the road in front of us, and we swerved to miss it. Hit a low spot, and over she went.”
He closed his eyes, torn between being thankful his men were safe, that the accident hadn’t been more serious or violent, and wanting to scream out his rage at the unfairness of his own loss.
“So what happens now?” he asked after a minute.
“Now, we get you past the hurdle of the first twenty-four hours post-op, and then we start working on getting you mobile again. The surgeon will be in soon, and so will your regular doctor, to discuss everything with you.” Heather showed him the button to push when he needed more pain meds. “You’re on a morphine pump for right now, and you control how much you get up to a point. You can’t overdose. It shuts down when you’ve reached your limit.”
“Okay. Can I get something to drink?” he asked. “My mouth is as thick as cotton.”
“Ice chips for now. They’re in a cup here.” She tapped a pitcher on the rolling table beside the bed.
“I can help with that,” Molly said.
Eli felt the ghost of a smile cross his lips. “My own personal nurse. Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“Shut up or I’ll ask them for an enema bag, you dolt,” she scolded him, even as she helped him raise the head of the bed. She was in her last semester of school at the University of Kentucky, having gone for a degree as a nurse practitioner with the intention of working in oncology. “And no. It’s summer.”
He scowled at her. “Brat.”
“If I play my cards right, I can even use this for extra credit,” Molly said as she carefully fed him some ice chips. Her grin didn’t disguise the concern in her eyes or her fatigue, though.
“What time is it?” Eli asked after the nurse had left. “You all look like you could use some sleep.”
“It’s five in the afternoon our time, eleven in the evening here,” Noah said. He leaned against the wall at the foot of the bed.
“Have you slept?” Eli asked them. “Any of you?”
“I took a nap on the plane,” Molly said. “Mom and Daddy dozed.”
Eli kept his eyes on his brother. “And you?”
Noah shrugged. “I’m fine.”
Sure he was. He looked like he was ready to fall over. As much distance as there’d been in the last few years between them, Eli knew his brother’s ability could be taxing. Given the dark circles under his eyes as deep as bruises, and given that Eli’d been the one to see Noah standing beside him this time, he wondered just how bad things had been on his brother’s end.
“I think I got more sleep than your mother,” John said. He gestured across the bed to Zanny. “Why don’t you and Noah head to the hotel, get some rest? Molly and I can take the first shift.”
Zanny looked at Eli. “Would you be okay with that?”
“Sure, Mom. I’m not going anywhere tonight.” He winked at her.
She laughed and touched his cheek. “Okay. Then we’ll do that. It’s just across the street. If you need us, we’ll be back in a flash.”
&
nbsp; “Get some rest. Make sure Noah does, too,” Eli told her in a low voice when she hugged him.
“I will,” she said. “I love you so much, baby boy. I hope you know that. And I’m so glad to be able to tell you that in person.”
“Love you, too, Mom.”
When Noah pushed away from the wall, Eli held his hand out. After a brief hesitation, Noah crossed the room and took it, clasping it tightly with his own.
It took him three tries to speak, but Eli managed it. “I’m glad you’re here.” He glanced up at Noah’s face and nodded. All the emotions he’d been struggling to hold back broke free when Noah bent down and hugged him, and unable to keep them in, Eli started crying.
“Let’s take a walk,” he heard his father say. “We’ll be in the hall, boys.” His parents and sister left, closing the door behind them.
“You bastard,” Noah whispered, sitting on the side of the bed to hold him while he sobbed. “You scared the living shit out of me. Don’t you ever do that again or I’ll follow you to wherever the hell you are and kick your ass. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.”
A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled out of Eli as the tears slowed, and he pulled back, mortified. “Yeah, well, you definitely have the upper hand now.”
Noah glanced at Eli’s legs. “You mean because of the amputation? Nah. Your orneriness more than makes up for that. If anything, the playing field’s more level now.” He wiped his own cheeks as he handed Eli some tissues from the box on the rolling table beside the bed.
“Make sure Mom gets some rest, okay? I don’t want her getting sick because of this.” Zanny had undergone successful treatment for breast cancer ten years earlier, but Eli still worried about her.
“She’ll rest. She knows her limits, and Dad won’t let her exceed them, you know that.” Noah exhaled tiredly. “You okay now?”
“Yeah. Sorry about the crying jag.”
“Shut up. Blame it on the anesthesia. Stubborn ass. I’m glad you’re still here.” Noah met and held his gaze steadily, something Eli knew was hard for his brother, who was an introvert.
“Yeah? Me, too. Now go get some rest before you fall over.”
“Okay. You do the same.”
As the door shut behind Noah, Eli closed his eyes and tried to relax. “You’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
But not the same, he knew. No, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Chapter Four
The nightmares shouldn’t have surprised Eli, but they did. And he wasn’t sure it was fair to call them nightmares as they were more remembrances of things that had passed.
The first one hit him the second night in Germany, after some of the harder drugs had cleared out of his system. They’d switched him to less potent pain meds, and he was dealing with the discomfort of his injuries well enough. But as his mind cleared, guilt rushed in.
Eli hadn’t gone home a lot in the last few years. Guilt was a big part of why, the main reason why. He hid it pretty well during the day when everyone was around, but at night, it crept in and haunted him.
That night Zanny had been sleeping on the cot beside his bed. He’d managed not to wake her when the past rose up to jolt him awake with a taunting laugh, and he worked hard to stay quiet and make sure she stayed asleep despite his turmoil.
In the dream, he’d been seventeen and so damned cocky and arrogant that remembering that version of himself now, while he was awake, hurt. Lying in bed with sweat drying on his skin, he watched his mother sleep and remembered that awful morning when she’d walked into his bedroom to find him in bed with a girl.
He’d sneaked Erica in the night before, using the half-assed excuse that her car had broken down and she lived far enough away that the drive was tedious as a reason for justifying his breaking the rules. The drive was a full twenty minutes in one direction and he could have made it easily, but he’d been selfish. He’d wanted her there with him.
As he’d lit out in secret a couple of hours earlier so they could meet and have sex, his parents had no idea he was gone. If he could get her in the house without alerting anyone, he figured he could sneak her back out in the morning after his parents had gone to work. It was summer, school was out, and no one would be the wiser.
He hadn’t planned on his parents having stayed home so they could take his sister Molly to the dentist to have her braces removed and make a day of things. And he sure as hell hadn’t planned on Zanny walking in without knocking under the mistaken assumption he was already gone.
Thankfully, he and Erica had still been asleep when she’d come in, but the resulting ordeal was still awful. He’d come awake as soon as the door opened and scrambled to cover himself and Erica, who was naked, with the sheet.
“Oh, dear sweet God, what in the name of all that’s holy are you doing, Eli?” Zanny said, horrified, her voice rising in volume with every word. She’d turned and slammed the door shut, standing on the other side cursing in a low voice, using words Eli hadn’t realized his sweet mother knew. “I don’t believe this. I do not believe this. John!”
Eli started doing some cursing of his own at that point, waking Erica none too gently. She’d just sat up when his father opened the door.
John Campbell didn’t say a word but stared at him with shock and disappointment on his face that quickly morphed into pure fury. He pointed at Erica. “Get dressed. Now. Both of you. I’ll be right outside. You have three minutes.”
Eli could still remember the way she’d rolled her eyes and barely waited for the door to close before throwing the sheet back and stretching, uncaring that she’d been caught in his room. “What’s the big fucking deal?” she said as she reached for her clothes. “You’re almost an adult.”
Mortified, Eli wasted no time getting dressed. “‘Almost’ is the key word there. What are they doing home? Shit, I’ll get grounded over this.”
“That’s lame. Seriously, who grounds their kids these days?”
As much as he was head over heels for Erica, he felt a surge of anger at her words. He didn’t much agree with his parents or grandparents these days, but there were lines of respect he knew better than to cross. But at the same time, he was stupid with lust, stupid with being so young and thinking he knew everything, and her attitude was contagious.
By the time John marched them downstairs and into the living room, any shame Eli had felt was gone.
“Sit down, both of you,” Zanny said.
Erica sneered at her. “I don’t have to listen to you. You’re not my mother.”
John stepped up to her, his eyes narrowed. “Then listen to this. Get your ass out of this house and don’t you dare ever set foot in it again. You are not welcome in this family. You’ve caused enough trouble for us.”
She stared at him, stunned. No one ever told Erica ‘no’ or tried to impose rules and regulations on her. No one. She turned to Eli, who shrugged.
“Fine. Fuck you all. I’ll be outside if you ever grow a pair,” she told Eli. She slammed her way out the front door, letting it bang back in place behind her.
“You can’t talk to her like that,” he told John. “I love her. I’m going to marry her. You’re going to have to get used to the idea.”
Zanny laughed harshly. “Good luck with that. You want to marry her? Fine. As soon as you turn eighteen, you’re your own man. Do whatever you want. But until you are eighteen, you are our responsibility, young man, and that-that girl is not. How dare you bring her into this house?”
The words he uttered next would haunt him until he died and probably beyond. “We haven’t done anything you and Dad didn’t do. At least I’m not going to get her knocked up and have to marry her.”
He didn’t even see the slap coming and only realized what had happened after the side of his face lit up like someone had tor
ched it. Shocked, he stared at his mother like he’d never seen her before. She’d never raised a hand to him, ever. Only when he was tiny and she had to smack his hand to protect him from something dangerous or gently paddle his bottom to reinforce a ‘no.’ Even then, she’d only swatted at him.
But this slap? He wouldn’t be surprised if it left a bruise.
Within seconds of it happening, his father had him held against the bookcase beside the fireplace, pinning him so firmly that things fell off onto the floor.
“If you dare speak to your mother like that again, I promise you that you will not live to see another birthday,” John told him in a deadly calm voice. “Do you understand me, Eli?”
Zanny didn’t step in to separate them, just shook her head, tears in her eyes, and paced away.
With his feet dangling inches off the floor, all Eli could do was scratch out a quiet “Yes, sir.”
John didn’t let him down, though. “Good. Here’s how it’s going to be. You’re getting a job, one that won’t interfere with your sports schedule. If you can’t find a job, we’ll find one for you. You’ll have driving privileges to and from school, to and from work. That’s it. You walk everywhere else, not that you’ll be going anywhere. No dating, no socializing. You go to work, to school, and you come home. Period. You’ll help around the house and you’ll not make one peep of complaint about that.
“For the last three years, you’ve pushed and pushed and pushed our boundaries. Here’s the wall. It’s standing right in front of you. You toe the line or you are out. Your ass will be in the strictest boarding school I can find before you can blink, and I don’t give a flying fuck about sports scholarships or college offers. And you’ll apologize to your mother and mean it or so help me…”
Zanny sighed. “John, that’s enough. Let him down.”