Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“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.