Jacked (Trent Brothers #1)(182)

Like missing Lance Corporal Luke Dawson’s funeral.

I’d said goodbye to him over there while he took his last breath; I hope to hell he heard me.

Christ, do I have the strength to go on?

I don’t want to think about it anymore.

I wish I could just stop the noise.

Stop, please.

Some days I just wanted to feel sorry for myself and wallow in my misery. It had become as natural as breathing.

Some days I was just so f*cking angry, wishing everyone and everything would just f*ck the f*ck off.

Some days I was so drugged up and high, disappearing into the black void was a godsend.

But most days lately, like today, my level of apathy was off the charts.

From the moment I woke up in that first hospital in Germany until now, my days had been measured by watching the doorway to my room. Wondering sometimes with anticipation as to who would be the next to walk through its threshold.

A decent-looking nurse?

Well, one could dream…

A sour-faced doctor coming to give me his version of “good news”?

Sometimes in my narcotic-fueled haze I’d wish for a machete to magically appear, so good ol’ doc and I could really be on the same page of life. I often wondered how they’d really feel to be missing both of their f*cking legs.

It was a shitty outlook, but f*ck if I was able to shake it.

Some days—well, most days—I wondered why I just didn’t die out there in the field.

Would I have been better off?

I didn’t have a death wish, but damn, would dying have meant not having to relive the horrendous memories?

…the daily agony?

…hearing the screams echo through my skull?

I hate the color beige.

Hate the f*cking color.

It’s the constant reminder of dust and endless blistering heat of a Hell on Earth that will never see rest.

The vibrant green hues outside my hospital window do nothing to expel the crusted beige dirt that’s encased my soul. It’s as if it has seeped below my skin and resides with me daily. I hate the shit.

I wanted a cigarette. I knew my mom hated that I’d picked up the habit, but her constant lecturing me was a waste of air. Hell, could it be any worse than inhaling the acrid smoke of a burning Humvee that charred my lungs?

Being forced to quit cold turkey was just cruel.

I rolled away, buried deeper into my pillow, and ignored the chatter of my parents talking.

I should be social.

I know I should. Adam and Erin drove them down this weekend, and I know they’re here to help me, but I’m so lost I don’t know if it’s even possible anymore.

I used to be invincible.

Unbreakable.

Now, every time I close my f*cking eyes I recall with painful clarity the images of other soldiers’ mangled, bloodied bodies.

The stench of burnt flesh and blood and melted plastic are forever seared into my sinuses. Agonizing moans and groans from the mouths of good men haunt me with every breath I take.

I can remember the deafening sounds and the weightlessness of flying through the air. Residual horrors like strikes of lightning ripple behind my eyelids. I can see flashes in the night sky and feel the searing pain before having my memories fade into the darkness.

I wanted to believe God and Country had a purpose for all of this.

I truly did.

But now, everything just seemed pointless.

I tried to concentrate on the cartoon playing on the screen, but nothing seemed capable of drowning out the noise inside my head.

Adam’s hand clamped down on my forearm, breaking my internal chatter.

I gave his hand a pat while we exchanged pathetic smiles. I knew he didn’t know what to say to me anymore. Pep talks usually just pissed one of us off.

I glanced over at his woman; she was focused on the screen of her cell. The big diamond Adam had given her recently cast a rainbow of spectral light onto the wall.

“Good to see you, bro. You doing all right?” Adam asked.

Fuck no.

“Yeah. I’m good.” Staring at Erin’s bare legs and great tits was easier than lying to his face. “Congratulations, dude. You look happy.”

Adam nodded. “I am. I hope you get there too one day.”

Yeah, right.

Not unless double amputees have suddenly become all the rage amongst twenty-somethings.

“How’s your leg doing?” I asked, feebly trying to shift the focus.

Adam nodded, hiding most of his smile behind his casualness. “Healing up. Setting off metal detectors.”

“Well, at least one of us doesn’t need crutches anymore.”

He frowned at me. “You’ll get there. I swear. It sucks but you keep going forward. How are the new legs coming along?”

The muscle in my left thigh cramped, causing phantom pain to zing all the way down into toes that no longer existed.

“Didn’t get them yet. Maybe by the end of next week they said.”

We both watched Erin stash her phone in the pocket of her shorts and walk to the end of my bed, helping herself—as usual—to my medical chart.

And then came her narrowed focus—that intense scrutiny—followed by a few disapproving sighs. I’d been an EMT for six years, and I’d never seen a female doctor on any part of the planet as hot as her.

I glared at my brother for being so f*cking lucky. Bastard.