Edge of the Heat 6 (23 page)

Dani. Where was she? There. Sitting in the very back, next to another soldier in a camouflage uniform whose yellows were too bright, and whose blobs of colors were too rounded. He blinked hard, trying to clear his eyes. Then the doctor spoke to Sara and he understood.
Australians. They weren’t American soldiers at all.

Dani
. Sadness fell over him. He’d like her so much. She was such a queer mixture of strength and sensitivity. Of beauty, and practicality. But she’d lied.
Why?
He still didn’t understand
why
she would lie about such a serious thing. If she knew her uncle had been behind everything they had gone through, she had a duty to tell, to share, to
confess
. Even if he was family.
Especially
if he was family! His mind doubled in on itself. Had he accused her of being in on it with him? The thought speared guilt through him. Why had he done that? She wouldn’t do that, would she?

He looked at her again, trying to read her soul. Trying to see honesty or deception stamped on her face, in her body language. She was looking out the window, almost curled up in a ball on the seat, as if she were trying to disappear altogether. Her eyes were flat, like inanimate marbles. He could read nothing on her face but heartache.

He turned away, feeling a bit of heartache himself. Sara. Let Sara sort this out. He couldn’t deal with it right now.

He felt the helicopter start a descent.  Where were they landing? The doctor squeezed his hand and said, “We are at Camp Patriot. How are you feeling?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t know. His body seemed unimportant and far away. All of it but his heart. It was there. Beating. But scarred and gun shy.
Women
, he thought.
How is it they can put you though the wringer without even trying?

The helicopter landed and he was rushed into the clinic. Nurses and doctors threw questions at him and poked him endlessly. He looked around the walls, remembering that Shane had been here little more than a week before. When he was alive. Shane had sent him an email from here. He looked at the faces of the people around him, wondering which one was the civilian nurse who let Shane use her phone. Her? Her?

A large male doctor wearing green scrubs with a silver eagle over his pocket snapped his fingers in front of JT’s eyes, saying “Can you speak son?”
Fuck you
, JT thought in slow motion.
Even if I can,
I don’t want to
. He turned his face away so he didn’t have to look at the man anymore. Oxygen. The room had no oxygen in it. He pulled in a breath, sucking it in harshly, but still he felt winded. Liquid filled his throat. Hot liquid that tasted like iron. He gagged and spat some out.

The big doctor with the Colonel’s rank on his scrubs called “Surgery, get him into surgery right now! Pulmonary hemorrhage!” 

JT’s hospital bed rolled swiftly into the surgical ward with him on it, his brain thinking oddly of dots swimming across the sun, his heart hurting in a way he hadn’t felt in years.

***

JT woke all at once to darkness and pain. The hood. The damnable hood. He wanted it off and he wanted out of here. A beep, beep cut into his thoughts. He couldn’t possibly have the hood over his head. They’d escaped. They’d walked through the desert. He’d shot Clarkson. Killed him.
Dani
.
Dani had lied to him. Dani was related to Clarkson.
He moaned aloud as the events of the last few days slammed into consciousness.

“Shh. Shh, Jon, it’s OK.” A female voice said and a cool hand rested on his brow.
Dani?
He opened his eyes, half-hopeful and half-wary. A woman he’d never seen before stood over him, a slight smile on her lips. He swore he didn’t know her, but she looked familiar. Her wavy, brown hair hung long and thick around her kind face. Her eyes were a startling blue. He knew those eyes. But he didn’t know her. In fact, she’d called him Jon, and not JT, which told him everything he needed to know about whether he knew her or not. He didn’t.

She put a cell phone to her ear. “He’s awake,” she said into it, still smiling gently at him.

JT ran his tongue over his dry lips. She saw and got him an ugly hospital cup with a straw. She held it to his lips and he took a giant swallow. The water tasted heavenly. He wanted more. “The doctor said only small sips for a while so you don’t sick it up,” the woman said to him.

Another woman swam into his vision on his other side. “Sara,” he said, testing his voice. It worked OK.

Sara smiled at him too and took his other hand. That one hurt horribly, but he still squeezed her hand, almost to prove that he could. “We made it. Thank you,” he said.

“You are welcome, JT. I would say
anytime
, but I hope to never do that again.”

He laughed a little bit and it hurt deep in his chest. He felt like an invalid and that pissed him off. He struggled to a sitting position. The two women watched him, Sara helping him while the other woman tried to push him back down.

“Help him up Vivian, he wants to sit up.”

“But the doctor…” Vivian said, looking around.

“The doctor will want him to move around soon anyway. He’ll be OK.” Sara spoke soothingly. Vivian considered for a moment and then helped him, but the worry-line on her forehead never smoothed out.

“So you’re JT, not Jon?” the woman said to him.

“Yeah, JT. That’s me.” He tried to lick his lips again and she got him more water. As she put it down on the table he opened his mouth to ask her who she was, but the door to his room opened and more people streamed in. 2 big men, both with an air of para-military about them, and a pretty woman with strawberry blond hair. The woman rushed right to him and grasped his face between her hands. She kissed him directly on the lips and he caught a scent of vanilla on her hair. He pulled back into his pillow a little, feeling confused and insecure at the affection. He didn’t know her either. And yet, she looked familiar too. Again it was her eyes. They were the same color as the other woman's.
And the same color as your own,
a voice spoke up in his head. Reality folded a little in his brain, and he thought he almost knew what was going on here.

“Who are you?” he whispered. The two women looked at Sara, disbelief in their eyes. One of the men chuckled behind the strawberry blond.

Sara held her hands up, palms facing the women. “It never came up,” she said.

“Oh my,” the brunette said. “You don’t even know that you have sisters do you?”

Sisters
. He did know he had sisters. His mom had told him. And these were them. His sisters. He should have known it when he first looked at them. They both had his eye color. The brunette had his face shape, but not his eye shape. The strawberry blond had his eye shape but not his face shape. They were lovely and fresh and sweet and they were related to him. His heart pooled with something like gratitude and he let out a long shaky breath and retrieved his hand from Sara. He held it out to the strawberry blond.

“You're Vivian,” he said, looking momentarily at the brunette. “And what is your name?”

She laughed and he smiled at the smooth sound. “I’m Emma.”

“He’s JT, not Jon,” Vivian whispered to Emma and JT marveled at their easiness. Their obvious affection. Their acceptance of him. The rightness of the moment. He felt a slipping of the world around him and realized it was his life, changing for good. He wasn’t alone anymore.

***

The doctors came and made everyone leave so JT could rest, but not before he’d been introduced to Emma’s husband, Craig, and Sara’s boyfriend, Jerry. Vivian had a husband too but he was also injured in another room in the hospital. They promised JT would meet him tomorrow.

The last word anyone spoke to him was Sara. “I have to interview you tomorrow also, about what happened in the hotel room. Will you be up for it?”

JT had nodded then slipped off to sleep. He awoke 12 hours later, with sun from the window falling on his face, heating a patch of it. A nurse changed a bag of fluid at his side. “Morning, handsome,” she said.

He looked at her blankly. It was morning? The good feeling he’d ended the night with before he fell asleep had fled, and he knew why. He’d had the dream again. But this time, it had been Dani he couldn’t save. Not Tina. And now in the daytime he didn’t know how he felt about Dani. He mulled it over, but had to push it aside as the door opened and the doctor that had ordered him in to surgery stepped in.

“Gunnery Sergeant Taylor. How do you feel?”

JT rolled his shoulders and shifted in the bed. “I feel OK. Thirsty. Hungry.”

“Good, good. We’ll get you some food right away.” He walked to the bed and picked up JT’s right arm, not gently at all. He poked and pulled and peeked under JT’s bandage. “Good. This is all coming along nicely. Has anyone told you anything about your injuries?”

JT shook his head no, feeling the tightness and pain along his right side at the movement.

“The bullet entered your body at the very apex of the lung, tearing a small piece of it away. It lodged there, saving you from drowning on your own blood, for a while. You were very lucky you made it back here when you did.”

JT nodded, blessing Sara and her team.

“We dug the bullet out of your lung and stitched you up. There was some muscle damage, but nothing too bad. You should recover from it just fine.”

JT smiled weakly. Good news.

“But.” JT’s smile faltered and died at the word. “But the electrical testing on that arm is not good. It seems you have suffered nerve damage from the prior injury and having your hands secured behind you for so long. We won’t know how much until you have rehabilitated and are able to do physical therapy. But that’s not something we can do here. You’ll be rotating stateside to Camp Pendleton for that.”

JT could read between the lines. “Are they kicking me out of the Marines?”

“No son, no. You aren’t being kicked out. You’re just being shipped back home for a while. No decisions will be made about anything until they see what kind of function you retain in that arm.”

JT turned his face away.
Function.
That was a killer of a word. If his arm didn’t function, he was no good to the Marines and he knew it. 11 years in the Marines, and it might all be at an end. He felt strangely flat and void of feeling, like it didn’t matter anyway. Well, there was nothing to be done now, except move forward.

“Thanks, Doc,” he said, still looking at the wall.

“Of course son. And we’d like to see you up and moving today, if you think you can.”

JT nodded, suddenly wanting his sisters.

The doctor left and JT had a few minutes to ponder his future. But then the door whooshed open and Emma and Vivian crowded in, bringing smiles and laughter with them. JT felt the hand squeezing his heart let up just a little bit. He wondered what their lives were like. If he left the Marines, maybe he could live near his sisters.
Sisters
. The concept still felt strange and unreal to him. But welcome. He was glad he had a distraction from the rest of the mess of his life right now.

They swarmed him, kissing him and fussing over him. JT felt their soft lips on his cheeks and thought back on the missed 30 years of sister-kisses with a sense of loss. But here they were, now, both talking at once and bringing a smile to his face.

Vivian bubbled over with excitement. “How are you feeling? Because if you are OK I want you to meet Hawk. His doctor says he can come down here and sit in a chair. And Sara and Jerry are coming too.”

“Yeah, bring him down. I can’t wait to meet him.” A thought struck him. “Is Jerry related to us?”

Emma laughed and a look passed between Emma and Vivian. “No, not by blood, but he might as well be family. He’s my partner.” JT nodded, confusion on his face. “We’re Firefighter/Paramedics in Westwood Harbor.”

JT nodded again, but it still didn’t make sense. “What are you doing here? And how did you find me? And who exactly is Sara and how are you partners with the boyfriend of the only woman in the world who could walk into a terrorist camp and make it out alive with two hostages?”

Again that look passed between the two women. JT wondered when he was going to be a part of that look. “It’s a long story,” Vivian said. “A really long story. Let’s wait till everyone gets here and we’ll fill you in on all of it.”

JT nodded, knowing it would have to do. His curiosity swirled and peaked while people filled the room and his breakfast came. Finally, Hawk made his way into the room slowly, his right arm in a sling and taped to his body. He found he liked Hawk immediately. Hawk had a quiet air of strength and masculine sensitivity that he identified with.

JT sat on his bed, Jerry, Sara, Craig, and Hawk sitting in chairs around him, and his sisters sitting on his bed. Vivian massaged his right arm while Emma fed him eggs from the breakfast tray. He felt a little silly, but he also felt pampered, fussed over, loved. He listened to the conversations the friends were having and, although he didn’t get most of their references, he felt like an insider. Like he belonged with these people. His mom’s face appeared in his mind’s eye and he smiled at her.
Thanks Mom
, he thought.
For everything
. And then he blinked and looked at Emma. “Hey Sis, you promised me some answers.”