Wounded (8 page)

I can see the death on his friend. I lean over him anyway, touch his neck, feel no pulse. I shake my head, and the American sobs, collapses, saying the same thing over and over again.

I know no English, but it sounds like, "Derek, Derek." A name.

The American goes silent, and I know he has passed out from the pain, from the blood loss.
 

What do I do? I cannot let him die. There has been too much death.
 

I drag him to my home, several blocks away. I am exhausted by the time I get him there.

I cannot help wondering once more,
What am I doing?

FOUR

HUNTER

Operation Iraqi Freedom; Iraq, 2003

Routine CP. Clearing houses, crouching in doorways, and following the APCs and Hummers. Rifle at the ready, ears tuned, eyes peeled. Derek is beside me, joking about something. A sex joke. I laugh, but I'm not hearing him.

I've got the jitters. My stomach is uneasy. This is my last patrol. I’m shipping home soon. My tour is done, and my four years are over. I’m not re-upping. I’ve seen too much death and blood for a lifetime. All I have to do is get through this patrol without anything going FUBAR, and I’m home free.
 

Of course, I don’t have a home to go to, but I can figure that shit out when I get home. For now, I just have to focus on this house, this room, this street. Then the next one and so on through this sector, and then we ride the seven-ton back to the MEK and I’m back Stateside within a week.

And of course, I’ve got the jitters. My hands shake, my spine tingles. This is my gut telling me shit’s about to go down, because of course, nothing is ever easy.
 

Derek acts oblivious, keeps joking. I want to tell him to shut the fuck up and pay attention, but I know better. He runs his mouth because he's nervous. He feels it, too. He chatters like a goddamn blue jay when he's scared. I can see his eyes scanning, see the tension in his shoulders, in the way his rifle is almost at his shoulder, ready to fire.
 

We round a corner, and my gut clenches. I slow, scan the rooftops. Derek is doing the same.
 

"Feel it?" I ask.

"Fuck yeah. Shit's about to hit the fan."

The others are piled up behind us. I see nothing, so I continue, even though my instincts are telling me to stop, go back, stay, get the fuck down. I creep forward a few more feet, and then my gut is screaming too loud to ignore. I shove Derek to the side and drop to the ground for no reason whatsoever. As I taste dirt, an AK barks from a rooftop. Bullets snap through the air where we had been.
 

Fucking knew it.
 

Someone behind us shoots back—Barrett, I'm pretty sure. Only Barrett fires like that, three-three, pause, three.

Then all hell breaks loose. AK fire erupts from all directions, and suddenly we're split, half our unit cut off from the other half. Derek has a bead on an insurgent on the roof opposite us, so I wait until a muzzle-burst gives away a location and pour fire at it. I see a head and shoulder pop up, black metal and tan wood and black-spot eyes. I squeeze the trigger, and a burst of pink mist tells me I dropped him.

There's a pause, and Derek and I lurch into a run, breaking for a better position. I hear boots pound behind us. We're nearly there when I hear a
hackhackhack
and then fire and pain gouts through me, centered on my left shoulder and thigh. I'm spun around, fall. I'm dragged by the hand through the dust, bleeding. The strain on my wounded shoulder as I'm pulled is agonizing. I see Derek beside me, firing at a doorway. I see a shape, a muzzle-burst, bullets peppering the dirt and the wall near us.
 

Derek hits his target. I watch, the world sideways, as the muzzle-burst goes silent mid-bark. Derek shifts, prepares to drag me farther into cover. Then a figure, thin and young, stumbles from the doorway, bleeding. He throws a grenade, and I try to move, but Derek is already on top of me, rolling away with me, and the seconds until detonation tick in my head like thundering drums, each one a heartbeat.
 

Heat and fire and pressure erupt, the sound so deafening it becomes silence, and we're thrown. I feel wetness spread, feel pins of pain stab me. The silence continues and I wonder if I've gone deaf, but then ringing fills my ears, and I know my hearing will return eventually.
 

Derek is too still. Too wet. I find my feet, bullet-pierced leg screaming, refusing to support me, but I don't care. Can’t afford to care. Adrenaline powers me. I grip Derek's red-slick hand and pull him, needing him to be okay. Rifle fire is a distant roar, and I see puffs of dirt marking Death's walk toward me.
 

My side hurts, low, near the hip. Shrapnel, I think. I push my hand against it, trying vainly to dull the pain with pressure. I get Derek a few feet away, closer to the doorway that would provide some cover, but then I'm struck again in the shoulder. I fall to my knees, find my rifle, fire blindly. Find a target, fire. Dropped him. Another—
crackcrack
—dropped him.
 

Fuck, I hurt.
 

A slug of agony hits my thigh, right near the original wound. I can't stay upright any longer. I hear more rifles firing, M-16s, an AK, and then a detonation. Someone shouts my name, Derek's name. Barrett. I want to answer but have no breath in my lungs. It's been stolen by pain, by shrapnel and bullet holes.
 

I succumb to the pain, let it wash over me. I drift and float, and then I feel something push me. Pain breaks over me like a wave when I crash to my back, and I force my eyes open.

Goddamn, she's beautiful.
 

It's a stupid, random thought, out of place on this battlefield, but I can't shake it. She's kneeling above me, her head-scarf thing, a hidab, or...my pain-fogged brain won't spit out the right word.
Hijab
. That’s the word. It's coming loose around her face, tendrils of bottle-blonde hair escaping to drift across her delicate-featured face. I want to touch her finely sculpted cheeks, but my hand won't work.

"What are you doing here?" I ask.
 

She looks at me in confusion. She doesn't understand.
 

I my head and see Derek. He's a fucking mess. Panicked horror is a thick, hot knot in my throat.
NO!
Not Derek….
 

We've been buddies forever. Second grade. He called me a sissy and I beat his ass and we've been buddies ever since. Joined up together, got lucky, and managed to get through Basic in the same unit, assigned to the same grunt squad. Impossible luck, to stay together like this for so long, through war, through death.
 

Now he's dead.

"Derek?" I claw toward him. Poke him; he hates being poked. "Derek?"
 

I look at the girl, bright brown eyes like sun-bathed earth fixed on me. She touches two fingers to Derek's neck, looks back at me, shakes her head. Her meaning is clear.

"DEREK!" I can't help the scream.
 

I know I'm crying, feel the salt burning down my cheek, but I can't stop it. I don't care if I'm crying in front of this gorgeous Iraqi girl like some kind of goddamn sissy. Derek is dead.
 

Dead.
 

Fuck.

Darkness swallows me.

*
 
*
 
*

I wake up in the darkness. Shadows have eaten me. Silence sits on my chest like a wet, heavy blanket. I look around me, see shapes in the shadows. A chair, a table. A mirror reflecting shards of starlight. A square of lighter black with a swatch of pinprick stars: a window. Hard earth beneath me.
 

I want to get up. Need to get up. Can't stay here. Gotta get back to the guys. I manage an inch upward before pure agony bolts through me and I cry out, a soft grunt, high-pitched and girly. Goddamn sissy whimpers. I grit my teeth to silence myself.
 

Scratching, motion, rustling cloth. Then a face appears above me, blocking my view of the stars. Blonde hair hangs loose in long waves around her bare shoulders. I'm struck again by how stunningly beautiful she is, even in the dark of midnight black.

She says something in Arabic and touches the center of my chest to push me down, a feather-light touch between bullet holes in each shoulder. I stare at her, unable to look away. I wish it was light so I could see her better.
 

She tugs a thin blanket farther up my body, and I realize I'm clad only in my skivvies. Clumsy bandages are held on by tape, not medical tape. Regular tape. I laugh, which hurts. The girl tilts her head in confusion.
 

I point at the bandage, the tape. "Did you do this?"
 

I know she can't answer me, or understand me, but I ask anyway. I don't know why. I just want to talk to her.

She says something back, her voice sharp. I think she caught on to my criticism.
 

I hold up my hands to stop the accusing sound of her voice. "Thank you." I know I've been told how to say it Arabic, but I have to think about it. "
Chokran
."

She nods once and turns away, lies down, facing away. Her shoulders look tense, and I can tell she doesn't trust herself to really sleep with me here, even wounded.

"You can sleep, you know," I say. "I couldn't hurt a fly right now."

She rolls over and looks at me, dusky skin starlit silver. She whispers something, shaking her head, shrugging.
 

"I know you don't understand me. It doesn't matter." I smile at her, but she stares at me, impassive. "Sleep."

I mime sleeping, hands folded under my face, an exaggerated snore, then point at her. I point at myself with a thumb. I try to move and a groan escapes. I look at her and shrug, then mime sleeping again. She frowns in thought, then gives me a tiny smile. She gets it. She closes her eyes slowly, her eyelids flutter, then close again. Her breathing slows, and then she's asleep. I watch her sleep.

Why did she bring me here? Why did she help me? I would have bled out, died. I'm a burden. I won't be able to do shit for myself for weeks. I'll need to eat. I'll need help shitting. How can she help me? This house is tiny. She can't have much. I'll need antibiotics, probably. I'd wish for morphine, but I know I won't get it. Probably won't even get aspirin.
 

Now that she's asleep, I let the pain wash over me and let it show. It hurts so goddamn bad it's hard to breathe.

I fall asleep again.

When I wake, bright sunlight streams through the square, uncovered window. I'm on the floor in a corner. There's another bed opposite me, a mattress on the dirt covered by neatly folded blankets. There's an old, battered stove in one corner, older than me. A single bare lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, a large hunk of mirror with taped edges leaning against the wall. The girl is nowhere to be seen.

I close my eyes again, and that's when I hear it: the unmistakable sounds of sex. Male grunts, female moans. The moans sound forced, too loud, too exuberant. It lasts for a moment, then stops. I hear boots scritching in the dirt and a male voice muttering under his breath in Arabic. Another moment, and then the girl appears in the doorway, smoothing her hair with her fingers. She doesn't glance at me, as if not seeing me. She goes into the tiny bathroom with the rusted stainless steel sink, slips out of her skirt, cleans herself with damp rag. I watch, embarrassed, but unable to look away.
 

She is lithe, slim, long-legged, with flawless dark skin. I make myself look away to give her privacy. I hear her say something, a curse if the tone of her voice is any indication. I look at her. She is staring at me, almost expectantly. She is still naked from the waist down. I avert my eyes, roll away, groaning in pain.

I hear clothing rustle and she's clothed again, standing over me. She has money in her hand, and that's when I put two and two together. Understanding must be visible on my face, because her features harden. Her fist clenches around the wad of bills.

"Hey, it's none of my business," I say.
 

She responds, but of course I don't understand what she's saying. She sounds angry. She gestures at herself, at the door, which I take to be a gesture at the world at large. She's explaining herself, I think. She touches her stomach, hunching over it, groaning.
 

"You don't owe me any explanations," I say, as if we're having a conversation.

Hunger. I realize what she was trying to say with her charade. She sold herself for food. Pity must have registered on my face, and she must have recognized it. Her eyes blaze with anger, and she tosses the money at me and stomps away, although she only goes to the other side of the little house, arms folded, back bowing out and shoulder heaving as she breathes through her emotions.

"I'm sorry," I say.

She turns to look at me over her shoulder and says something. My imagination fills in the gap:
I don't want your pity
. She turns away and opens a cabinet, finds a box, produces a pill, and dry-swallows it. Birth control, I imagine. I wonder if it's difficult to get a hold of, out here.
 

She brings me flat bread and a bottle of water, a packet of foil containing ground beef or lamb. I struggle to sit up, gritting my teeth against the pulsating pain. She motions at me to stay down, mimes feeding me.
Hell, no
. I ignore her and get my shoulder blades propped against the wall, panting and sweating. I think I have broken ribs. I hurt so bad I could cry, but I refuse to let myself.
 

She watches me, frowning, shakes her head and mutters something.
Stubborn ass
, I imagine she says. She sets the packet of foil on my stomach, which hurts from the effort of moving. I reach for it, but my arm is weak. I manage a few bites while she watches. She clearly wants to help, but doesn't. I'm glad. I refuse to be fed like a goddamn baby. It's exhausting and painful, but I manage to eat it all, and drink the water. I feel better.