Page 26 of Jenny
CHAPTER SEVEN
What was going on? Dare opened his eyes. The light hit like a sledgehammer, so he squeezed his eyelids shut.
Noises sounded. Mechanical ones. Beeping.
Some sounded at a set interval. Others randomly.
His body felt…different. Weird. Unattached. Floating like a balloon let loose in the sky. Well, a balloon that had survived a hurricaneanda meteor shower.
His head throbbed. A dull ache filled his stomach. A pressure built in his arms and legs. Or was that his hip? He couldn’t tell.
The pain felt as if it were distant, no longer in his face—raw, intense, jagged—as it once had been. He remembered that much. He tried to remember more.
The beeping increased.
Weird. His mind seemed to be a patchwork of memories. Pieces sewn loosely together.
Someone pressed against Dare’s leg. Movement. Machinery cutting into metal. Yelling. Hearing the 9 Line MEDEVAC Request over the chaos.
For some reason, line three had stuck with Dare: “One Alpha, three Bravo, four Charlie, one Delta.”
Urgent, urgent surgical, priority, routine.
Dare had no idea which of the nine patients he’d been. He hoped he’d been the alpha. If he’d been the most seriously injured, then the others would be doing better than him and recovering quickly.
Recovering where?
He blinked open his eyes to find out. The light was still bright, but it wasn’t as blaring as the first time he’d tried.
He was in a hospital, but he’d already guessed that. Which hospital, or even which country, he wasn’t sure. Panama? America?
Machines with wires and cables attached to him made the noises. He listened closer. Someone was in the room. He could hear breathing.
As he turned his head toward the sound, a knife dug into his brain. Okay, not really, but moving his head hurt worse than a whiskey hangover.
A woman was asleep in a chair. She sat sideways with her knees over the chair arm. Her head was angled downward. Long, caramel-colored hair with blond highlights covered her face.
Dare could make out pale, smooth skin and full lips, but that was it. He didn’t recognize her coloring or hair, but he liked what he saw.
Who was she? And why was she here?
A door opened. Footsteps sounded on the tile floor.
He tried to use his peripheral vision to see who’d entered, but couldn’t. “Hello?”
His voice sounded rough. No kidding, his mouth felt as if it were stuffed with cotton.
“You’re awake,” a familiar voice said.
That sounded like his… “Mom? What are you doing here?”
“Where else would I be?”
And then he remembered. His mom had been here for a few days. He’d forgotten that and what else she’d said had happened.
A Blackhawk had picked up him and his squad. They were en route to get Hamilton and the others when the helicopter went down.
Dare’s jaw clenched. “Any word on my guys?”
