Page 69 of Double Exposure

Chapter Nineteen

Carter Weston

All I remember is the smell of her hair. Like roses in snow. I must have finally passed out.

When I come to, there's someone wrapping something very thick around my thigh. I look up and I see Jade’s face. She’s holding my head while Brock and Ross apply the tourniquet. Riley just released my arm from a blood pressure cuff and is about to give a reading.

“Well, here you are, asshole,” says Brock after he catches my gaze.

My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I need to tell them to be careful, there might be more buried traps. The sky swims and for a moment I don’t know which way is up or down. The sky fades to black. It takes all my strength to open my eyes again.

“Too soon?” says Brock. Riley whispers something in his ear. My brother immediately sobers. “Hey, we need to transport, now.”

The rest is a jumble of memories: the sound of the chopper, Brock shouting, how hard it is to breathe, how cold I am. Jade’s face . . .

΅

And there she is again. My brain feels jet lagged. I try to say something to her but my throat hurts too much. I’m exhausted. Sleep comes in waves, but every time I surface, there she is, sitting in a blue molded chair, or standing next to the bed. Once, she was holding my hand.

Even in my stupor I felt a kiss on my lips, light, warm, firm.

Finally, I really wake up. Jade’s asleep, curled up, in the chair. She’s the only one in the room.

I’m unprepared for how garbled my voice is. “So, this is what my family thinks of me?”

Jade’s head snaps up and she pushes a long wave of black hair from her face.

“Oh my God, you’re awake,” she says and starts to reach for the nurse’s station buzzer.

“Wait a minute.”

“Everyone’s out in the cafeteria getting dinner. They kill me if they find out you woke up and I didn’t tell them.”

“They know where to find me,” I say.

“I want to be on the good side of your family.”

“You are. You already have points,” I say.

“What?”

The fact she’s here is enough for right now. The hospital lights are dimmed but her eyes shine in the twilight.

“Don’t ever do anything like that again,” she says to me and places a small hand on my forehead.

“Why is it so dark in here?” I start to ask and then realize a possible answer. There’s something I’m not supposed to see. With a sickening bottoming out feeling in my stomach I try to feel both legs. I can’t.

For a moment, I can’t speak.

I can’t move or think.

My brain flashes on new prosthetic designs, if Jade will stay with me, my life, a different job—all this in less than a second.

Then her cool hand presses my forehead again and she says “You’re going to be fine. Your leg is there. And I would never go anywhere anyway.”

The relief that comes is almost as incapacitating. She sits on the edge of the bed and slides her arms around me. Laying her head on my chest she sighs.

I breathe the scent of her hair once more, snow and roses, and this time I sleep and don’t wake until morning.