Hunter (Revenge & Legacy Book 1)

by M. C. Cerny

  Cement walls, blinds drawn, smells of piss and antiseptic. Scratchy tape against skin, or at least the exposed parts I could still feel under cold blankets that threatened to smother me in a panic. Half my head covered in thick bandages while my hearing remained obliterated on the left side where the door should be. My stomach lurched. I knew I was no longer inside the Humvee driving over dunes.

  What the fuck happened?

  One minute we’re on patrol, the night heat thick and sand burned our eyes. Shouting, gun shots, an explosion make time stand still. Where are my men? My officers? My mission? A commotion loud enough to penetrate the waded cotton around my head stopped me from trying to sit up. I fell back in a grunt and shut my eyes as the door slammed open. I needed Intel. For all I knew I was in a hospital behind enemy lines waiting to be tortured.

  “Finally, Superman returns.”

  I don’t know the voice and I can’t speak trapped in my head.

  “I’ve waited a long time to find you. We’re going to be good for each other, Aaron. I’ll scratch your back and you’ll scratch mine.” A weight pushed down, maybe on my knee, but I’m not sure.

  “Dear old dad sure knows how to orchestrate a reunion doesn’t he? Don’t worry, we’ll get you fixed up and squared away. I’ve got so much to tell you, but it’ll have to wait.”

  I don’t know if I’m hearing things from the drugs or if this is real. I don’t even know if I’ll recall any of this later.

  “I hope you like the islands. I have a house on Exuma Cay perfect for your rehab. Only one way on and one way off. You might be a trained SEAL, but I doubt you’ll be up for ocean swimming anytime soon.”

  A loud bang brought on reverberations that made me nauseous.

  “Mr. Huntley, this is against hospital protocol.” The doctor said and my eyes fluttered a millimeter open under gauze wrappings. I sense the doctor placed a hand on the finely suited arm that jerked away quick removing the weight from my knee. The drugs in my system kept everything fuzzy and surreal. I’m confused and all I see in my periphery are tubes leading in and out I hadn’t noticed before. A cold sick pain followed.

  “I fail to see how that’s your concern. What is the patient’s prognosis?” I strained to hear the voices through my agony. This isn’t real, it can’t be real.

  “I-I…” The doctor stuttered. A chart is unhooked from the end of the bed and paper shuffled.

  “It’s alright, Dr. Hermosa, Mr. Huntley has been given clearance. Inform us as to our soldier’s prognosis.” The General was here. I’m not sure why. But that name… I should know that name.

  Huntley.

  That name was familiar but the pain blinded me. General Perry’s eyes followed the path of my broken body but don’t reach my face from under my lids where I viewed him with a mixture of confusion and contempt. His glance queerly appraised before speaking again. Where are my men? Where’s our Infinity Squad? Why am I hooked up to all this shit and weaker than a baby deer? This wasn’t how my last deployment was supposed to end. I groaned and get their attention, but they ignored me.

  Claudia was my next thought and the future we had been crafting. This would have been my last mission overseas. I was supposed to come back in one piece. I was supposed to give up my commission for a house outside Arlington and a job in a staid office once the General released me from my duties. I had a mission, Top Secret and the effort to remember hurt more than my physical injuries. Her blonde hair teased the edge of my consciousness and the last time I was inside her. The last time, I left her with a baby. I didn’t know for certain, but I was sure she would have happy news for me and now I wasn’t coming home at all. The dream died with me on a low inaudible moan as if it was nothing more than a ghostly whisper barely present in the room.

  “He’s been in and out of consciousness.” The doctor rambled on my list of deficiencies. “The IED blast was significant. We anticipate some brain trauma.”

  “How much brain trauma? I can’t have a fucking vegetable taking my place.” The voice was angry.

  “Sir, it’s hard to know without him awake and coherent.” The doctor said.

  A growl slammed the wall. “Wake him the fuck up.”

  “That’s not how it works. There’s a possibility he may never wake up once the drugs are weaned from his body.”

  “Then fucking wean him like the teat drinking pussy he is.” The harsh voice throbbed in my head and I moaned again hoping they would tell me something. Anything.

  “His leg is badly damaged. We will have to consider amputation once he is stabilized in the next few days or so. The rest of his body was lucky sustaining minimal damage, but his system could shut down without rest. The stress could cause organ failure. He needs to be in a medically induced coma with a pain management regimen.”

  I heard the words but don’t follow what they mean. A blast I vaguely remember, brain trauma, and amputation. My mind can’t process all of it quick enough without crushing anxiety sitting on my chest like a thousand-pound gorilla punching my ribs. Underneath the white sheets I’m broken, sinking into quicksand and despair. I might be Hulk humming under the surface of my skin ready to jump out at them and claim I’m here, I’m okay, but the drugs thick in my blood hold me back to a mute simmer.

  “No.” The man called Huntley grated eerily with conviction. Who was this man who seemed to be calling the shots without a decorated star to his chest or a ribbon worth noting?

  “No?” The General repeated.

  “Save the leg. He’s going to need it.” Huntley instructed the doctor with conviction.

  “The nerve damage alone and the bone–” The man interrupted him again and I felt a weight pressing over me as this Huntley man leaned against the bed, his finely suited back to me.

  “The leg will be the least of his worries when I’m done with him.” I felt the air move before he turned and sharp pain connected to my face forcing my head to turn over the pillow and wetness dribbled down my chin seeping into my mouth.

  “Mr. Huntley!” Shouting and scuffling surrounded my covered face while pain radiated from my nose down.

  The weight was back leaning in again. “I can’t have him be the better-looking brother. Fix his nose. I’m pretty sure he broke that too.”

  “Huntley, this wasn’t in the deal.”

  I felt the air charge as if the man swirled around to stare other one down.

  “You know General, sometime I think you forget who you work for.”

  “N-no.”

  “Don’t forget again and quit blowing shit up that belongs to me. Including him.”

  The suited man left the room and Dr. Hermosa let out a deep breath. Through cracked eyes and blurred vision, I watched him patting his face with a tissue from the corner of my peripheral vision or what was left of it.

  “The man has fucking brain damage.” The doctor stuttered under his breath. I would have snorted if the pain wasn’t killing me, perhaps literally.

  “Which one?” The General grunted.

  The doctor whispered and I wanted to scream that I could fucking hear him. “Are you sure about this General?”

  “You heard, Mr. Huntley.” The General grabbed the doctor pushing him against the wall. “Save the damn leg and do your job. I don’t care if you have to reconstruct fucking Robocop.” He sneered letting him go.

  “Fucking bureaucrats and mobsters.” The doctor said to no one. I agreed with him. I only wondered what part I was to play. He turned up the IV drip and I faded into Lala Land.

  20

  Elizabeth

  We sat for over three hours waiting for information about Eddie. Adam left me here to have dinner with a business associate or whatever lie he concocted after ditching the empty hall where they told us to wait. His mood was dark and I had no wish to push him further. I’d finally taken my sister-in-law’s phone away chucking it into my purse. I couldn’t listen to anther video message from my brother on repeat when I didn’t know his prognosis. It was too painful. Fiona we
pt into a wad of tissues lying in my lap delirious and distraught when a woman barged through the double doors to the critical care unit. Her long blonde hair wild and her wide eyes red stumbled past us.

  “Where is he? Where is my husband?” The woman pushed her way into the naval hospital, a marine tailing her as she jogged up to the nurses’ station. Tears stained her cheeks like a permanent tattoo of pain. I felt like the worst kind of voyeur. My pain was masked beneath layers of artfully applied makeup. The expensive clothes like armor because any display of weakness was a chink deep enough to let my husband’s poison seep through slowly destroying me. I watched her under my hooded eyes hoping I didn’t betray myself with envy for her. Envy that she loved her husband while I hated mine in a cold fury that silenced me stealing my breath. I may as well have been an ice sculpture useless on a summer day.

  “Ma’am, we’ll need you to sit down. I’ll call the doctor but he’s on rounds at the moment.” A nurse from the station halted her from taking another step and the marine caught her. He held her arm gently nodding to her and guiding her to a chair next to us to wait. She was grief-stricken, and barely holding on.

  Fi kept on crying and I wanted to extricate myself from her. I felt awful wanting the distance when I reach my hand out to this unknown woman to connect with her. Adam would forbid it, but I looked around not seeing him and said fuck it. Compassion outweighed his bastardy. The asshole was probably drinking scotch and eating chocolate mousse for all I knew.

  “Hello, I’m Elizabeth.” I spoke softly. It felt intrusive to look her directly in the eye with her pain blinding like the sun.

  “Claudia Henderson. My husband…”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. He’s here too?” I asked already knowing the answer instinctively.

  Claudia nodded wringing her hands together.

  “He is. I’ve been waiting to see him. I just got clearance to be here.”

  “My brother is here. Eddie.” We nodded conveying what we could with as few words as possible bridging the gap between each other. Grief could do that.

  “I don’t even care about the injuries, you know? I just need to see him. Touch him again.”

  I agreed with her. Sometimes getting back a portion of something was better than the whole or nothing at all. I’m not sure my brother would agree, but I knew if Fi could have him back right now as is she would love him all the more for it.

  “I hope he’s alright and you get to see him soon.” I wished her good things. I stopped believing in God a long time ago, but I still prayed.

  “Same to you.” She smiled a watery upturn of her lips quivering. The doctor rounded the corner and we were forgotten as she approached him.

  “I want to see my husband. NOW!” Claudia’s guttural tone sounded like wounded animal as a marine blocked her from rushing the doctor. I admired her bravery. I wondered if she sensed her soul mate clung to life as Fiona prayed for my brother. Tears continued their path down her face soaking the neck of her shirt.

  “I’ll talk to her.” The doctor stepped forward. “Mrs. Henderson?”

  “Please, call me Claudia. Where is my husband? I got the call and came as soon as I could.” Claudia grabbed the doctor by the arms never once looking back at us.

  “This way, please. First, I must tell you some things about your husband, Mrs. Henderson…”

  “Claudia, just Claudia…” She murmured leaving Fi and me behind to keep our vigil of the empty hallway.

  “Alright then.” I watched the doctor guide her away from us. His eyes scanned my face, from a distance he blanched. I wondered why but he quickly turned away devoting himself to Claudia.

  “Whatever you need to tell me, know that I love my h-husband. I knew exactly what he signed up for. I lost my cousin in the Gulf War. Just tell me he’s alive.” Frantically, I looked around trying to escape but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere could I take Fiona so she didn’t have to be privy to yet another loss.

  “It’s not good, Claudia. His leg… his face… the wounds are grave.”

  “We have a daughter and another on the way.” Her hand touched her stomach and I succumbed to my horrified jealously observing the exchange. “They need their dad. I n-need him. Please.” Claudia clenched her fists, white knuckles folded across her chest. The gold cross reflected in the fluorescent lights in the hospital’s hallway, a beacon to the fading souls on earth.

  “This way.” The doctor walked Claudia down the hall and out of our hearing. Their footsteps echoed under the harsh fluorescent lighting. Peering up I saw them slip into the same room Adam left before and curiosity punched my gut. Why would Adam be in there? The thought stopped because I knew nothing. The less I knew the better off I would be. I killed that curious cat years ago, and I didn’t want to go back.

  Fiona lifted her head from my lap and for a moment I ceased stroking her hair. Her blood shot eyes met mine. “Do you think her husband was in Eddie’s group?”

  I don’t know how to answer her without crying myself.

  “I don’t know Fi. It doesn’t sound good, whoever her husband is.” I told her the truth because I knew I would have wanted the same courtesy extended to me.

  “We should pray for them.” Fiona said sadness etched in her face forever mourning and unchanged.

  “Honey, you stay here and I’ll get you some coffee.” I petted her hair back in place pushing the loose strands behind her ears. I felt like an old woman getting up from my chair. Everything hurt. Who knew emotional exhaustion was so physically taxing.

  I don’t see Adam. Fiona stared blankly out the window preoccupied in her numb state. I’d given her the phone back to give her something to do, anything that wasn’t talking to me or asking me to hound Adam for information about Eddie. I didn’t have anything to wash the taste of round two down, so I selfishly avoided him at all costs right now. My watchdog, Nelson was also strangely absent, but where would I go inside a hospital like this? Scanning the hall, I found no other security detail and slipped away.

  The empty hall called to me, desolate and eerie leading me inside a room at the end. From the doorway, I saw a man covered in bandages over much of his body, some already stained pink needing to be changed. He laid up in the bed with thick restraints over his chest as if his silent drugged out hulking body was a threat. Bandages covered most of his face including his nose. If he survived the scars would be disfiguring.

  Curious, I scanned the hallway before stepping inside feeling a compulsion to sit near him. His battered hand peeked out from the bedding. I looked around husking a small prayer under my breath. No one was here so I picked up his limp hand. Surprisingly, it was warm, but heavy from bone and muscle despite his listlessness. Monitors beeped, oxygen flowed, and guilt filled me. I should have been sitting with Eddie, but he wasn’t here, and I wasn’t permitted to be with him in that moment.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry this happened to you. I don’t even know who you are, but I hope you pull through. I hope you get to go home. I hope there’s someone there who loves you.” I those things, instead I was a sick and twisted voyeur sitting in a stranger’s room.

  Claudia rushed into the room ignoring my presence probably unaware that we’d just met. She laid her head near his side weeping. I stood up awkwardly to leave. I had no right to be here. It wasn’t like we were going to have tea together after this, so I left turning back from the door backtracking my steps. How could I listen to such an innocent and intimate moment between husband and wife? I know why I did it. I’m selfish and horrible and for a moment I wanted to pull the heavy curtain shrouding me back so I could greedily listen to the love exchanged between them. They had everything I didn’t and there’s my sin, the envy, the want.

  “Oh, my darling, my sweet, sweet man. What stupid heroics did you do this time, my love?” Claudia knelt down by the bed and grasped his hand gently, her own shaking. Tan fingers looked cut but clean wrapped in gauze like much of his body. I tried to imagine what kind of impact a bomb had on a body, b
ut all I saw were flopping images of men in uniform tossed back like lifeless rag dolls, broken and unable to play their games of war.

  My heart hurt and absently, I rubbed the center of my chest feeling a profound loss I had no words for.

  “He’s in and out of consciousness. The leg has an infection. We’re giving him the strongest antibiotics possible but you need to be prepared…”

  Gasping, I backed further away from the door hearing the doctor’s voice.

  “No! No! You don’t get to tell me to be prepared. I’ve been prepared for this from the day my husband signed his life away to this country in service, and the day I said ‘I do’ to this man, forever. I don’t care what you have to do. You will bring my husband back to me piece by piece.” She poked the doctor in the chest, her fingers bent and broken with anger, body shaking before pounding her fist into her heart.

  A chair outside the door beckoned me to sink down and sit for a spell to collect my thoughts. My ears caught the doctor again sounding forlorn, and defeated.

  “I’ll give you some privacy then.”

  I picked my nails for God only knew how long when another marine bounded down the hall. Perhaps he was an old friend and confident to both husband and wife? I was still a fucking voyeur, and I supposed I could make up whoever I wanted them to be, even illicit lovers. This guessing game had become a sick fantasy.

  “Claudia, how is he?” The marine said as I leaned around the corner to watch my twisted play. He knelt down to pick her up and held her in his arms. The embrace was far too familiar when his hand slipped lower to cover her flat stomach almost protectively. I should have left when I had the chance to avoid hearing more that would ruin my imaginary happily ever after.