Astonished, I just looked at him. What was I suppose to do? Say no? “How?”
“It’s not deep; I can feel it a few inches from the entrance hole. Use the forceps to pull it out.”
I picked up the forceps and looked at it. They looked like giant tweezers. I inspected the way they worked for a few seconds until I decided to go in. I went in a few inches and Angel gasped in pain again. He bit down on his lower lip. I felt something hard and I clamped on it. More blood oozed from the hole when I did.
“That’s not the bullet,” he said a little annoyed, “that’s a bone.”
I gasped and quickly let go. I came out an inch or two and turned slightly to the right. This time I found it quickly and pulled it out, dropping everything to the ground. I quickly picked up the bottle of alcohol and poured some into the wound. This time Angel screamed for a second, and then bit down on his lip. I slapped a large gauze dressing on it and taped it up as best as my shaky hands would let me. I cleaned the medical supplies and wiped them dry before I closed the kit back up. I cleaned my hands and we got up.
“Sorry, I’ve always hated blood and all that stuff,” I said. Angel got up with no problem.
“You did great.”
I puffed out a deep breath, “When all this is over, you’re taking me to Bora-Bora.”
Another silent laugh rumbled his stomach, but stopped quickly, “Bora-Bora, huh?”
I answered, “Yes, Bora-Bora. No people, no phones, no TV, and nobody attacking us. Just water and a little hut.” He nodded in agreement.
I picked up his gun and placed it back on his thigh. I bet there’s a scratch on it that he will complain about later. I wrapped my arm around his waist and we walked towards the truck. Angel got into the passenger side, which meant that I was driving.
“Um, so which way are we going?” Okay, so I was maybe the worst driver ever. I do admit it, my driving sucks. Luckily, we were the only ones on the road.
“Follow this road until you see the base. You won’t miss it.”
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. There was still sweat all over his face and chest. The gauze I put on his wound was already spotted with blood. He looked paler than before. I tried to concentrate on my terrible driving. At least there wasn’t anything distracting me, like music or texting. Angel fell into a deep sleep and I could hear him snoring lightly.
About twenty minutes later, I spotted the base. I mean, it wasn’t that difficult to find. There was a metal fence surrounding it with a few large factory-looking buildings that screamed military. And I could see a number of jets and helicopters in the distance. I quickly turned towards it and drove up to the security point.
There was an African-American man standing there with a huge automatic in his hands. He took one look at me and said with a southern accent, “Come on girl. This ain’t no place to play. Go home.”
I was already worked up as it was for this man to not even give me a chance to speak. I pulled the dogtags out of Angel’s shirt and shoved them in the guy’s face. “This isn’t a game. This guy here is a Navy SEAL. He was shot about five miles from here. He’s bleeding to death.” Okay, so I was exaggerating a bit. He was obviously fine, just tired and only lost a bit of blood.
The man came closer to me and inspected the tags thoroughly before opening the gates for me to cross without another word. I didn’t know which way to drive. So, I just drove into a garage opening in the building. I heard several men yelling, but I ignored them. I put the dogtags around my neck, and turned to Angel. I put my hands on his face and shook him gently. He opened his eyes and looked around him. Once he noticed where he was, he began to get out of the truck. I got out quickly and ran around to help him. He was steady, but I put my arm around his waist anyway. I had no clue why I thought I could keep him steady. If he collapsed, I would go down too.
I looked around the base. It looked like an airport. Behind me were different lanes where the jets would take off and land. There was a white tower in the distance watching the air traffic. The jets were all different; some looked scary. Off in the distance was a large ship, metal and ready for combat. In front of me, the garage was completely empty. I assumed that this was where they would store some of the jets because it looked off limits. I left the keys in the ignition anyway; they could move it.
There were men everywhere. Some were off in a distance going through boot camp training. Everyone else was wearing standard Navy uniforms. Almost everyone’s attention was on us.
A tall man, taller than Angel, came around and saluted Angel before shaking his hand. He looked about ten years older than Angel, but I could see that he was still built underneath his uniform. “Kerry, we’ve heard good things about you. Captain in the major terrorist group capture, and now the soldier responsible for the rescue of Samantha Keller. It is a shame that we had to meet this way. I am Lieutenant Pierce.”
The man looked over at me, and I hid behind Angel like a little girl. I didn’t realize I’d done it until Angel turned to me and asked me what was wrong. I just shook my head and closed my eyes. What was wrong with me?
I was confused as to why this man called him Kerry, but I decided to ask him another time. “Thank you for letting us through. I was shot a few miles back.”
“You don’t need to explain yourself. A Navy SEAL is always honored here. Come. Let’s take you to the infirmary so they can take a look at you.”
Before Angel followed him, he turned back to the truck and unloaded, removing all his guns and ammunitions from his body. The only thing I saw him keep was his combat knife. He turned back to me and I wrapped my arm around his waist again.
The tall man turned and began walking. I let go of Angel, but he held my hand as we followed. We passed a number of training grounds and jets that looked like they would go faster than anything I knew. But mostly everything I saw was a plain wall. No pictures, no windows, nothing.
“I’ve heard many stories of your achievements, but I never thought that you would be this young. I am in my thirties and still on the road to become a SEAL myself. It’s a hard process.” He looked back for a second. “You don’t look any older than twenty-five, son.”
Angel squeezed my hand. I could tell that he hated it when people doubted him because of his age. “Twenty-four, actually. I trained hard. The Navy was my life.”
We walked in silence until we entered a large white room with a few beds; all of them were empty. There was a beautiful woman with blonde hair in a tight bun. Her green eyes were huge and almond shaped. Her lips were full and perfect. Underneath the Navy uniform, I could tell that her body was perfect as well. She turned to look at Angel and I could tell that she liked what she saw. She enjoyed his 6’2 figure from head to toe.
The Lieutenant said, “Let’s leave Kerry here with Sandra while I take you to clean up and get something to eat.” He looked at the nurse.
But Angel’s grip tightened on mine. “That’s not possible. She needs to stay with me at all times. Unless you’re really hungry?” he said, looking down at me. I quickly shook my head. No way was I leaving him with Miss Victoria’s Secret here.
The Lieutenant just looked at him and nodded with approval. “I can see you didn’t earn respect for nothing. Your captain told us you need a new truck. I will prepare everything for you.” He left without another word.
Angel lay down on the bed next to Sandra and she began to remove the gauze on his chest. The bleeding had stopped, but she took some sort of stick and began to poke around inside the wound. Angel closed his eyes and tightened his jaw.
“So I hear you are quite the celebrity today?” she said as she poured some sort of yellow liquid inside, I heard it sizzle a little. Her voice was crisp and a little annoying.
“I guess so,” was his only answer, his eyes still closed.
“Well, there isn’t much for me to do; the girl did a pretty good job. No internal bleeding and no signs of an infection. It will take a while for it to heal. But it will on its own. Un
less you want me to sew it shut so you can continue with your mission.”
Angel opened his eyes and thought about it for a few seconds. “Sew it,” he finally said, closing his eyes.
Okay, Barbie is just trying to prolong the moment with him, and she just called me a girl. Though Angel doesn’t look interested in her. Then again, he’s not the type for soul searching so I couldn’t know for sure. I rolled my eyes and looked at his dogtags, which I had never inspected thoroughly: Kerry Angel Polanski, Navy SEAL. It had other numbers and his social security number on it. On the other side there was some sort of emblem. I took his hand in mine and he looked over at me. His eyes were tired and red; he needed to rest. The nurse took his face with both of her hands and made him face her, interrupting our moment. Her large bust was inches away from his chest. He looked up at her as she removed the tape from his right eyebrow. She didn’t do much to it, just cleaned it and sealed it with small Band-Aids. She did the same with the cut on his arm.
“Your arm will be fine. You will be able to use it properly after a full night’s rest. I will give you a small shot of morphine to ease the pain though.” She caressed his perfect arm before inserting the needle. “I can tell you don’t mind pain, Kerry. Those tattoos must have taken days to complete, especially with that artwork.”
He smiled briefly at her. I felt invisible in the room. “How’d you guess?”
“Well,” she continued, “my older brother is a tattoo artist. When I was in my teens, I spent hours watching him work. I learned a lot from him.”
I was withdrawing into the shadows we they continued their conversation.
After she “inspected” him for a full evaluation, he slowly got up and hopped off the bed, stretching his arm a little. He looked at her, I mean really looked at her body completely. He did like what he saw. Any man would have. And Angel was the type of man to enjoy a beautiful woman like Sandra. She looked back, giving him a seductive smile and turned around to show her backside, pretending she was cleaning her supplies.
A young man in a Naval uniform came in. He was short, though a little muscular. His dark hair was cut short like Angel’s. His tanned skin gleamed with the bright lights and his brown eyes took in everything around him. He was an observer. He looked at me and smiled.
He gave a small wave. “Hi, I’m Sam. I’m here to show you guys the room where you’ll be staying.”
Angel turned to the nurse and gave her his charming smile. He thanked her and turned away. I walked out the same way I came in, without saying a word to her.
We all walked down the small corridor while the boy looked back at me a few times. At the end of that same hall, he stopped and opened the door to a bland grey room with a bed at either side. Our duffle bag was on one of the beds and the bathroom door was open.
The boy turned to me. “I got you enough clothes for a few days and some of the guys volunteered to clean your guns. Let me know if you need anything.”
The boy walked off without saying anything to Angel. I smiled at him as he walked away. “That boy seriously has a crush on you,” he said, burning two holes on the boy’s back.
I smiled at him. “The same as Barbie?”
He walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him with a thump. He definitely seemed aggravated, but that’s not my concern. I looked at all the clothes they’d left us. Angel got more underclothes, black tees, and sweats with their logo, and more army pants. I got sports bras and underwear, sweat suits with their logo, some jeans, and black tees with black boots. Not my style at all, but everything that we had in the duffle bag was beginning to reek with the smell of sweat and dirt. And for the first time, I had clothes of my own, though I didn’t mind wearing Angel’s stuff.
While Angel washed up, I emptied the duffle bag and tried to get all the sand out of the compartments. I threw all the old clothes in a trash bag. I guessed they would recycle or get rid of them once we were gone.
All his guns and more were here. There was a smaller automatic and an extremely long rifle. None of them were loaded. I knew more about these things now since that was what had been keeping me alive lately. I left them on the bed and put our clothes neatly in the duffle bag. Angel came out the shower with a towel around his waist. I turned to him and inspected his dressings, touching them carefully. He looked down at me and kissed my forehead. I gave him the sweats and threw his old stuff in the trash bag.
Without a word I went into the shower myself to wash up. There was a razor that I took advantage of. I cleaned myself up and put on the stuff Sam had given me. The underclothes fit perfectly, though my breasts were pulled together tightly. I pulled on the white wife beater and the sweats; they were tight around the hip area. I towel dried my hair and came out. Angel had put on the grey shirt with the sweats. He seemed to be doing okay. I walked up to him and put his tags back around his neck.
“You never told me your real name is Kerry.”
“It was, but once I left the Navy I never used it, leaving only Angel. Kerry is an Irish name and it just reminds me too much of the past I never had, so I just got rid of it. But people still call me that from time to time. Speaking of,” he said giving me a charming conceited smile, “what did you mean back in the gas station?”
Oh no. I sat down and buried my face in his chest. “I didn’t think you were human.” I looked at him and smiled shyly. “I don’t know, but you’re perfect, absolutely perfect. Your skin naturally glows and you had no scars or marks before now. I really thought you were some sort of fallen angel or guardian angel or something. It took a bullet hole to snap me to reality.”
I thought he was going to laugh but he didn’t. He looked too tired and a little out of it from the drugs. He leaned in and kissed me softly. I suppressed the desire to bite his lower lip. “I am just like you. No supernatural here. I could be your guardian angel if you wanted me to be,” he said, winking at me.
I smiled as his words made my heart flutter. But I ignored it, knowing that he was just acting weird because of the drugs he’d received. He didn’t look like himself at all.
“Are you feeling okay?”
He looked down at me while he moved his shoulder a tiny bit. “Good. I just need to sleep for a bit then we’ll get going tomorrow. Let’s meet everyone at the cafeteria.”
He got up and I touched the rifle. “They brought you more stuff.”
He looked down at it. “I’m not a fan of rifles, but we should take whatever we can get.”
I got up and followed him around the base. Everything looked exactly the way I figured it. Plain, no color, and people dressed in navy uniforms everywhere. “Were you stationed here?”
He looked down at me and smiled. “Only for a few months. That stuff is really tight on you. Bet some of these guys won’t be able to keep their eyes off you.” He inspected me once more, making me feel a little excited.
And they couldn’t. As soon as I entered the cafeteria that’s how it was. I felt like a piece of meat in the middle of a crowd of dogs. Men would turn and look back from time to time. Women looked a little annoyed at me for taking all their attention. I grabbed a tray and followed Angel around to fill up our plates. He went to a bench and I slid in next to him.
He looked excited to talk to people who were into the same thing he was, though his eyes still looked droopy. There were a few people he knew from when he was stationed here. Sandra came in and sat at the table across from us so she could enjoy the view. The food wasn’t great but it was edible. Angel told me about their nutrition facts and how it makes your body strong and blah blah blah.
Sam came over once we were finished and wanted to give me a tour of the base. He wanted to show me the ship that he was going to take a voyage in soon. I looked at Angel and he shrugged. I guessed that was a yes. But I didn’t want to leave Angel for a second. I told him thanks but that I was tired. Angel looked at me with surprised eyes. He got up and told everyone that he was very tired and needed to get some rest, but had enjoyed everyone’
s company.
Back in the room I pulled off the stupid sweats that everyone liked and stayed in my tank and underwear. Angel took some sleeping pills and sat on the edge of the other bed, looking a little like a drug addict. He was sweaty and clammy. Since everything was scattered on that bed, I went to the other. I was surprised when Angel came and lay down with me. I thought he would empty his bed and go to sleep. But he didn’t. He came to me in only his briefs. He turned off the lights even though it was still bright because of the outside lights. I looked over at the clock, 7:59pm. For the first time I was actually worried about the time.
He looked at me, running his fingers through my wet hair. His eyes looked like glow in the dark marbles. He brought his lips to mine and kissed me passionately. I didn’t overdo it. I kissed him gently as I ran my hands over his chest, feeling every curve of it. I could feel that he was aroused. His kisses sent shivers up my spine and I sighed with pleasure between his lips.
He broke the kiss and said, “I’m glad I took this job because I met you.”
I closed my eyes and let a tear run down my cheek. Never in a million years would I have guessed that he would say that to me. Most of the time I felt like I got on his nerves. He still didn’t push himself on me. He wrapped his arm on my waist and brought me closer, groaning loudly.
He kissed my cheeks several times and whispered in my ear, “Sleep, I will always be here protecting you.”
He was slowly opening up to me, even if he wouldn’t remember any of this tomorrow. With that thought, I fell asleep.
Chapter 9
I woke up with a start. I heard what sounded like a whistle outside. But the windows were too high for me to see. I looked at the clock again, 12:05pm. We’d definitely had our fair share of rest. I was facing Angel, with an arm and a leg on his body. My shirt was gone; I take clothes off in my sleep when I’m uncomfortable. Luckily, it wasn’t anything else. That was showing that my sleeping pattern was becoming normal again. Before it felt like I was in coma or something, not even feeling fully rested when I woke up.
My Sweet Escape: A Touched by an Angel Novel Page 10
