I asked the young Private if he knew of any way I could reach Major Richards, but he had no idea.
Then, I saw Major Richards walk past my room. I thought I was hallucinating. I thought I’d lost my mind, maybe from all the smoke the doctors claimed I’d inhaled. There was only one way to know for sure. I ran out into the hallway.
“Miss?” the redheaded Private said to me, standing confused in my room.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. My heart was racing, my hands were shaking.
I looked down the hall, but couldn’t spot Major Richards. Maybe it was just an optimistic daydream. The nurses watched with wide-eyed concern as I ran around the corner. Then I saw him—Gage, dressed in a hospital gown, being helped down the hallway by a nurse. I stared for a few seconds, making sure I wasn’t hallucinating, that I hadn’t fallen into some sort of deranged psychosis.
It really was Gage.
He looked over and saw me as I ran up and nearly tackled him to the ground. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed, and he did the same. My heart was still beating a thousands times per minute, blasting adrenaline through my body. I wanted to drop to me knees and bawl my eyes out, but at the same time, I didn’t want to let go.
“You’re alive,” I said.
“Yeah.”
Running my hand down his side, I could feel the bulging stitches from where the shrapnel got him. His left arm and left leg were both heavily bandaged, covering the burns. His right leg was in a cast, and so was his right wrist, but he was alive.
“They’re sending me home,” he said, still holding me tight against his body.
The nurse told me to let go, that I was going to pop his stitches, so I let go. Gage kissed me on the forehead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I spent the day getting X-rays and being poked and prodded by doctors. They told me I needed surgery, and that I wouldn’t be able to go back into the field. I didn’t bother pretending to be upset. When the doctors told me that I wouldn’t be able to box anymore, I was a little bit upset. “Why not?” I asked.
“It’s unlikely that you’ll have complete mobility in your right leg. Same with your right wrist.”
“But I’ll still be able to throw a punch, right? My arm is fine, it’s just my wrist, right?”
The doctor stared at me with narrowed eyes. He sighed deeply, as if he was talking to an idiot, and maybe he was. “I wouldn’t advise it,” he said simply, shaking his head and sighing again. “Honestly” he continued. “You need to be very careful with that wrist while it heals. It’s broken in six different places. Sleep on it the wrong way, and you’ll have a gimp wrist for the rest of your life. Maybe even an amputation. That happens, you can forget boxing altogether.” He rolled his eyes and left the room.
They gave me more morphine and I went to sleep.
I woke up with sharp pains in my neck, shoulders, and legs. It was dark and the hospital was quiet. I reached for the nurse’s button, but my muscles were too rigid and sore to extend out.
Then, I noticed the IV bag with my morphine drip was gone, and there was a dark figure standing between me and the hallway. I couldn’t make out any of his features, aside from his beard and his baldhead. I knew immediately who it was when he spoke.
“Hey, Gagey Boy. You look like you’ve seen better days.” It was Lyon.
I could see the glimmer of his teeth as he smiled.
“What do you want, Lyon?”
“I hear it was you driving the truck when you hit that IED.” His smile disappeared and his voice lowered.
I watched as he walked towards the door and closed it. The room became black. “So what?” I said.
“From the sounds of it, it was a pretty big IED. Took out three trucks. I’m curious how you didn’t see an IED that big coming. I mean, you were just out in the Sandpit, right?”
“You saying I hit it on purpose?”
“I think your stupid, Daniels, but I don’t think you’re that stupid.”
“What do you want?” I asked again. I ran through the possibilities in my head. Lyon was a ruthless son of a bitch, but he wasn’t dumb enough to kill me. My best bet was, he was going to rough me up, which was why he cut off the morphine, so I would actually feel the pain, and so my muscles would be too sore to fight back.
“You know Darby’s dead, right? Miller too.”
“I know.” As soon as I’d learned that I hit an IED, that eight guys were killed, I knew some of the guys would blame me. Sure, I felt like shit about it, but I didn’t see the IED. If Miller had been driving, he wouldn’t have been able to see the IED. Joes were killed every day in roadside bombings, and a lot of guys let it ruin their lives, blaming themselves. I wasn’t going to do that. It was a reality of war, not to mention, it was the reason we were stationed out in the Sandbox in the first place. We were cannon fodder, glorified minesweepers.
“Those guys were my friends,” Lyon said through his teeth.
“That’s funny. I didn’t think you had any friends.”
I waited for him to take his first shot, but instead, he took a breath and surprisingly managed to compose himself. “I thought real hard about beating your ass.”
“Well you better get it over with, you piece of shit, because this is the only chance you’ll get.” I’d made it clear on the pavement that Lyon didn’t stand a chance against me. He was just another tough-talking bum.
He revealed his toothy grin again. “But I thought of something better,” he said. “You’d better get back to sleep so you can heal up fast.” He laughed, turned towards the door, and left the room.
I thought about what he meant, but I wasn’t too worried. I figured he was just going to go around telling everyone that I hit the IED on purpose, some attempt to try to humiliate me the way I humiliated him on the pavement. Beating me up in private would have been temporary satisfaction. He would still return to the outpost known as the cunt who had his ass handed to him in front of two dozen Playboy Playmates. Him disconnecting my morphine was probably just some half-assed attempt to torment me.
But still, without the morphine I was in a lot of pain, so I reached for the nurse’s button. After some painful straining, I pressed it, but it didn’t light up. The wires that attached it to the wall had been cut, probably another part of his half-assed, disgruntled revenge plot.
My stomach churned and a tingle crept through my body. Right before Major Richards pulled me off of Lyon, at the end of our fight out on the pavement, I told Lyon, “Keep your filthy fucking hands away from her.”
Lyon had no intention to beat me up or to humiliate me. He was right—he was going to do something much worse. His next stop after my room was Ashley’s room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I woke up to a hand brushing the hair off of my forehead. There was a man sitting on the edge of my bed in that dark hospital bedroom. “Gage?”
“Gage is sleeping,” the man said.
I rubbed my eyes, trying to force them to adjust, but the room was too dark. He wasn’t wearing scrubs, or a lab coat. He had a thick beard and a bald head. “Who are you?”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. His voice was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. It had a deep hoarseness to it. “I just came here to tell you something.”
My large, private hospital room suddenly felt small, cramped, cold. My chest trembled as I took a deep breath in. Something was wrong. I knew the man wasn’t supposed to be in my room.
He ran his fingers down my face. They were cold and rough. I flinched.
“Shh. Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I just want to talk.”
I could hear my heart rate was increasing, beeping on the nearby monitor. I could feel it too, pounding against my chest. “I think I need the doctor. Can you get the doctor, please?”
He stood up and reached for the assistance button, which hung down on a cable. He held it in his hand, but he didn’t press it.
“Please,” I said. My heart
beat faster. My skin became cold.
He pressed the button. “Sure thing. Are you okay?” he asked.
The button lit up and my panic began to subside. Maybe I was still on edge from the RPG incident in the helicopter.
“The doctor will be here in a minute. I saw him down in the lobby, taking to the nurses.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out.” I still couldn’t see the man’s face. He was a black silhouette in a black room, pacing the room like a ghost. “I heard you’re flying back home tomorrow,” he said.
“As far as I know. They don’t tell me much.”
“I overheard the nurses talking about some big movie you’re going to star in. Congratulations.” I could see his teeth as he smiled.
“Thank you. It’s not a done deal yet. I still have to meet with the director, and I haven’t even read the script.”
“Still. You must be pretty excited.”
I laughed. “I am. But I don’t want to jinx it or anything.” I was tired, straining to figure out why the man woke me up. Surely, I thought, he didn’t wake me up for a bit of small talk.
“I’m sure it’ll all work out. And Gage, he’s going home, too.” The man walked back over to the bed and took a seat. He looked down at me, his face still obscured in shadow. Even though I knew the nurse would be in any second, I was still nervous. The man had an dangerous aura about him.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
He was silent for a moment as he looked down at his lap. “I’m afraid I owe you an apology. You see, the other night, I had a little too much to drink, and I’m afraid that I got a little close with you. I’m very embarrassed about it, and I’ve been meaning to apologize to you.”
The nurse came into the room and flipped on the light. The man sitting on the edge of my bed was Corporal Lyon, the man I watched Gage beat up at the outpost, the man who felt me up the night I arrived at the outpost.
“Is everything alright?” the nurse asked.
Lyon looked down at me, his hands clasped neatly in his lap. He raised his brow for me to response.
“Yeah. Everything’s fine. False alarm.” I forced a smile.
The nurse left and Lyon looked back at me. “I hope you understand that that’s not like me, and I’m sorry that it happened.” He was referring to my first night at the outpost, when his hand was slithering up my thigh.
“You know, as embarrassing as it sounds, I can’t even remember that night. I had one too many drinks myself,” I lied, hoping it would give him the relief he was looking for, so he would leave.
“Well regardless, I’m sorry.”
I smiled and nodded, but Lyon remained seated on the edge of the bed. His lips were parted and his gaze was inward. He had more to say, but was struggling to say it.
“I know it’s not really my place, Miss King, but I wanted to warn you about Corporal Daniels—Gage.”
He looked at me with his lips pressed thin. “Gage isn’t the kind of guy you think he is.”
“What do you mean?” That tingling chill returned and my stomach became knotted.
“I’ve known Gage for a few years now, and I can’t help but think that he’s using you. And I know it’s not my place to say anything, but Gage wants to be a professional boxer.” His eyes darted back and forth from my eyes to his lap.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Do you follow boxing, Miss King?”
I shook my head. “I don’t. Why?”
“You’re an actress, Miss King, and I’m sure you’re aware of the politics involved in the business. My uncle worked in the movie business for a while, as a matter of fact. He did the lighting for a few big movies in the 70s. He always told me, it’s all about the people you know. I used to be a big boxing fan myself, but I have to admit, I haven’t watched too many fights since Oscar De La Hoya. Remember him?”
“I remember the name.”
“Since De La Hoya, it’s become somewhat of a tabloid sport. The MGM doesn’t want to book Joe Nobody when they can book Mickey Rourke and sell the fight to every son of a bitch with Pay-Per-View, excuse my language. Gage is looking for his break, and I think he sees that break in you.”
The chill crept into my heart. Was Lyon telling me the truth? Was Gage just using me as a shortcut to a boxing career? I didn’t want to believe it, but there were too many coincidences to ignore. For instance, why was he so eager to push me away, and then as soon as word got out that my shoot went viral, that changed?
“Also, Gage was driving the Humvee that hit the IED. It’s a well-known fact that the driver’s seat is the safest place to be in a roadside bombing. Now, I’m not saying he did it on purpose, but it’s hard to ignore. I mean, it looks like he’ll be heading home just in time for your big movie shoot.”
My head was spinning. I didn’t want to believe it, but Gage was hardly more than a stranger. I thought I knew him, but maybe I didn’t. As far as I knew, Gage was a cunning sociopath, manipulating everyone to get what he wanted. I knew Gage a week. Lyon knew Gage for two years. Rivals or not, two years was a hell of a lot more time than a week.
Corporal Lyon apologized for his intrusion and he left the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It hurt like hell, and it took all the energy I had in me, but I managed to make it up to Ashley’s floor. As I stepped out of the elevator, I saw Lyon leaving Ashley’s room. He was looking down at his feet, with his hands in his pocket and a big smile across his face. He was heading towards me.
I grabbed him by the neck and threw him against the wall. “What did you do, you piece of shit?”
He smirked. “Shouldn’t you be resting?” he managed to say with my hand clenched around his throat.
“What did you do? Did you touch her? I swear to fucking God, if you touched her, Lyon, I’ll kill you.”
One of the doctors came running from down the hall “Hey! What are you doing?”
I didn’t let go. I held him against that wall, tightening my grip. He tried to pry my grasp loose with both of his hands, but I didn’t let up. The doctor tried to pull me off, but his efforts were wasted; I didn’t budge.
I thought about choking the bastard out. In the time it took me to get up from my bed, stumble down the hallway towards the elevator, and get up to Ashley’s floor, he’d had more than enough time to have his way with her.
I desperately wanted to believe he didn’t, and I held onto that hope, which was the only reason I didn’t choke the bastard out.
“What’d you do? Tell me,” I said.
He just smirked. The doctor had given up trying to pull me off of Lyon, and was now halfway down the hall, calling for help. Soon there would be armed US Marines pulling me off, and I would lose my chance to sock the son of a bitch in the face.
So I socked him in the face with my free hand—the hand attached to my broken wrist. A single punch and Lyon dropped to the ground. My cast shattered.
A sharp, cold pain shot down my arm, through my shoulder and down my back. It wasn’t a temporary pain. It lingered, never letting up, paralyzing my body. I stumbled back and grabbed my arm. The pain started pulsing, bringing me down to my knees. My cast was broken and covered in Lyon’s blood. Lyon’s face was also covered in blood that was pouring down from his freshly broken nose.
He looked at me and smiled. His teeth were crimson and there was a deep gash across the bridge of his nose from where the edge of my cast hit, but he was too amused by the pain I was in to care.
Ashley was standing in the hallway, in front of her door. Her face was white and her eyes were wide. She didn’t come over to me. Instead, she just stood by the door and watched as the doctors came and helped me to my feet, and led me away.
It didn’t look like Lyon had hurt her, but I knew he did something.
I spent the rest of the night in the operating room, having my shattered wrist reassembled for the second time in as many days. When I awoke
from the aesthetic, Ashley’s flight had left, and she was already a quarter-way around the world.
Lyon and Hastings were both on their way back to the outpost. The only other person I knew in the hospital was Major Richards, who was supposed to leave on the same bird as Lyon and Hastings, but insisted on having one final conversation with me before I was sent home.
He was waiting in my room when I woke up.
“Afternoon, Corporal. How do you feel?” he asked.
“I dunno.” My whole body was numb from the morphine. It was hard enough to keep my eyes open. “Fine, I guess.”
GAGE: A Bad Boy Military Romance Page 14
