Covered In Ink

Chapter 19|Did they chop my arm off?

Okay that pulled on the heartstrings a little bit. I blinked back the tears.

"He was going to surprise you," he continued. "But he managed to get shot on the last day of our tour. It wasn't even his fault. It was his," he pointed to someone near me.

I gasped. "Macho man?"

He frowned at the nickname as I moved closer to hear the rest of the story.

"Yeah...macho man."

"Well come on, tell me."

"Right, well we were on patrol, there were five of us; macho man, otherwise known as Garrett, was fooling around, going further than we were supposed to go. Caleb had told me earlier that he didn't want to go because Garrett was an asshole and wouldn't listen, even if it killed him. It almost did kill him. He was straying from the group even though he knew it was a dangerous area, we all knew he had it coming but he was oblivious. Anyway, after a while he disappeared from our sight, Caleb told us to sit tight while he looked for him. I protested but he insisted that he'd find the little shit, his words not mine. Five minutes passed, then ten and we were all starting to get worried. It was when the shots started that we knew shit was going down. We had to keep down because we didn't know where the shots were coming from. I thought they were dead, to be perfectly honest, but just when I was about to call for backup, I saw them running towards us. Well Caleb was running, Garrett was thrown across his shoulders, and damn he was flying, the fastest I've ever seen someone run in my life. He reached us and threw both himself and Garrett onto the ground, Giving Garrett an earful. He deserved it. Caleb was bleeding from two gunshot wounds, one was just a hole in his leg where the bullet had cut clean through his calf. Caleb managed to walk all the way back to base without help, while Garrett needed to be carried. He walked away with a sprained ankle. I still don't know what happened down there, but we would have been screwed if those gunmen had come back, we weren't allowed to shoot unless we had a clear target and permission to fire because it was a civilian zone."

"Wait, so he risked his live to save a guy he didn't like, then he got shot and the other guy walked away unharmed?"

"Pretty much."

"Wow, my brother's an idiot."

"You gotta hand it to him, he's a brave idiot though."

"Yeah I'll give him that."

"I'm glad I was out there with him and not just some other guy who didn't have the whole team in mind. Old Garrett might be dead right now if somebody else had taken that patrol."

"Well I'm glad he has a friend like you with him to keep an eye on him for me."

He nodded, smiling. "It's my pleasure."

I smiled back, returning to my seat where Ryan was now awake, glaring at macho man who was snoring with his mouth wide open.

"You heard us talking didn't you?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Isn't he even a little sorry that he almost killed a man?" Ryan asked in disgust, bypassing my question.

"Doesn't seem that way," I commented, lacing my fingers with his. Which he didn't even second guess, it felt so natural. Well it did to me anyway.

Eventually I heard footsteps on the white tiles, the closer they got, the more frantic I became, craning my neck to look for a doctor or something.

A man of medium height with auburn hair, wearing a white jacket, stopped outside the waiting room. He looked around the room, bewildered, then he looked at his clipboard.

"Caleb Harper?"

I shot out of my seat, dragging Ryan up with me. The rest of the soldiers who were awake also stood up haphazardly, scraping their chairs.

"Family only," the bewildered doctor announced.

I pulled Ryan in the direction of the doctor, grabbing Jeremy on the way past.

The doctor rose an eyebrow as we approached him.

"And you are?"

"I'm his sister, this is his brother," I gestured to Ryan, "and this is his cousin,"I nodded to Jeremy.

The doctor crossed his arms over his chest, looking skeptically at my hand which was clasping Ryan's, who was supposed to be my brother. I quickly dropped his hand, smiling sheepishly at the doctor.

"Very well," he said, spinning around so his back was to us. "Follow me."

We were led down a wide corridor with white doors on either side, leading to rooms, most of which looked unused. The doctor stopped outside a door. I examined it, finding Caleb's details as well as his condition.

"Now, he's just woken up so he might not want to talk." He pushed the door open, revealing a smallish white room with a single bed and a single patient. I covered my mouth with my hand.

Behind me, Ryan gave me a gentle nudge, pushing me slightly closer to the bed. Caleb looked so peaceful, but skinny, like he'd lost weight. I could see that his shoulder was bandaged, but his leg was covered by the crisp white sheet. I sat down in a seat next to the bed, watching his chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. I took his hand in mine, lightly squeezing it, and to my surprise he squeezed back.

His eyelids fluttered open, and almost immediately he let out a groan, it sounded like he was in pain.

"Hey, are you okay? Do you need me to get a doc-"

"What's a guy gotta do to get a burger round here? I'm starving."

I snorted. That was a good sign, a typical Caleb response.

He turned his head towards me, wincing as he did. A lazy smile crossed his face.

"You're pretty," he commented. "You look like my sister."

I chuckled. "I am your sister."

He gasped. "Hazel Rose Harper, what are you doing in Iraq?!"

"We're not in Iraq, we're in California, at Fort Irwin," I said slowly.

He looked around the room dazedly. "How did we get here?"

"They took you in a plane, then probably a helicopter."

"Did I do drugs in the helichopper, cause I can see," He squinted, pointing to the left of me, at me, then to the right of me while counting under his breath, "three of you right now H."

I giggled at the way he pronounced helicopter.

"It's probably the medicine they gave you for your shoulder," I explained.

He frowned, stabbing the white bandage covering his shoulder and upper arm. "I can't feel anything." His eyes suddenly widened. "Did they chop my arm off?!"

I snorted. "No, you got shot remember?"

"Who shot me? I'll kill the bastard." He paused to think about that for a moment. "You can help too, H, it'll be like brother sister bonding."

I covered my mouth, stifling a giggle. "You're disgusting, they is not how siblings bond."

"How do siblings bond then?"

"I don't know, doing stuff together, not killing a guy."

"Well we can do that too, but I really want to exterminate this guy. He can't just shoot me and get away with it, I gotta show him who's boss."

Then he just passed out.

I looked around at the other people in the room. "Well that was interesting."

~*~*~*~*~

So the kitten to the side has nothing to do with this story, but she's just so adorable that I couldn't help it, I had to show you guys.

We called her Nala and she really loves pouncing on my toes -_-

Hope you guys like this chapter, by the way this story has just reached 20k reads and 1k votes! It's actually crazy.

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Until next time.