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“Here.” Evan jumps up and practically runs to her.
“Your brother is out of surgery. The doctor went in and inserted a nail and screw to stabilize the areas. Until he is out of recovery, we won’t know the extent of nerve damage and if it will be permanent or not. The nerves in his feet are, at the moment, unresponsive to touch. As he has suffered major trauma, we were in a situation to fix what was visibly damaged, and now we’ll have to wait to see what happens. I’m sorry I don’t have better news right at this time.”
Evan runs a shaking hand through his hair. “When can we see him?”
“Once he’s out of recovery, you can see him two at a time for short periods. Please understand, his body needs rest to heal properly.”
Helplessly, we pace around some more until we are finally told two of us can head back to Room 308. Evan waves for me to follow him, so I do.
As we walk down the hall, my hands get clammy. It takes everything I have not to wipe them on my pants, letting anyone who may be watching me know how jittery I am right now. I haven’t felt this nervous since I went on my first Special Forces mission, unsure of what to expect.
As we open the door and walk into the room, my stomach drops.
Hammer lies on his hospital bed, eyes closed, almost as if he is sleeping peacefully. Bruises and bandages all over his body tell a different story, though.
Evan walks over to the bed and lifts the side of Hammer’s blanket then gown up to expose the large bandage that covers his hip. Gently placing the gown and blanket back down, Evan then collapses in the chair next to the bed and breathes out a long sigh. He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t need to. We both know it could have been worse, which is saying something since there is no way to know if Hammer will ever walk again.
The thought of this man, my brother in both battle and on the road, never riding his bike or walking into our club again kills something inside of me. A proud man like him might not survive with his legs taken from him. The both of us have gone to more than one funeral of a soldier we have known who had lost their legs someway, somehow, in the war. They had either died of a complication of their paralysis or had taken their own life rather than live without their legs.
I can’t imagine a world without a smartass, ball-busting Hammer riding on the road with me.
My mind flashes back to the last mission we were on together as Green Berets. We were in the middle of a nasty fire fight in the Kandahar Mountains against a group of terrorists we had been sent in to take out because they had taken over one of the villages in their attempt to get closer to a nearby fob, or Forward Operating Base. We had intel saying the group had a number of high value targets that the powers that be wanted taken out.
As we marched through the rugged terrain of those mountains, making our way to the village’s location, we were spotted by a couple of local goat herders. They ran ahead and warned the very men we were after of our impending arrival, causing us to basically walk into a trap.
Taking cover behind a crude mud-brick wall, I returned fire with Hammer by my side while the rest of our team moved to different vantage points around the village. We were outnumbered, taking heavy fire, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it home to my little girl and mother.
Shit had looked pretty dire at the time, and as I ran out of ammo, I sat behind that wall, scrambling to change out for a fresh magazine. Being preoccupied with what I was doing, I didn’t see one of our targets sneaking up on our flank on the opposite side of the wall.
But Hammer did.
The man ended up saving my life by putting a bullet hole in the center of that motherfucker’s head. When I looked over to him, just after our enemy’s body disappeared from sight, he said something that resonated through me and gained my undying loyalty.
“Don’t look so fucking surprised. I’ll always have your back, Ice.”
Now it looks like I am going to have to figure out the best way to have Hammer’s back. It is the least I can do for the man who saved my life. The man who has had my back since the moment he first joined my team in the Army. The man who has followed me from one band of brothers to another.
