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“When can I get back in the field, Doc?” I know my abdomen will likely take a few weeks to heal, but I don’t have a few weeks to wait around.
Dr. Bennett’s dark eyes give away what he’s thinking before he says it, and it’s not going to be good. “We’re going to need to talk about that...”
“Doc, my brain is kinda fuzzy right now. I must have heard you wrong. Can you say that again? What’s there to talk about? Just give me a date.” Then I begrudgingly add, “Maybe a little slower.” If I didn’t think it would split my skull in two, I’d try to shake the fog free from my head, but I don’t think my brain can handle the movement yet.
“All concussions are considered TBI’s. Traumatic brain injuries. You suffered a grade 3 concussion. I’ve brought in a neuro consult, and we’ve got reason to be concerned. You’re scheduled to have another MRI later today. We’ll know more after that. Until then, I can’t give you any kind of estimate about iforwhen you’ll be able to return to duty.”
I want to argue with him that I’ll be returning to my team, but my eyes grow heavy from the pain meds.
He checks something on the machine next to me, then steps back. “No lights, no electronics, and no excitement for the next twenty-four hours. Give yourself time to heal, Sinclair. We’ll know more soon.” He turns on his heel and leaves the same quiet way he came in, while I’m left trying to focus on the door he just walked through and the one word I can’t shake.
If.
He saidifor when I return to active duty.
He’s wrong.
I’m a goddamn US Navy SEAL. I will return to duty. To my team.
I have to. It’s who I am. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be.
I have to help my team figure out what the hell happened.
And what fucking part Axel played in it.
Fuck. I want to say there’s no way Axe would have turned on us, but Rook and Ford both said it. They’d never have gone there if they weren’t certain. I try to remember... try to force my brain to work, but it doesn’t.
Instead, I close my eyes and drift off to sleep as a flash of Axe taunting me last week about Carys pushes through my mind.
“You gonna marry my baby momma, Sinclair?” He drops his tray of food on the table in the mess hall and sits across from me.
“Fuck off, asshole. She’s not your baby momma, and she never will be.” Fuck, if she has it her way, she won’t be mine either.
“We’ll see.” The asshole smiles.
He was always being a dick, but he was never serious.
We stood side by side for three years against the rest of the world.
I trusted him with my life.
A trained killer who I never thought would turn his training on us.
A knock on the door jars me from my dream, and the nurse from earlier—Denise, I think— walks in with my dad and Carys behind her.
Tears stream down Carys’s beautiful cheeks, as she rushes past Dad to stand next to my bed. An old hoodie of mine engulfs her small body, and I ache to feel her skin against mine.
To take away the shadows and fear from her gorgeous green eyes.
I want to kiss her and convince her I’ll be fine, even if I don’t know that yet.
I want to hold her in my arms and tell her I’m never fucking letting her go again, and I don’t give a shit what she has to say about it.
She’s mine.
Period.
But I don’t do any of that because my blendered brain is focusing on one thing. Axel betrayed us. If I was shot—which judging by the pain in my stomach and the giant fucking bullet hole there—there’s no denying it. There’s only one man who could have done it.
