Desert Blade (2 page)

Throat raw, he screamed again, over and over. Screams filled him, became him, ate at the grief and humanity left in him.

Derek floated out of a dream of soft hands and vanilla-scented words.

“Can you feel this, Derek?”

Dr. Sullivan. Lidia. She’d been here for the past two days, pushing, getting him to move. Heavy as a damn bowling ball, his head rolled toward her soothing voice, and he licked his dry lips.

“You’re touching my shoulder.”

“Good. That’s good.” Gentle, professional, all business, that was the doctor. For days, she’d blurred around the edges. Until now. His vision cleared of the painkillers and she came into sharp relief. The sunlight bright on her clean white coat, her short blond hair pulled back, she had the kind of face Hester had when caring for him with the flu, or that time he’d twisted his ankle, or even the first time he’d gotten hungover as a kid. The doctor patted his arm in the same way. With concern.

“Hester. She’s gone.”

A flicker of sympathy brought her brows down, and he regretted clouding her face—and quite a pretty one. “Hester?”

“My foster mother. She didn’t make it.” His vision blurred again. Dr. Sullivan stroked across the shoulder of his damaged arm, and tingles followed her trail.

“I’m so sorry, Derek.” A flash of sympathy then she cleared her face and adjusted something on the arm he tried not to look at. “Can you bend your fingers?”

Sweat broke out on his forehead, the effort making him pant. Finally, with a grunt of frustration, he tossed his head back on the pillow. “I can’t.”

“You will. It just takes time. We’ll get you loaded on the train and, when we get there, we’ll start your physical therapy.”

“I can’t go. I have to find Hester.”

“You said she didn’t make it.”

“She didn’t. I have to bury her. Can’t leave her in the street.”

Her attention seemed riveted to his arm, but she made a small noise—of comfort or disapproval, he couldn’t tell. She took in a breath, but whatever she was about to say was lost to the deep baritone from the door.

“How’s our patient?”

“He’s coming around.” Dr. Sullivan left his side and the pain started throbbing in his shoulder, above the new prosthetic he still couldn’t bear to acknowledge.

“Good.” Dr. Kelso lifted Derek’s arm and squinted at it.

Derek tensed against the pain and looked too. The prosthetic appeared natural, though the color was off. Maybe a little darker flesh tone. It appeared oddly strong and fragile at the same time, like he had a mannequin’s arm stuck on him. The doctor rolled it, and Derek’s body jerked against the raw scraping in his shoulder.

Derek hissed.

“Doctor, it’s too soon. His arm should stay in the sling.” Dr. Sullivan put her hand on his shoulder again and the pain lessened. It was amazing how she soothed him.

Kelso positioned his body sideways and nodded to the prosthetic. “That’s a special arm, boy. Can you unsheathe the built-in weapon?”

“What?” Derek blinked, clearing his hazy vision.

His arm had metal plates extending from his wrist to his inner elbow. Other than that, the arm looked almost real.

“Try stretching out, pushing. It should extend.”

Stretching sent a nauseating ache through him, but he pushed, sucking wind with the effort. A swoosh rewarded him with a sleek slide of metal extending from the plates.

“I’ll be damned.”

“We’ll work on that. Shouldn’t be such an effort.” Dr. Kelso took out a tool and started fiddling with the metal covering.

“He just had surgery, Doctor.” Dr. Sullivan intervened again. “He needs recovery time.”

“We have no time.” Dr. Kelso flipped open the plate and touched something inside, making Derek’s new fingers straighten and curl.

“When can I leave? I need to get home.” Derek swallowed the grief that surged upward.

“Doctor, this is insanity. The man just had major reconstructive surgery. The only reason you can even move that arm is he’s pumped full of pain medicine we really need to conserve. He needs recovery time. Rest. We can work on any fine-tuning during physical therapy. After we get to Leavenworth.”

“You’re right, Dr. Sullivan. It’s just exciting, isn’t it? It works.”

The doctors continued their discussion, Kelso’s cadence taking on excitement, Dr. Sullivan’s a voice of reason. The back-and-forth sent him into unconsciousness.

After drifting for some time, he came awake, as he’d done several times since being carted here, to the humming of Dr. Sullivan and a song he couldn’t quite place.

“What’s that?” he croaked and wondered why he’d asked. He usually kept to himself.

“A song I used to listen to on the radio. That’s one of the things I miss the most. The constant hum of the radio from the nurse station.”

The room grew foggy and his pretty doctor sang low, barely loud enough to hear. He didn’t know why, but he kept talking. “I miss my motorcycle. Movie-theater popcorn.”

“Movies.” She sighed. “
Pride and Prejudice.
I tucked that DVD into my things to take to Leavenworth, but there won’t be a way to watch it.”

He didn’t know the movie and a strange nostalgia had him blurt, “And fortune cookies.”

She laughed, and he fell asleep to the soothing sound, promising himself he’d leave and find Hester as soon as he could walk out of here.

The crack and swoosh of a fire exploding sent his body on alert, ready to defend his doctor, but the drugs dragged him down, his mind protesting the entire way.

* * *

All patients except one had been evacuated on the last train.

Lidia had stayed to be sure the last, Derek, had a chance. The commanding officer of the military guarding the hospital told her under no circumstances would another patient be brought in and under no circumstances would she leave this locked-down, nearly empty hospital until her evac. Doctors were already scarce. She was a valuable commodity.

Turning from a window showing the latest fire burning out of control through Chicago, she cast a professional assessment over the man sitting on his hospital bed, the anger vibrating through him still, as it had for hours after she’d told him he couldn’t leave to find his foster mother. “You need to rest while you can.”

Derek nodded but didn’t move.

As she’d done for the past several nights, she sat in the chair next to him and picked up the book she’d left on the side table.

“What are you doing?”

“Reading.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting everything ready? This place is in the middle of a time bomb. It’s not safe.” He crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling.

“I’ve packed all I can. When the train gets back, we’ll leave.” Her heart squeezed at the thought of never seeing Chicago again.

Derek settled into his bed and closed his eyes. She read out loud from the book—a completely boring medical journal on herbal remedies. He didn’t complain. Unlike previous nights when she’d taken the opportunity to shamefully stare at him, he didn’t drift off immediately. After a while, her eyelids began to droop and she put the book away. “Tell me about yourself.”

“Me?” Derek didn’t sound as tired as Lidia felt.

“Who else?”

“Nothing to tell, really. Hester took me in from when I was young and stupid until I went to basic. I was there when the riots started. Came back here to evacuate Hester. Was too late.”

The sorrow laced his deep voice, and despite his pain, she wanted to hear more of his voice. It stroked along her skin in a way she couldn’t explain and didn’t dare examine. He was a patient. Off-limits. And four years junior to her twenty-seven.

“You grew up here?”

“I did. When everything started going bad, our neighborhood was one of the first hit. My parents were killed in a home invasion robbery that wiped out their stored foods. My family home burned to the ground.” She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat.

He didn’t say a thing. There was nothing to say. The pain had been unbearable so she’d turned it off. Hadn’t thought of it again until today, wishing to know more about Derek, a wish she should ignore.

As she moved to the curtained alcove next to his for sleep, he insisted, “I’m staying to make sure you’re safe. Then I have to go.”

She nodded. There was nothing to say to that, either.

He grunted and she smiled. In the small time she’d known him, he’d been truculent, grudging, but a tender heart lay beneath that sling.

“How old were you when Hester took you in?” She’d meant to go, but the sounds of explosions in the distance made her reluctant to be alone.

When he smiled at her for the first time, she forgot the noises. Everything outside this room went away.

“She took me in when I was ten, when my mom took off. Hester told me stories about her husband, how brave he’d been in Afghanistan before he was killed in action. I wanted to be like him—that’s how I ended up in the Guard.”

“She was proud of you.” Who wouldn’t be?

“She didn’t care what I did, as long as I made something of myself. She made sure to show me there was life outside the crappy neighborhood we were in. Every chance she got, she took me places. Did small things. Planted flowers for elderly neighbors, brought their groceries from the store. Went to do things listed in the paper. Parades. Free museum days. Firehouse open houses. Anything.” He gave a snort. “For a while, I wanted to be a fireman.”

“I always wanted to be a doctor. That’s what my parents were. It was expected. I never thought of doing anything else. Now, there’s not much to be, except alive.”

“Alive.” His eyes closed and the lines around his closed lids made him seem older, reminding her he was a patient who needed sleep.

“Get your rest.” She curved a hand around her stethoscope, the reminder of her place in his life.

“Tomorrow.” He didn’t open his eyes. “I need to get up and move. Can’t stay in this bed forever.”

“No. Can’t stay in bed forever. Have to have you walking before the evac.”

Evac.
The word that sent dread through her. In only days she’d leave the safety of these walls. After that, she didn’t know where or when she’d find safety again, but she’d gotten word the time had come to leave. The fires were too close, the rioting more desperate, and the military withdrawing by the droves. Soon, she’d leave, and all she could do was hope the train made it out of here.

* * *

Derek’s head swam from the pain relievers but he kept himself upright on the edge of the bed and wiped the pain from his face when the doctor came into the room.

“Let’s get you to your feet. You need to walk, and the lobby’s the only place to go.” Lidia glanced over his sling, secured tightly to his chest, and guided him up with his other arm.

He grimaced at the breeze in the back of his hospital gown. When he stood solidly on the cold floor, she let him go and slung a robe around his shoulders. “Good thing my ass won’t fall out.”

“Tsk. Such language, Guardsman.” She gave him a teasing smile and stepped away, not touching him again as he wobbled, letting the dizziness fade with the back of his legs against the mattress. Then he shuffled forward slowly until he was sure he wouldn’t fall on his face.

The hallway was crammed. A few uniforms made security rounds, crates lined one wall, and curtains covered alcoves along the way.

“Emergency room?” Somehow, with all that’d happened, he’d thought he was in some medical research lab.

“Yes. This was my hospital. Kelso came in with the military.” She stayed beside him but her mind seemed elsewhere. “So many gone. Never reported in. A few left, to find family. Never came back. Some evacuated to other bases we lost touch with. I stayed. Haven’t left this ER in maybe months, I think. I’ve lost track.”

His heart tumbled to his stomach. “If the world had more people like you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

She laughed. “I don’t know about that. We need all kinds. Especially now.”

Her warm hand gripped his good arm and sent waves of tumult through him. Tenderness for a dedicated, smart woman. Sympathy for the toll it took to be a shoulder to lean on. And gut-wrenching lust. His reaction scared him, and he ground his teeth, forcing his reaction not to show in the front of his gown. She might not have run when the riots started, but she’d run from the tent that threatened the front of this flimsy gown.

She was so out of his league, he gave a startled laugh. She smiled at him and he jerked his head forward. He didn’t know what to say.

“Here. Sit in the waiting room and rest for a bit.” She let go and he sagged into the cushioned chair.

The emergency area was like any other, a big room, lots of chairs, a desk with a nurse, and beeping machines. The big difference was the lack of paramedics and the addition of uniformed Guardsmen pacing the entryway, barbed wire wrapping the parking area and fires sending smoke into the air in the distance.

Joining a nurse already stuffing supplies in a crate, Dr. Sullivan moved behind the desk to help. Rising with effort, he resolved to get his clothes and get out of here, but first, he needed to help these two women. He needed to get to Hester, but he’d be damned if he left before he saw this doctor safely evac’d.

An explosion rocked the floor.

Guardsmen surrounded the front of the hospital, lining the parking lot in a living barrier. A crowd rushed the fencing. He’d seen this play out so many times in the past several months. Hungry people, drawing together in violence, risking everything to make it into a secure building, sure that food had to be inside.

Men climbed the linked fence and jumped, hanging on the razor wire, blood going everywhere. Others, climbing over them and making a mangled mess of each other. The Guardsmen shot unheeded warnings. The sick irony struck him again. Food had evaporated, but bullets were still plenty.

Unable to stand there and do nothing, he moved to the doors and stood, spread-legged, determined. He whistled. The nearest Guardsman turned his face to him, the lines etched deep into a too-young face.

“Need a weapon.”

The Guardsman looked at Derek’s sling with a pointed expression and drew his sidearm, extending it in a careful hold. Derek gripped the revolver and vowed that nobody would pass him. Not one person would touch his doctor, Lidia.