Page 12 of Proof Of Life

“Where are they, Reaper?” The tone of my voice is a warning he can’t ignore.

“Doc, can we have a minute?” Brandt asks.

The doctor hesitates, looking back-and-forth between us. I can’t tell if he’s more worried about my health or Brandt’s safety.

“I’ll return shortly,” he warns before leaving us alone.

He drags a plastic chair to my bedside and drops down in it with resignation, sighing deeply as he rests his head in his hand. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

I can see it clearly now, memories of that day playing through my head like a reel on repeat. It won’t stop—the screaming, the static in my headset, the blinding flash of light, and the blast of heat and force as the explosion pushed into my body.

My gaze settles on the small gold cross he wears around his neck. “There was an explosion. I heard three of them. You pushed me into that closet, and then…nothing.” Brandt lifts his head and finally looks at me. “I’ve got nothing after that.”

He swallows three times before he can speak. “They tripped an IED on the stairs. That was the first blast.”

“And the other two?”

The intensity of his gaze burns a hole right through me. No doubt he’s hoping his silence will lead to me filling in the blanks so he won’t have to.

“Reaper.”

His throat works, sliding up and down the long column of his neck, and he licks his dry lips. “Those were Boom’s grenades.”

The Grenadier isn’t considered fully armed if he doesn’t have at least two grenades on him at all times in combat. If those were his explosives I heard, then that meant…

I find his eyes again, and I can see the regret swimming in those blue depths. He shakes his head slowly back-and-forth, and I know, I know what he’s trying to say without words, but I have to ask.

“Are any of them alive?”

His head stops moving, and he swallows again before dropping his eyes to my lap, to the blue blanket that covers my body. A hot flash of anger rushes to the surface, burning a fiery path in my chest.

How dare fate try to fuck with me? How dare she take my team from me?

It was my job to lead the mission, to plan for their safety, and I feel blinding rage at my incompetence, at my inability to save them, and at preventing their deaths.

Hot tears bubble up and burn my eyes before spilling down my cheeks. So many tears they blind my vision until Brandt’s face becomes a wavering blur in the darkness.

“No,” I whisper.

Maybe if I refuse to accept it, it can’t be true. Maybe there’s a way to go back in time and do something different. His head is in his hands again, and when he raises his tear-stained face to mine, we both know there’s nothing we can do differently to change the outcome. We lost our team, the Street Sweepers, and we’re the only two survivors.

I can’t even begin to process the anger and grief consuming me, so I put a pin in it and move on to the next issue. “Where are we?”

“Landstuhl, Germany.” He sounds utterly defeated and broken, just like how I feel.

“How long have we been here?”

“Three weeks.”

Somehow, the tubes and wires connecting me to the machines that surround my bed haven’t registered yet through my grief and confusion and shock, but now I wonder.

“What happened? Why am I in this bed?” And then another thought occurs to me. A more pressing one. “Are you a patient here, or just visiting? How bad were you hurt?”

The questions come rapidfire now, and I can’t seem to stop as the logical part of my brain comes back online.

“I’m…both. Technically, I’m still a patient here. We both are, until they transfer us back stateside.”

“Stateside? We’re being sent home? What the fuck for?” My voice is rising with my panic as my anger and confusion swells.

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