Chapter 10

Emergingfrom a dense fog of unconsciousness, I became aware of my surroundings with each painful breath. Light pushed against my eyelids, and the scent of the ocean, salty and fresh, filled my nostrils. Everything around me seemed to be bathed in white, an ethereal haze that made it hard to focus.

The world rushed in with an intensity that felt overwhelming, and I squinted, trying to shield my eyes from the assault, but it was relentless. Pain, sharp and unyielding, coursed through my body, and I tried to shift, but the pain intensified, anchoring me in place. Something was holding my hand down, and I tensed and yanked until it slipped free.

Voices drifted towards me, muffled at first, but becoming clearer. I reached for my gun, the ingrained reflex of a man who had lived too long in the shadows. But my hand found nothing, my weapon gone.

“Easy, Navy,” a voice said, calm and steady.

I managed to crack open my eyes, squinting against the harsh light. A figure loomed over me, features blurred. “Wha’ppen?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, cracked and dry from disuse.

Someone slipped into my field of vision, offering a small piece of ice. The coolness a small respite from the dryness.

As the ice melted, I closed my eyes again, the effort of staying awake too much. My mind was a whirlpool of questions and confusion, but I was too exhausted, too worn down to pursue them. The weight was back on my hand—fingers, I thought, lacing with mine, holding me tight.

James?

Was James here? Had I dreamed he died? He’d hate me for all the terrors I’d inflicted in his name. Tears burned, but for now, all I could do was succumb to the darkness, letting it pull me back into its embrace.

* * *

The next timeconsciousness tugged at me, the sensation was different—a gentle warmth, like being cradled in cotton smelling of the sea. My senses were coming back to life, each one bringing a piece of my environment into sharper focus. The scent of the ocean was stronger now, mingled with the crisp, sterile smells of medical supplies, and something else… citrus maybe. I was alive, that much was clear, but how I’d gotten here was shrouded in fog.

I tried to piece together the events leading to this moment. Had I been hurt? The pain coursing through my body answered that question. But what had happened? My last clear memory was of the mission, the compound… Annie. Was I here with my team? Were we on a mission?

“Save… James… Save him… ” Why couldn’t I hear my words?

Why did everything hurt?

My thoughts were a jumbled mess, each colliding with the next, creating a cacophony of confusion and uncertainty. I strained to listen, hoping to catch a snippet of conversation that would offer some clarity.

Voices drifted in and out of my awareness. “He’s confused… delirious…” someone said, their tone laced with concern.

“… temperature is too high…” another voice chimed in, a note of urgency cutting through their words.

The fragments of conversation only added to my disorientation. I tried to speak, to ask where I was, what was happening, but my throat was a barren desert, and no words would form.

“… someone get Doc Jen…” The urgency in the voice was unmistakable now. I felt hands on me, checking my vitals, their touch clinical and hard.

The pain, the confusion, the disjointed snippets of conversation—it was all too much. I felt myself slipping away again, the effort to stay conscious too great a battle. As I shut my eyes, succumbing once more to the darkness, I wished the world would make sense. But for now, all I could do was drift in the sea of unconsciousness, letting the waves of pain and confusion wash over me.

* * *

As I drifted awake,the fog in my mind seemed to have lifted somewhat. My thoughts were clearer, more focused, and first and foremost among them was Annie.

I managed to call her name, and I felt a firm grip on my hand, grounding and real.

“We have her,” a familiar voice assured me.

The voice… I knew that voice. With considerable effort, I turned my head, trying to focus. My vision was blurred, the features swimming before my eyes in a haze. But bit by bit, the image began to make sense, the lines and contours forming a picture I recognized.

The Army Ranger. Ryder. He was here, next to me. Relief washed over me, followed by a surge of questions and confusion.

Holding my hand? His fingers laced with mine.

“We got out?” I rasped, my voice barely audible, my throat parched and sore.

Ryder’s face was a mask of concern and relief, and he nodded. “Yeah, we got out. You’ve been here under, for five days, but we’re back, and they got the bullet out and repaired the damage.”

“Amos?”

Ryder sighed. “Still in the wind right now.”

I tried to process this information; each word Ryder spoke helping to piece together the fragmented memories. Bullet. Damage. Wind. None of it made sense, and the words swirled in my head, but one thing anchored them all—Annie was safe.

The relief flooding me was overwhelming, a tide of emotion that threatened to pull me under once again, and my body was still weak, uncooperative, refusing to do more than lie there, half-awake, and half-alive.

“Annie…” I repeated, managed to whisper, a plea and a prayer in one.

Ryder squeezed my hand, a silent message of understanding and reassurance. “She’s fine, August. She’s safe, and she’s with us. You did it. You saved her.”

The weight of those words was immense, and as they sunk in, a sense of peace began to settle over me. I had done what I set out to do. I had saved Annie.

“We’ll organize her visiting you, and?—”

“No.” Bringing Annie back into my life meant exposing her to my world, even indirectly, and what was the point in that?

“Doc Simmonds, you don’t know him, we call him Psycho, ‘cause he’s a psychologist, anyway that doesn’t matter. He said it might trigger a memory of her dad if she saw you,” he said and smiled, and a knife pierced my heart.

“She doesn’t even know me; I was barely there.” I was lying to myself. Every part of me wanted to see her, to hold her and tell her everything would be okay, tell her about her dad and how special he was, and how he’d loved her.

“August—”

“Promise me you’ll keep her away, tell her how James was the best dad, but don’t tell her about me. She doesn’t have to know me. Ryder, fuck’s sake, promise me.”

There was the longest pause as exhaustion tugged at me, pulling me back towards sleep.

His grip tightened enough for me to feel the extra pressure. “Okay,” he said, sounding confused. “I guess it can wait. Makes sense to wait. Yeah.”

“No waiting. I don’t want her to see me.”

I was so tired, and this time, I welcomed sleep. Annie was safe, and that was all that mattered, and the Ranger would keep her away from me.

I would never be in a position to see her hurt again.

Because Ryder promised.

* * *

I next woketo the soft voice, a confusion of words that didn’t make any sense, but sounded nice. Deep and grumbly and sexy. Was I in bed with someone? Was the man reading a book to me? Some action adventure thriller with a lot of gun sounds?

“… and the one in the corner with the mask held his gun, and I could see he was wavering, and that was something I could work with.” There was a soft laugh. “Do you think that is what we do, Navy? Do we slow everything down and assess our opponents like this? I wonder if we do, but it’s just instinct, looking for those tells. I’ve never really thought about it. Anyway, that’s enough Reacher today, we’ll see what he does tomorrow. I need coffee.”

Navy? He called me Navy, and it all flooded back in horrifying detail. My body ached.

I heard a chair scrape, humming, could sense the subtle shifts in the room, the faint sound of someone’s footsteps, a soft, squeaky shoe on a tiled floor. Diffused light filled the space as I stared at the stark white ceiling, counting tiles as far as I could turn my head either way.

Fuck, my neck hurt.

I wriggled my toes, my fingers, I could feel them, so that was okay. At least, I imagined they were moving, so my limbs were okay, my spine as well, and my neck might ache, but I could turn my head, although it felt heavy as hell.

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the air, a small reminder of normalcy, a hint of the world beyond the grip of pain and what I assumed was my recovery room. I blinked, trying to find my bearings, to piece together the fragments of everything. Pain was there, but it was a dull reminder of my injuries, manageable, a shadow of the searing agony I remembered. I was thirsty, and I was still cocooned in cotton, and there was humming, and coffee, and the ocean.

Awake, but still ensnared in the clutches of discomfort and irritation, I was not prepared for the overly cheerful intrusion.

“Well, hey there, Navy,” came a voice, so chirpy and bright it felt like an assault on my senses. I winced, closing my eyes against the sound. I wanted a moment more of peace, a brief respite from the pain, floating in cotton. But the owner of that voice seemed to have other ideas.

To my disbelief, he poked me. Actually, poked me. In my current state, it felt like an unforgivable transgression. “Nope, no playing possum on us now, nap time is over,” he continued, his tone so jovial it grated on me.

I snapped my eyes open, fixing the owner of the voice with a glare I hoped conveyed the full extent of my annoyance.

Ryder, the man who’d saved my life, who’d followed me back into the compound, the one who’d shoved at and packed my wound and told me to man the fuck up. In stark contrast to that miserable pushy fucker, this Ryder was all smiles and encouragement—the exact opposite of what I needed.

“Okay, Navy, good news-bad news time. You lived, but they had to amputate your cock. Joke! Don’t go rooting around your junk checking, it’s still there. Not that I was looking.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

Too much.

He was too much.

I closed my eyes again.

“Come on, August; it’s good to see you awake,” he said, still with the jarring cheerfulness. “You’re making progress. That’s something to be happy about, right? And you still have your cock.”

I grunted.

“Jesus, Ryder, leave the kid alone.”

“Hey, Doc Jen.”

A figure leaned over me, little more than a silhouette against the light. I could feel hands on me, clinical and probing, pressing my abdomen, sending jolts of discomfort through my already aching body, all alongside a soft female voice. The touch was necessary, I knew, one of the checks to assess my condition, but knowing that didn’t make it any less invasive or painful.

“Do you know where you are?” she asked, cutting through the fog in my head. I knew the doc was performing the standard cognitive checks, but grappled with the question as if I were working out complex chemistry.

Where was I?

“Hospital?” I managed to croak the word out as a question, my throat dry and my voice barely a whisper.

“Good. Can you tell me your name?” the doctor continued; her tone professional with more than a hint of empathy.

What did she ask again?

My name?

Aubrey? August? Which one was I today?

Was this real life? Or was this the mirror world I’d dug so deep into?

I’m out. I’m safe. Ryder is here.

“August,” I replied, the effort to speak making my head spin.

The doctor proceeded with her examination, shining a light into my eyes, checking their reaction to the stimulus. The light felt like needles piercing my pupils, and I recoiled. Everything was too much—the lights, the poking, the incessant questions, and I was exposed and vulnerable to any asshole coming in and killing me where I lay.

Although dying was my main objective, because then, the images and sounds in my head would stop. Dying could be a blessing.

I could hear the doctor speaking, her voice a steady stream of medical jargon and instructions to other people I couldn’t see. Words like vitals,recovery, and observation floated through the air, and I heard another voice, male, but not Ryder’s, someone medical from the comments they made.

As the doctor continued her checks, I hated the pain, the helplessness, the dependency on others, but most important of all, I didn’t have my gun.

Where the hell is my gun?