11 Fletcher Stone—Whiskey Myers
Fletcher
Stone—Whiskey Myers
The pain is my only constant.
One reliable indicator that I’m still alive.
Otherwise, it’s quiet in my detached bubble. Impenetrable. Not even Sterling’s shouting or Leo’s pleas for a response can burrow through the glutinous numbness that’s formed a protective blanket around me.
Their mouths simply move. Open. Shut. Silent and wordless. It’s fucking blissful. Even if I could find the plug that needs reconnecting to get my brain firing again, I don’t think I want to. This odd state is rather nice.
Lips flop and words are nullified. Not even the hospital’s hubbub can filter in. The machines and oxygen tanks. Heart rate monitors and nurses bustling in to take readings every ten minutes. If they ask questions, I can’t tell.
Blood.
Smoke.
Flames.
Those snippets register. Or more accurately, the memories dominate every brain cell. I’ve been told that trauma elicits avoidance on multiple occasions. But never was I warned that the sight of flames would prompt me to tear into that damn building before anyone else could take the risk.
Their lives are precious.
Mine . . . well, it’s forfeit now.
When a hand briefly touches on my gown-clad shoulder, years of combat instincts surge forwards. I’ve got Sterling pinned to the hospital wall with his arm twisted behind his back and knees bucked quicker than my mind can catch up.
Nausea swells in my aching throat. He seems startled more than afraid. Still, I back off when Leo swims into view, eyes wide and pleading. Right. This isn’t the battlefield. I went into that fire willingly and walked out again. But that doesn’t stop the scene from warping.
A barren, dusty desert.
Shattered chopper rotors.
Flames eating flesh until nerves deadened.
Past and present are interposed, obscuring the hospital bay and my two concerned roommates. Fists curling and uncurling, I back up from Sterling to pace over to the bed and rest on the edge. If my trembling legs give out, I don’t want them to witness me going down hard.
Shit, my heart is primed to explode. I’ve seen enough IED blasts to know these fools can’t be in the radius when it does. They don’t deserve to be the collateral damage to my spectacular self-implosion.
With each blink, time passes, and still all I can hear are those rotors beating. Even after we went down in the desert, the blades turned until a fireball destroyed the wreckage. At least I got our diplomat to safety.
Just like I got her out too.
Eden.
Not a concept I have much understanding of. Perhaps this is as close as I’ll get to a taste of my own Eden. The paradise of a trauma response kicking in to numb me from the consequences of my recklessness.
I didn’t stop to consider the why. Not when I saw the Lakeside Tavern up in flames, knowing she resided inside. Some nights, I walk past to check, pretending the town centre is my usual route when I normally stick to the shadows while wrestling insomnia.
I stare up at her lit bedroom window.
An invisible sentry.
But last night was no ordinary fire. Nor was it a mere accident. I don’t need to wait weeks for an incident report or police investigation to tell me the obvious. The flames spread fast, hungrily eating fuel poured and set alight with the sole purpose of killing Cassidy’s livelihood.
Earlier the doctors on the emergency ward gave me a whiteboard and pen. I reach for it with a shaking hand, taking several attempts to tear the cap off. Sterling ducks to his haunches to watch me write.
Arson.
His exhausted eyes flick up to me, then down again.
Andy?
Leo joins him, and the pair bicker over the whiteboard, their mouths moving comically. I’m sure I haven’t lost functionality of my ears too. The sounds are there, just locked behind glass. A goldfish bowl visible only to me.
Gently patting my knee, Sterling says something indecipherable, then strides from the room with the whiteboard in hand. I ignore Leo attempting to gain my attention until he gets the message and follows suit.
The solitude is welcome. Multiple doctors and nurses haven’t left me alone since we were blue-lighted to the nearest emergency department, leaving Cassidy to stare at her ruined livelihood in fits of tears.
Maybe it’s the IV painkillers that placed my mind in this fish tank. I thought I might die once the fire was behind us. I’m used to a constant, chronic kind of pain, but reigniting those wounds took my suffering to a whole new level.
Worth it.
She’s alive as a result.
No, I didn’t do it because I care. That plug is disconnected too. If I didn’t go in, it would’ve been someone else. Maybe even one of the men I still feel something for. Fuck if I was about to let them jeopardise their lives when mine is already ruined.
The nurse bustles me back into bed to reattach the IV and oxygen line. Liquid joy spills into me, dulling every nerve ending. The burn in my chest and oesophagus eases. She fusses over a clipboard while my eyes drift closed, blocking it all out.
Smoke plumes obscuring sand dunes.
Engines roaring.
The cries of injured soldiers.
Clear tubing imprisons me when I bolt upright, disorientated by the night-time gloom. My eyes are gritty, limbs stiff from sleep. Neither Sterling nor Leo has returned. Blinking hard, I disregard the untouched dinner tray left on my rolling table.
Hospital. Right.
Not the desert.
The sheets drip with sweat where I’ve been tricked into resting. I’m not used to sleeping. Drug-induced or not, the recurring nightmare was always going to rear its head. I haven’t slept a single night without seeing the faces of my fellow servicemen pop and melt.
Tearing the IV line from my elbow, I wrench needles and tubes aside to escape their tomb. I don’t give a fuck if it disturbs their monitors. If I lay here, the memories will catch up to me. Sandstorms will blow in, and soon enough, I’ll be back in that desert.
Fluorescent light dapples on white linoleum and medical curtains. Each room is sectioned off, some empty while others are occupied. I quickly wipe aside blood from the hole oozing in my arm as I flee my room, searching for an exit sign.
I’ve locked eyes on the glowing green letters when my pulse thunders, morphing into a war drum. Two rooms down, the curtain is drawn back to reveal another nurse wheeling a blood pressure machine out.
The patient left behind looks small and frail in the hospital bed, her short locks scraped back to make way for the white bandage across her cheek. She stares down at her hands, swathed in gauze.
Eden looks even smaller ensconced in white sheets and IV lines. Fragile. Breakable. Even though I know she’s far from it. For all her soft smiles and sad stares, she has the steely determination of a survivor in her.
Saving her life was already a step too far. She doesn’t need me. I definitely don’t need her. I’m turning to stride away when she clutches her chest and breaks down into huge, heaving sobs that make her entire skeleton shudder under a Newtonian force.
Walking into her bay feels no different to accepting my medical discharge papers from the RAF, avoiding the sympathy on the air marshal’s face. It’s a bitter defeat. An unavoidable reckoning with the collision course my actions orchestrated.
Eden’s head bobs up at my entrance, those blown hazel eyes a tempting desert mirage.
“Fletcher?”
Huh. Now I can hear.
Sound returning seems to jump-start my senses, bursting the bubble that’s held me prone. I blink several times, watching the forehead bandage crease where she frowns. God, her voice sounds rough as hell.
“Fletch? Are you okay?”
Shuddering, I muster a nod.
“I saw you in the ambulance. You were the one who pulled me out.”
Another nod.
“You saved my life,” she says scratchily.
Hm. Let’s go for a shrug this time.
“I-I thought I was going to die.” More tears spill down her cheeks. “I would’ve done so if not for you.”
Well, I’m not disputing that. But I didn’t do it for her look of awe. She can cut that shit out.
“Did you get hurt?” Eden searches over me.
Headshake. No more than I already was.
“But your voice . . . the burns . . . Dammit, Fletcher. If you’ve got more damage from going in to drag me out, I’ll never be able to live with myself.”
Aw, shit.
Now I have to move closer to let her see that I’m relatively unscathed. Like her, the smoke inhalation did the worst of it. But my vocal cords were torn to shit long before the pub decided to combust. She isn’t to blame.
Inching around her hospital bed, my fingers itch with an unknown urge. All my muscles contract and spasm. Those tears need erasing. Her hair needs smoothing. Fuck, she needs holding and reassuring. None of which I’m capable of doing.
So I settle for an awkward smile.
Smooth, Fletch.
It takes a second to compute that my hand hasn’t detached and taken on a life of its own when I see it stretch out, hovering an inch above hers. Eden watches me timidly, slowly turning her injured hand over to rest palm up.
“You’re really okay?” she worries.
Shrugging, I hold that odd smile. I’ve been worse.
“I’m so sorry you’re here because of me.”
Dragging writhing bodies free from a downed aircraft was less exertion than this emotional battle. Lowering my hand to hers feels like swimming through tar. The effort is phenomenal. Something so simple, yet impossible.
But when her bandaged skin grazes mine, real air fills my lungs. Fragile tissue expands and inflates, offering my first easy breath since the accident stole my voice. The sensation is perplexing. I expected her touch to be agonising, not intoxicating.
Eden licks aside tears that have trailed onto her lips, staring at our joined hands. Does she feel it too? I don’t know if the smoke has poisoned my brain cells and I’m officially losing it.
“Thank you,” she chokes out.
You know what? Have another nod. I’m feeling generous today.
“So they haven’t discharged you either?” She winces when her voice audibly cracks. “Shit, that hurts.”
My palm warms over hers, tingling curiously.
“Apparently, it’s overnight observation for smoke inhalation. I guess we’re both stuck here.”
A hand squeeze. Yep. I’m here for as long as she is.
“Leo and Sterling came to see me.” Eden sighs. “They’re mad at you.”
I sniff shortly. Yeah, what else is new? I don’t expect them to understand why I tore into that building the minute I saw the roof burst into flames. Rural firefighters weren’t going to arrive in time to save Eden’s life.
“I’m mad at you too,” she adds with a faint smile. “Even if I’m thankful.”
The longer I hold on to her, the more she seems to calm. Her tears are drying. Feeling her hand clasped underneath mine soothes the hornets’ nest screaming bloody murder inside me, pushing me to flee the hospital.
I don’t want to let go.
Not yet.
Eden winces, then shifts to get more comfortable, causing her gauzed fingers to tear free from mine. My chest vibrates with a growl, and her bloodshot eyes dart up to meet mine.
It doesn’t take a genius to see my own terror reflected in her tear-logged stare. The remnants of the fire still crackle in our ears. She even smells like smoke. I’m sure I reek of it too.
“We should get some sleep, Fletch.”
Hah. Okay.
Appearing to survey my reaction, Eden shifts over in the hospital bed, freeing up a gap on the mattress next to her. I study the spot like it’s an invite into the jaws of death. Letting anyone get that close sure feels fatal.
“You can stay,” she whispers.
Making my legs move is akin to lifting concrete blocks. It starts with a toe twitch. The urge to crawl close to her gown-wrapped body razes the desire to leave faster than the flames that chased us mere hours ago.
“Please? I don’t want to be alone.”
That tiny admission ruptures the last of the fishbowl isolating me from the outside world. Teeth gritted, I avoid her gaze while climbing into the hospital bed. Springs groan in protest beneath my weight.
It’s a tight squeeze, forcing me to lay down on my left side, directly facing her. Eden swallows hard, pulling the thin white sheet up to cover us. I can’t help but wonder if she’d still offer this to me if Sterling or Leo were here.
I’ve watched their interactions. Conscious or not, there’s a spark. It’s the most I’ve seen Sterling interact with someone outside of our home in a very long time. He hasn’t shown an ounce of care for a woman since his wife passed.
“When I was laying in that corridor, too weak to keep going . . .” Eden’s voice spills out in a raw hush. “I thought he’d found me.”
I’m shocked by a rapid jolt. Who?
“Seeing you in the back of that ambulance was both a relief and a whole new level of fear. They love you, Fletcher. If anything happened to you, it would break their hearts.”
My throat clenches around a hard gulp.
“I don’t know why you came to rescue me, but you can’t take risks like that. Your life is too precious to waste on someone like me.”
Reaching up to graze her cheek, I absently stroke my fingers over the adhesive bandage covering her stitches. Her chest shudders, teeth sinking into her bottom lip, causing wings to unfurl behind my ribcage.
For all these months, I haven’t once longed to use my voice again. The loss of it crushed that need. Knowing it’s unlikely to return fully allowed me to mourn without the desire to hold a simple conversation.
But here, now, in this goddamn hospital bed that stinks of smoke and loneliness, looking into the eyes of the first person to acknowledge me without pity in far too long, I’d give just about anything to speak.
I want to tell her how wrong she is—safeguarding her life will never be a waste. We don’t need to talk for me to see she’s lived in her own prison. I recognise those invisible shackles. And I want to see her throw them off. One of us has to.
An alien parasite infects my brainstem and orders my fingers to explore farther. A single tip slopes over her cheeks, jaw, lips. Coasting a path to tease her Cupid’s bow and perfect nose.
Brushing my thumb over her eyebrows, I commit each feature to memory. This is the one and only time I’ll allow myself to be curious. No, I still don’t care. But I want to know how it feels to touch her just once.
What the fuck am I doing?
Pushing smoke-soaked hair from her forehead, I let my hand fall. Her lips have fallen open on a series of short breaths, mirroring my erratic heart rate.
“We need a system to communicate or something,” she suggests half jokingly. “More than nodding or shrugging.”
Everything in my brain is screaming at me to leave this bed and sprint from the hospital as fast as possible. If I move quickly enough, perhaps I can escape the feelings trying to catch up to me. Lying here is treading too dangerous a line.
Temptation wins out, and I gently take her left hand. It’s lightly gauzed, covering where glass and detritus shredded her skin. Eden rolls her lips inwards as I trace a single word across her wrist, beneath the bandage.
HI.
She deigns to gift me a grin.
“Hello, Fletch. It’s nice to meet you properly.”
God help me for doing this . . .
I grin right back at her.