“He’s awake if you wanted to go see him.”
Grady looked up to see Specialist Mitchell standing in the doorway. The kid looked like he’d finally gotten some sleep. He’d been awake, tending to his patient’s needs for several days and had begun to get sloppy, so Sergeant Turner had ordered him to take a break while one of the other soldiers changed out the IV bags and kept the medication drip flowing.
“Really?” Grady asked, setting aside the pair of ripped pants he was sewing a patch into. He’d gotten so bored that he was almost finished with all the little annoying tasks that he’d told himself he’d get done, but never had the time to do until now. The patches in the pant leg weren’t pretty, but they’d do. “I would’ve bet that he was going to be out for a week or so.”
Mitchell shrugged. “He’s still pretty loopy from the morphine. Sergeant Turner is with him now.”
Grady nodded, pushing his hands onto his knees to help himself up. The LT was in an apartment three doors down from the one he shared with Taavi and David, so it wasn’t a long walk to the makeshift hospital room.
He knocked softly before opening the door without being told it was okay. The knock was more of a courtesy than anything else. “Hey, I heard you’re awake,” Grady said as a way of announcing his arrival.
“Back here,” Sergeant Turner’s gruff voice replied from the master bedroom where Lieutenant Murphy’s makeshift hospital room was located.
Grady walked stiffly toward the back. Murphy had gotten injured, almost killed, because they’d gone after him. He’d been foolish and allowed himself to give in to the anger and hatred that coursed through his veins. It was his fault that the kid was in this state.
The room was pretty much unchanged since the last time he’d been in there two days prior. They’d been fortunate that several of Jefferson’s people had been nurses before the outbreak and had been willing to assist in the lieutenant’s surgery and recovery plan. As Grady looked at the shrunken form on the bed, he wished that there’d been a doctor or two who’d stepped up. Mitchell had done his best, but there was no way that Murphy was ever walking again.
“Hey… How’re you feeling?” he asked delicately, feeling ridiculous.
Murphy’s head fell toward him and a smile creased his lips. “I feel like shit.” He still had a pair of handcuffs on each wrist, just in case Grady’s blood carried enough of the virus, but neither handcuff was attached to the railing anymore. At this point, four days later, he was likely out of the infection danger zone.
“You look like shit too, sir,” Grady joked.
“It must be worse than I thought,” Murphy mumbled.
“No way, you’re good to go,” Grady lied. “You’ll be up and going before you know it.”
“Bullshit,” the lieutenant sighed. “You’ve never called me sir before.”
Grady thought back. Surely he’d been more respectful than that during their time together. Hadn’t he? “Wait a minute, sir. I distinctly remember calling you sir when we were both standing on top of the Strykers and you wanted to switch out the ammo on the CROWS.”
“Okay. Maybe once.” Murphy blinked hard several times, then appeared to try to focus on Grady. “Shoot me straight. What’s the deal?”
Grady glanced at Sergeant Turner. The old soldier shook his head slightly. “Ah, I think you’re gonna be laid up a while. You got shot in the stomach. Specialist Mitchell did a bang up job patching you up though.”
“Mitchell?” Murphy tried to laugh, but stopped himself mid-chuckle. He was in a lot of pain.
“How’s your pain level?”
“Hurts,” the lieutenant admitted. “I can’t feel my dick, Harper. Did I lose my dick?”
“Nope. That tiny little thing is still there. You’ll be stuffing it into Sidney Bannister in no time.”
“For fuck’s sake, Harper,” Sergeant Turner groaned.
“Ah, sorry.” Grady searched for something to say, but came up short. He was terrible at this sort of stuff, more so after his time in captivity.
“S’okay,” Murphy exhaled. “I like her.”
“Yeah, that’s why I—”
“Jefferson get samples?” Murphy asked. He was beginning to fade.
“Yeah. He took a shit ton of blood from me. Enough that it made me woozy, after the transfusion and all.”
Turner shook his head sharply. Murphy was just waking up and didn’t know about the transfusions. Grady and another soldier with O-negative blood, the Brooklyn kid, Feliciano, had both contributed during the ROLO transfusion outside on the street, but Mitchell had gotten each of them to donate another bag right before he’d gone to work sewing up what he could inside the lieutenant’s back. Murphy had a lot of Grady’s blood coursing through his veins. He hadn’t yet considered how the man would handle that news.
“Okay. Good,” the lieutenant muttered, oblivious to the transfusion part.
“Hey, LT,” Grady said haltingly. “I… I’m sorry, okay. I went out looking for trouble and found it. You got messed up because of it. So, thank you for coming after me.” He sighed. There, he’d gotten it off of his chest.
“That’s what we do for our people,” Murphy replied. “Rangers never leave a fallen comrade.”
Grady nodded, but didn’t respond. He’d bargained with that idiot gangbanger to make him believe that he could be bought just for the services of a couple of girls and was on his way to deal with Scorpion when the shooting started. He closed his eyes as the memories of the jagged end of the curtain rod sinking into flesh spiked his heartbeat. Their skin tore open, exposing the muscle beneath, bathing him in their hot blood. Bodies struggled under his strong grip as he choked the life from them. Their eyes locked on his as they fought for their last breath, trying in vain to fend
