Paint Me Claimed - Book 2

1 | It's frustrating

Three weeks since the blast

Leonardo

The medical term for what I was 'grievously injured' - but that phrase did not do justice to the extent of the damage. It didn't tell the whole story, of how I had been physically and mentally scarred. Or why I wrote myself off as a lost cause.

How could two words describe what I'd become? The truth was far more complicated than any medical terminology.

The ringing in my ears continued even now, three weeks after the dreaded blast. My phantom left limb twitched, urging me to run away from the memories of that day. No amount of surgeries or skin grafts could ever erase the images burnt into my mind. Physical therapy was a futile attempt at restoring me to normalcy; I knew it would never heal the wounds of my soul.

"Here, Sergeant," a soft, voice addressed me as I looked up. "Your medicines."

Amara sat on the chair beside my bed, holding a glass of water, an assortment of rainbow-colored pills, and a smile that irked me every time I saw it.

"What is it?" I asked, looking around the new hospital room I was put in.

Since they rescued me from death, a team of army doctors tried their best to save my left leg. With my shattered bones, burnt-off muscles and blood loss that drained my life, they decided to chop it off.

Yes, chop. Like it wasn't my leg but a rotten piece of a vegetable.

"Medicines, sir," Amara said, letting out a frustrated sigh but keeping that fucking smile on. "It's for your recovery."

"Who wants to recover?"

"You. You still have to take them for your-"

"Pain?" I scoffed. "I know I'm in pain. You don't have to fucking tell me. Put the damn things on the table and go."

"Sir, but..."

"Miss. Safi. That's an order."

I was getting annoyed at the one person who accompanied me from Afghanistan and continued giving me company even when I tried pushing her away. I was an inconsiderate prick who wished to have died than be a broken piece for the world to see.

Handicapped.

Good for nothing.

Useless Sergeant Brenton.

"Okay, sir. As you wish."

Like always, she didn't protest. She couldn't.

I was still a commanding officer and she was a subordinate. Though I wanted to know why she left her post and followed me back to the base camp before coming back to the States, I never bothered asking.

Amara Safi, from what little interaction I had with her, displayed resilience. She may nod at my orders and pretend to accept them, that woman had her ways of getting around it.

"But I'm not leaving you out of sight," she said, placing the medicines and pills on a side table and walking back to her usual place; a chair at the far end of the private hospital room from where she could monitor me but wouldn't disturb me with her presence.

Part of me felt bad for the way I treated her. But as I said, I was a selfish prick. The scalding pain I felt over my body with every passing second made it difficult to think rationally. To talk normally.

I wanted the world to burn like I did.

The sound of the telephone ringing echoed in the room, breaking my thoughts.