Corps Security, The Series (1)(219)

She continues to explain various things about healing and home care, but I’m too busy taking in everything she just told me. Beck asks a few questions, but I don’t hear them. I just lay there in shock. She asks me a few more things that I weakly answer before she leaves the room with the promise of sending Destiny back in with my pain medication. The second the door closes, it’s as if the floodgates slam open, and all the memories, leading up to now, come rushing back. The office, no alarm, light on, the man . . . oh God, the man!

“Shh, Dee . . . Look at me. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” I turn and focus on him, trying to calm the rapid breathing that has my ribs screaming.

“Did you find him?”

He shakes his head, and when I hear a snarl from the side of the room, my eye shifts to Maddox, who looks as if he’s about to snap in half. Beck yells at him to either calm down or leave the room before making me look at him again. “It’s okay; I need you to believe me, Dee. We’re working on it, okay?” I see his eyes pleading with me . . . begging me not to close him out.

I take a few shallow breaths and focus on his eyes. “Okay. I trust you, Beck.”

His shoulders sag with my whispered words, and his eyes drop for a second before he looks back at me. I gasp when I see the moisture forming in his eyes.

“Thank you, God, thank you . . .” He leans up, kisses me lightly before sitting back down, and starts to rub my arm again. I can tell from the way his lips are pressed tight, and the slight flare of his nostrils, that he’s trying to compose himself.

Destiny comes back in the room, and she gives me the pain meds, and checks the machines one more time before leaving. I try to stay awake, afraid that if I fall asleep, I might not wake up again. Clearly understanding me better than I understand myself, Beck recognizes my reluctance to close my one good eye. He brings his face back to my ear and starts to whisper softly, again.

Between his deep voice speaking softly against my neck, and the strength I pull from just his touch, my eye starts to close, and my heart starts to calm. The last thing to filter through my mind as I listen to his voice is how lucky I am that he’s even here. It doesn’t even matter that I can’t even understand the words, he’s here. For everything that I’ve put him through, my depression and PTSD, and my stupid mind letting the past rule my present, he still hasn’t given up. If this isn’t proof of just how far he really will go to fight for me, then I don’t know what is.

I let his love wrap around me, and drift off to a dreamless sleep with the knowledge that when I wake up he’s still going to be here, and it’s up to me to fix this now.





CHAPTER 12

Beck

When the doctor finally told me she would be released, I want to actually hug the lady. For the last week, I’ve sat by her side, hoping and praying that I would finally get to take her home.

First, they wanted to keep her because of the swelling to her brain from repeated blows. God, just hearing them say that over and over had my body ready for a fight. When her head wasn’t the main worry, it seemed that her kidneys were. And finally, a few days ago, she stopped pissing blood. We would’ve been out of here before now, but they wanted to monitor her kidneys to make sure there wasn’t anything else going on.

I think we were all ready to get her out of this room and back to Georgia. Dee was starting to get frustrated with the constant poking by the staff and lack of good food. All I could do was smile, because even though she was here, she was fighting mad. The important part was that she’s here at all.

Being this far from home wasn’t ideal either. Having to keep everyone back there up to date with her progress had become more annoying than anything else. Somewhere around day seven, I finally passed the phone to Maddox around day seven and told him to keep them fucking happy. To be honest, I didn’t really give a shit about keeping anyone up to date.

I only have eyes for Dee, and all my focus is on keeping her comfortable and making sure that she feels safe. I look over at her sleeping face and I physically hurt when I see how swollen it still is.

When she finally opened her left eye two nights ago, just a crack, she announced that she could see. We all released the collective breath that we had been holding since the doctor had warned us there was a chance her vision could have been impaired from the injury.

Her eye really was the least severe of her wounds. There wasn’t much of her body that wasn’t covered in nasty black and purple bruises, right down to a few of her fingers.

I lean back in the chair that I’ve pulled up next to her bed, and let my mind think about the call that we got Monday morning that all but stopped my heart.