The Marine's Return. Rula Sinara

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       CHAPTER TWO

      VIOLENT PAIN SEARED Chad’s right arm like a branding iron burning its way clear to the bone. Instinct had him grasping for his arm, desperate to stop the agony, but his left hand rammed against his right rib cage. He reached again, squeezing his eyes against the pain and swatting air before hitting his shoulder.

      “No!” He fisted his hair and cursed a stream of words he only ever used around fellow marines on the battlefield—never in his parents’ home.

      He forced himself to look at his side...to remind him that a wrapped stump was all that was left of his right arm. This time, the visual didn’t help to bring him under control.

      He covered his face with his one hand and took deep breaths until the phantom pain subsided enough for him to stand. He walked across his old bedroom to where a half-empty glass of water sat on his wooden dresser. He took a long drink, a ritual he’d adopted to train his mind to stay grounded in the here and now. Pain like that had a way of weakening even the toughest warrior. It coaxed his mind into dark places. Sometimes it took him back to that day.

      He walked over to the window, pressed his forehead against the cool glass, and looked out at the yard below. The flowering vines climbing the garden walls were more lush and dense than he remembered. Even the fig tree that flanked that far side of the grassy area had grown since he’d last been in Nairobi. A beautiful, serene and deceptively safe haven. That’s what “home” was now. An illusion. A false sense of security. There was nothing safe or beautiful about the world. War and evil were insidious.

      They’d left a permanent mark on him—and taken him out of the fight.

      They’d neutralized him and the realization that there was nothing he could do about it drove him mad. He would never fight again and that made him feel like a man trapped behind bars, unable to do anything but watch and scream while criminals tortured helpless people. He wasn’t supposed to be the helpless one.

      He’d heard of injured vets, even minor amputees, getting permission to reenlist, though they were often reassigned to more “appropriate” jobs. But first they had to be cleared by a psych test to be sound of mind, free of post-traumatic stress and not suffering from debilitating phantom pain.

      He failed all three of those qualifications. Six-and-a-half months since the blast and still suffering.

      He turned and stood in front of the intricately carved wood mirror that hung over his dresser. Twisted, dark-pink burn scars wrapped around half of his back and up the right side of his neck. Quarter-inch scars mottled his right cheek where surgeons had removed embedded debris. It was a miracle he still had his eyes. Though sometimes he wondered if that was its own form of torture.

      Here he was at twenty-four, supposedly the prime of his life, and he was this. He was—had been—right-handed. He’d lost his dominance in more ways than one. But he still had his sight, just so that he could wake up every morning and be met with the monster that was left of him. Just so that he could see the looks of pity on the faces of others. Sometimes he wished he’d never woken up from the medically induced coma he’d been kept in for weeks. Everyone kept saying he was lucky that he’d recovered, for the most part, from the traumatic brain injury he’d also suffered in the blast.

      “Chad?” His mother rapped at the door. He hurried to the bed and lay on top of the traditionally woven bedspread, then picked up the magazine he’d abandoned earlier because putting it down every time he had to turn a page had worn on his patience. His mother eased the door open and peered inside.

      “Chad.” СКАЧАТЬ