“FUCK!” I scream, doing my best to get the covers off my feverish body.  “Goddamn it!”  I hear the heart monitor screaming as I force my body to move.  To get to my leg before the pain becomes too much to bear.

After throwing back the covers, I reach down with the arm not in a cast and come up empty.  The pain is getting worse with each second, but when I look down, there is nothing.  Nothing but a covered stump halfway down from my knee.  I scream from pain so uncontrollably violent that I start to vomit all over myself and frantically search for a way to turn off the feelings coming from a foot that is no longer part of my body.

A month later, marking seven months since I’ve been away from home, I’ve become used to the nightmares that wake me in pain to search for my missing foot.  My wails have become a constant companion for the emptiness that’s become my life.  I fight with the depression that has settled over my body like a thick blanket.

The depression didn’t sink in until I got a letter from Mary, Johnson’s widow, telling me to stop trying to contact her family.  The blame for her husband’s death is all mine.  By allowing myself close to him, her, and their kids, I have ruined their lives.

“It should have been you, Maddox.  I would have my husband and my children would have their father had you not failed them.  I will never forgive you for ruining my life.”

Her words are a constant companion.  I wake alone and I go to sleep alone.

The majority of my time is spent making sure the rest of my body doesn’t succumb to the darkness swirling around me.  Doctors in and out, nurses, physical therapists—you name it.  My room has become a revolving door of medical personnel.  There’s one thing that is painfully missing from this time.

Mercy.

She was notified.  I know that much.  But she hasn’t come.  Didn’t even pick up when I called her over and over.  My letters come back unopened.  My own mother and brother didn’t even care—not that I’m shocked there—but Mercy?  My Mercy against the world I’ve been fighting since birth is gone, just gone.  The hope is eclipsed more and more each day she isn’t here.

“Well don’t you look like shit,” a deep voice jokes from the doorway.

I turn my head and lock eyes with Reid.  He’s part of my team, but he wasn’t with me out on the field.  He and the other men were clearing another part of the area when we took the other.

“Won’t be winning any beauty contest.  That’s for fucking sure,” Beck says, coming in behind him.

“Coop and Cage are on the way.  We’re getting the hell out of here and taking you with us.  Time to go home and get the fuck out of this bed,” Reid says.  He gives me a lopsided smile, trying to ease some of the thickness in the air.

“Have you been able to get Mercy?” I ask.  I don’t give a damn about anything else right now.  I need my girl.  I need to know that she and our child are okay.  Everything I’ve been pushing my body to do since the day I woke has been for her.  I’ll get stronger; I’ll overcome—for them.

“Yeah, brother, we have,” he says weakly.

Beck won’t meet my eyes, and that damn sense of dread starts to fall over me.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Why don’t we focus on getting you Stateside and walking again?” Reid tries to change the subject, his green eyes boring into mine.

“Tell me where the hell she is, Reid.”

He flinches but doesn’t say anything.  Until I hear the voice I hoped I wouldn’t have the displeasure of hearing again for a long time break through the silence.

“Oh you really are such stupid boy.”  She clicks her tongue.  “They’re not telling you because they seem to think you need to be eased into the news.”  She laughs.  “I would ask how you are, but it looks like that demon seed that made you finally started to nip away at you. Quite literally.”

“You fucking bitch,” Cage sneers from the doorway behind my mother.

“No need for name-calling, dear.  I’m just here to make sure there isn’t anything tying me responsible for the invalid now that it’s time for him to be discharged.  Can’t have that now.  He’s all yours, little boy.”  She pats Cage on the chest a few times before walking into the room.  “It was such a long flight.  Let me sit for a second before I tell you a little bedtime story.”  She walks over to where Beck’s leaning back and gaping at her in the room’s only chair.  “Up now,” she demands with a flick of her wrist.