Unhooked

by Lisa Maxwell

I don’t know what to say to him, so I don’t speak. I simply sit as witness to the story he tells. “Michael thought he had to take care of me.” He huffs out a rough laugh. “He probably did at that. But it was my fault he went on that patrol the night it happened. I was angry at him for trying to mother me, so I volunteered. I was so convinced I was ready to be a man. So bloody convinced of my own bravery. Of course he volunteered as well.” He glances up at me again then, his eyes filled with the pain of all that happened. “I was the only one who made it off the field alive that night. And I barely made it at all,” he said, gesturing toward his arm. “That’s what happened to your arm?” I ask, thinking of the scarred skin on his shoulders and back. He gives me a terse nod, but doesn’t say anything more. He raises the steel hand then and clenches it, watching it move with the kind of terrible wonder he must have had in his eyes the first time he learned that his own arm was missing. Finally his voice comes again, small and broken in the darkness. “I don’t know what happened after. I woke in a French hospital without my arm and in more pain than I ever dreamed imaginable. I was in such desperate shape, I’m not sure why they even bothered to try saving me. Just as I’ll never be sure of why Fiona brought me here. “At first I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, save my brother wasn’t here, but it wasn’t long until I forgot about Michael, about everything before this world. . . . U...