“I wasn’t nice to you. And I should have been.”
“I didn’t take it personally, Indy.” She pauses. “And you weren’t always a jerk. Sometimes you were nice. Funny. I liked you. A lot.”
My stomach flips.
“Still. I shouldn’t?—”
With a solemn look in her eyes, she asks, “Don’t you think I understood? Not about the prosthetic part, but feeling different? Feeling like you lost something so important, you’ll never be the same person again?”
Then she tucks her pretty blonde hair behind her ear, exposing a glimpse of her implant.
Realization slams into me with such intensity it steals my breath.
Shit.
Of course she does.
I was just too self-absorbed to see it before.
“I lost my hearing when I was fourteen,” she says. “It was terrifying. All my plans… my hopes… I thought they were gone forever. Do you think I was pleasant back then? Trust me. I wasn’t. My poor parents… it was a rough few years.”
“I’m sorry, Bea.” This time I cover her hand with mine. “I didn’t think.”
“It’s fine. I’m just saying, I get it. And getting my implants, it wasn’t some magic fix. There was the surgery, then months of learning how to use them. People thought the implants would just switch on and I could hear everything. But that’s not how it worked. I had to retrain myself to hear. And even when I was used to them, I still felt different. I felt ashamed for a long time.”
“Bea.”
The urge to hug her is almost too hard to resist.
“I was ashamed,” I confess. “About my prosthetic. And I felt useless. I’d gone from being this badass Special Forces soldier to a civilian with only one hand. So I lashed out at people. My sister. My best friend. My old teammates.” A beat. “You.”
She looks down at my prosthetic, splayed out on the counter. “But you’re not useless, are you? You found this company. You still make a difference.”
“It took a while. But yes, I’m in a good place. I have a rewarding job. One I enjoy. I get to see my sister and my best friend all the time.”
“Rafe, right?”
“Yeah. Rafe was on my team. In the Green Berets, our teams are made up of twelve, but we’re configured to work in split teams of six, too. Rafe was on my split team. Ace and Tyler were on different GB teams, but they were stationed at Fort Campbell with me, so I knew them from trainings and joint ops.”
“And Webb?”
“He was stationed at Fort Campbell, too. But he was a Night Stalker. His team would help with exfils?—”
“Exfils?”
“Extractions. When we needed to make a quick exit from enemy territory, the Night Stalkers would come in to get us.”
Bea spins a tomato absently on the counter. “So you knew everyone. Before joining Blade and Arrow.”
“I did. Which was a big perk of it. Knowing my future teammates. Already trusting them.”
“And they trustyou.” It’s not a question, but a statement.
“They do.”
Several silent seconds pass. Then she says, “I’m glad. That things have worked out for you. I always wondered…”
Trailing off, her cheeks go pink.
