Everything Changes by Melanie Hansen Page B

flesh. Carey had been shielded from the brunt of the blast by the other men in front of him, but vicious shrapnel had shredded his lower right leg and it was hanging by the merest thread. Blood was pumping everywhere from wounds in both legs, and Jase had mere seconds to act. A tourniquet and clamps, hemostatic gauze, all of it as Jase frantically tried to save his best friend’s life.
     
    The boy on the ground moaned, and the woman said, “Can’t you give him something for the pain?”
    Jase tried to pull himself out of his memories and engage in the present. “Can’t,” he muttered. “I don’t know if he has any drug allergies, and a morphine allergy could kill him.” The boy thrashed weakly, and without any way to immobilize him, Jase did his best to try to soothe him. “Gotta stay still, bud. If your neck and back are hurt, it might make it worse.” Mercifully the kid fell into unconsciousness again.
    “Rescue services are on the way.” Carey knelt beside Jase, looking at the bloody mess on the ground. “Fuck.” Jase could see him turn white.
    “Don’t look at this, man,” he said, hearing how strained his own voice was. Carey continued to stare down at the kid.
    “He’s going to lose that leg, isn’t he?” Carey whispered. Jase saw no reason to answer, letting the crushed and mangled flesh and bone speak for itself. He continued to monitor the kid’s vitals and bleeding while a numb, detached feeling settled over him, his vision narrowing, his movements becoming mechanical. The meaty smell of blood and devastating injury overwhelmed him, and the sound of sirens and helicopter rotor blades came as if from far away, almost like a distant dream.
     
     
    C AREY KNELT awkwardly next to Jase, sickened by the boy’s injury and the devastation three families would shortly be feeling.
    Such a fucking waste, he thought viciously, all for a goddamn joyride. His heart ached at what this kid would be facing for the rest of his life, how he would pay the price for his carelessness, have to live with the guilt of causing the senseless death of his friends, all while dealing with recovery from a grievous injury.
    It would have been better if you’d died, kid, Carey thought fatalistically, shaking his head sadly. He hoped the boy had a rock-solid support system because he was going to need it.
    Jase’s clipped voice startled him out of his reverie. “Where’s the fucking CASEVAC?”
    “CASEVAC?” Carey was confused. “Can’t you hear the sirens? Ambulance is almost here.”
    “I can hear the fucking helicopter! Why aren’t they landing?”
    Carey looked up and saw a local news chopper hovering overhead, the cameraman hanging out the side, and his confusion deepened. Why would Jase want it to land?
    Suddenly Jase turned to him and gripped the front of his T-shirt, his voice low and threatening. “Everett goes first. You got that?”
    Carey’s first inclination was to shake Jase off, and as he was opening his mouth to say, “What the fuck,” he caught a glimpse of Jase’s eyes. They weren’t unfocused, but they were distant, like he was seeing something that wasn’t there. Carey felt a chill go through him. Flashback. From his work with wounded veterans and his own personal research, he knew a combat stress reaction could be triggered by any number of things, sometimes things as innocuous as the smell of diesel fuel or the sight of smoke in the distance. For Jase it was the sound of a helicopter, the boy’s injury… oh, fucking hell.
    Jase’s grip on Carey’s T-shirt tightened, and he repeated, “Got it? Everett goes first.”
    “Yeah, man,” Carey said quietly. “I’ll personally make sure that Everett goes first. You have my word.”
    Jase let go of him and turned back to the boy on the ground, his hands moving efficiently as he monitored him, changing out the empty bag of saline for another one, exchanging the blood-soaked hemostatic gauze he’d packed into the worst of the wounds with