vignette
“HE SH.OT ME AT MY OWN MEDAL CEREMONY—THEN STILL CLAIMED I WAS ‘UNSTABLE.’” / Chapter 2 / 10

Chapter 2 - The Fracture in the Bone

The field devolved into organized chaos, but the world inside my head had gone dead silent.

"Julian, drop the salute! That’s an order!" General Halloway barked, his voice vibrating with authority and terror. His hands were on my belt, keeping me upright.

I held the salute for three seconds longer—the regulatory count—before bringing my arm down cleanly to the seam of my trousers. Only then did the dark tide take my legs.

I didn't crash; Halloway caught my shoulders and eased me down against the wooden edge of the dais. Medics were already swarming the platform, the tearing of trauma shears sounding like paper ripping. The cool sea breeze off the Cooper River smelled suddenly of iron, cordite, and sunbaked cloth.

"Pressure on the right inguinal!" a female medic yelled, ramming her gloved palms directly into the wound.

Agony shot up my spine, white and blinding. My teeth ground together until my jaw clicked. Ten yards away, Arthur was being hauled backward toward a waiting security vehicle. His nose was bloody where his face had kissed the tarmac, his silver hair wild. But as he caught my eye through the throng of uniforms, he laughed.

"Look at him!" Arthur shrieked at the guards, at the spectators, at the world. "He snapped! He drew on me! I had to defend myself! He’s unstable—he’s been crazy since he was a kid!"

"Shut your mouth!" a master sergeant roared, slamming Arthur into the squad car's chassis.

"He’s psychotic! Ask his mother!" Arthur's voice bounced off the metal hangar walls, venomous and deliberate. "Look at what the war did to him! He’s unhinged!"

"Don’t listen to him, Sergeant," Halloway murmured, kneeling beside my head, his bare hands covered in my blood as he assisted the tourniquet team. "Stay with me, Vance. Look at my stars. Just look at the stars."

"Sir," I whispered, my voice sounding like gravel. "Did I... finish it?"

"You finished it," Halloway said, his weathered face tight with suppressed emotion. "You stood your ground, son. Now let these folks do their work."

They lifted me onto the gurney. The sky spun again, pale blue and cloudless, mocked by the red siren lights flickering against the underside of the hangar roof. As the ambulance doors slammed shut, shutting out the wind and the noise, Arthur’s words lingered in the sterilizer smell of the interior.

*He’s unstable. He’s crazy.*

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Even with a bullet lodged inside me, Arthur was already constructing the cage.

***

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