Scarred ➵zauren

Chapter 1

Blood pumped in my ears as my heart pounded in my chest recklessly. No amount of years as a Navy Seal can prepare you for this moment. They say our breed is the toughest; we're trained the hardest and that makes us fearless. But I can tell you each time my boys and I step out on a mission, our stomachs are in our throats, unaware of what we might face. The last thing we want is for anyone in our squadron to get injured when we go out, so it's a bitch on the nerves.

As the lieutenant to all these men, I sometimes forget to look after myself and that came back to bite me in the ass. Here I was...twenty five years old in the middle of a foreign country with nine bullets combined in both my legs. I could feel the blood rushing out of me yet instead of searching for help, I wanted my men to get the hell out of where we were. Problem was..we were Navy Seals and we never left anyone behind, and as their leader, my boys would never let me die there.

The world was starting to get a little blurred; I could still hear shots going off but it was hard to distinguish who was helping me currently as two of my guys, I think Jason and Piero, worked on wrapping up my legs to try and get the bleeding to stop.

"Lieutenant," I felt another grab the straps of my pack that was secured to my tightly and shake me. "Zayn, stay with me, you're gonna be alright. We've got you."

Only one person called me by my name in the squadron; how could I not have guessed it was Harry to begin with. He was my apprentice and he vowed to always have my back as he learned from me. At this rate though, he would probably be taking my place soon. As tight as the guys tied the tourniquets, I still felt blood rushing from my body as my heart over pumped from fear. I was certain I wouldn't survive as I started to fade in and out of consciousness.

I only remembered brief flashes from the moment Harry tried to keep me awake forward. I remember the guys paging a chopper hectically, screaming over the sounds of the gun shots that continued as the rest of the squadron defended us. I remembered the pain of a medic examining my wounds once we were on the chopper. I remembered being rolled into an operating room urgently once we landed and from then on it was all black.

I didn't know how long it had been, or where I was exactly but as I awoke, I noticed I wasn't alone. My eyes adjusted to the light entering the room through the window and tried to make out who was standing by my bed. It wasn't anyone I recognized but I did notice it was a female. She was standing up typing on a computer that was positioned on a shelf next to my bed and the green scrubs she wore pointed me to think she was a nurse.

I tried to adjust myself as the sensation of my body came back to me and I felt an uncomfortable numbness in my legs.

"Oh, lieutenant Malik, you're up," the nurse looked over at me as the bed creaked. "Hold on, I'll help you."

She reached for the blanket and untucked it a bit from the sides of the beds, making it easier to slide my body up. I could feel the cold of her hands through my thin hospital gown as she grabbed my triceps and pulled me up.

"Better?" She smiled and all I could do was nod, fixated on her green eyes I hadn't noticed before. Was it odd that I got lost in them for a second? I'm sure it happened often, they were emerald green with speckled yellow nebulas in them, I'd never seen such a thing.

"Thanks," I forced myself to say as she turned back to the computer.

"Of course, my name is Lauren, by the way. I'm your nurse, slash, physical therapist. Is it okay if I just run a couple tests on you now that you're awake? I can get more accurate responses."

"Yeah, go ahead," I nodded.

"Do you remember what happened? You lost a lot of blood so you probably blacked out," she wondered as she grabbed a blood pressure cuff.