Free Wounded by Jasinda Wilder

hits my thigh, right near the original wound. I can't stay upright any longer. I hear more rifles firing, M-16s, an AK, and then a detonation. Someone shouts my name, Derek's name. Barrett. I want to answer but have no breath in my lungs. It's been stolen by pain, by shrapnel and bullet holes.  
    I succumb to the pain, let it wash over me. I drift and float, and then I feel something push me. Pain breaks over me like a wave when I crash to my back, and I force my eyes open.
    Goddamn, she's beautiful.  
    It's a stupid, random thought, out of place on this battlefield, but I can't shake it. She's kneeling above me, her head-scarf thing, a hidab, or...my pain-fogged brain won't spit out the right word. Hijab . That’s the word. It's coming loose around her face, tendrils of bottle-blonde hair escaping to drift across her delicate-featured face. I want to touch her finely sculpted cheeks, but my hand won't work.
    "What are you doing here?" I ask.  
    She looks at me in confusion. She doesn't understand.  
    I my head and see Derek. He's a fucking mess. Panicked horror is a thick, hot knot in my throat. NO! Not Derek….  
    We've been buddies forever. Second grade. He called me a sissy and I beat his ass and we've been buddies ever since. Joined up together, got lucky, and managed to get through Basic in the same unit, assigned to the same grunt squad. Impossible luck, to stay together like this for so long, through war, through death.  
    Now he's dead.
    "Derek?" I claw toward him. Poke him; he hates being poked. "Derek?"  
    I look at the girl, bright brown eyes like sun-bathed earth fixed on me. She touches two fingers to Derek's neck, looks back at me, shakes her head. Her meaning is clear.
    "DEREK!" I can't help the scream.  
    I know I'm crying, feel the salt burning down my cheek, but I can't stop it. I don't care if I'm crying in front of this gorgeous Iraqi girl like some kind of goddamn sissy. Derek is dead.  
    Dead.  
    Fuck.
    Darkness swallows me.

    *   *   *

    I wake up in the darkness. Shadows have eaten me. Silence sits on my chest like a wet, heavy blanket. I look around me, see shapes in the shadows. A chair, a table. A mirror reflecting shards of starlight. A square of lighter black with a swatch of pinprick stars: a window. Hard earth beneath me.  
    I want to get up. Need to get up. Can't stay here. Gotta get back to the guys. I manage an inch upward before pure agony bolts through me and I cry out, a soft grunt, high-pitched and girly. Goddamn sissy whimpers. I grit my teeth to silence myself.  
    Scratching, motion, rustling cloth. Then a face appears above me, blocking my view of the stars. Blonde hair hangs loose in long waves around her bare shoulders. I'm struck again by how stunningly beautiful she is, even in the dark of midnight black.
    She says something in Arabic and touches the center of my chest to push me down, a feather-light touch between bullet holes in each shoulder. I stare at her, unable to look away. I wish it was light so I could see her better.  
    She tugs a thin blanket farther up my body, and I realize I'm clad only in my skivvies. Clumsy bandages are held on by tape, not medical tape. Regular tape. I laugh, which hurts. The girl tilts her head in confusion.  
    I point at the bandage, the tape. "Did you do this?"  
    I know she can't answer me, or understand me, but I ask anyway. I don't know why. I just want to talk to her.
    She says something back, her voice sharp. I think she caught on to my criticism.  
    I hold up my hands to stop the accusing sound of her voice. "Thank you." I know I've been told how to say it Arabic, but I have to think about it. " Chokran ."
    She nods once and turns away, lies down, facing away. Her shoulders look tense, and I can tell she doesn't trust herself to really sleep with me here, even wounded.
    "You can sleep, you know," I say. "I couldn't hurt a fly right now."
    She rolls over and looks at me, dusky skin starlit silver. She whispers