-Jill-
The first thing I hear is beeping. I feel and hear it at the same time. It's in perfect rhythm with my heart, which causes a pounding in my head every other second. My mouth is so dry, and my entirely body feels numb. This numbness feels like a flu almost, where your entire body feels worn and ragged, but you cannot sleep. Not actually a bad feeling, just unnatural.
It takes me what feels like minutes to open my eyes after I gained consciousness. The room is dark, and I see water droplets streaming down the window to my left. I see a light on to my right, a strip of light fighting its way in from under a door. The only things illuminating the room is streaks of red and green from EKGs and my vitals moving along like a stock market crash.
After trying and failing to sit up, I notice my right arm is elevated and propped up like you see in movies when someone severely injures a limb. This is actually a thing? I try to push up with my left arm, but the moment I adjust back right I'm in unbearable pain.
"Fuck!" I shout, slamming my head against the pillow to relieve the feeling radiating down my arm. That was so painful, I feel like I'm about to pass out. My outburst makes someone jump out of a chair.
"Don't move, for once in your life, listen to me," I hear Penelope say with her hand on my chest to push me back down.
"Penelope?" I ask, more confused. Why is she here? I must be more banged up than I thought if Penelope is here.
"Why do you insist on my full name when the rest of the world calls me Penny?" She asks. "Serious, lay back, I'll get the doctor."
"What happened, I don't remember?" I ask, and she presses the button I can't reach for me.
"You're lucky to be alive. If that bullet missed your rib, it would have gone through both lungs and maybe your heart," she says, and suddenly I remember reciting my ABCs to Lincoln who was pressing my bullet holes.
"No wonder I feel like I got fucked by a train," I say. Bad wording.
"You might want to rephrase..."
"Already regret it," I say, and she laughs, making me laugh, that making me groan gasp because how much that hurt my side. "How bad?"
"Like when we were kids, one out of ten?" Penelope asks, and I nod. "Living comfortably, five."
"That's not so bad."
"For still being a cop, ten," she says and my stomach sinks. I look at my arm, and I feel my eyes swell with tears. One asshole gets one lucky shot off and my career is over.
"What was the damage?" I say, my voice choked.
"Complete bicep tendon tear at the shoulder and torn supraspinatus muscle..."
"English," I say. I know you have a medical degree, stop showing off.
"It's a muscle that's part of your rotator cuff. It's the one that abducts the arm at the shoulder..."
"Dumb white girl English," I say.
"The muscle that makes your arm do this," she says, flapping her arm up and down like a wing, "Was completely torn. You'll be lucky to get your arm to your shoulder, let alone above it."
"Which means I can't aim a gun," I say, and look away from her. I don't want to cry in front of my little sister. I'll never hear the end of it.
"Being a cop is your life..." Penelope starts, but then stops once she realizes there wasn't a natural progression to that statement that made me feel better. Penelope walks back to her chair and sits down, and turns her head when she hears footsteps at the door. I turn as well and see Jesse standing in front of Derek.
"See this contraption? I didn't know this actually happened," I say, Derek managing to produce a smile while Jesse walked around the bed, pulled a chair next to it, and stood on the chair to lean on the bed.
"Are you okay?" Jesse asks me, looking at my arm that's directly in front of his face. I wiggle my fingers and he smiles.
"I can still wiggle them," I say, and he touches my fingers with his. Jesse has so far been the only one to make me feel better. It's uncomfortable to wiggle them, but not painful.
I look around my bed to see what meds I'm on. Morphine drip by the looks of it. I'll be asking for more of that later.
I have several visitors throughout the day, including the chief of police and my entire old team from patrol. My dad flew in to see me, but could only stay for a day before he had to fly back for work. Penelope plans on staying for my recovery. I love my sister, but small doses. Small doses, or within two days we want to kill each other.
I'm given pills and two months of recovery with multiple surgeries scheduled to possibly fix my shoulder. I think the first one made it worse. There was no movement at all after that, and the pain was so unbearable it made me puke when the meds wore off.
Penelope makes me want to puke more.
At three months into recovery, I'm recommended to, but I don't have my arm in a sling anymore, but god damn does it hurt to aim. I'm at the range, the recoil of the gun feels like a lightning bolt of pain that makes my knees weak. I fire three rounds, wince and put the weapon on safe and put it on the table. I pull off my glasses and ear muffs, and move the strands of sweaty, wet hair sticking to my face.
"Fuck," I say, and rotate my shoulder with a narrow shrug. I pick up the weapon and aim it again, fire three more shots and drop the weapon to the table fast and hiss through my teeth.
"What are you doing? You need to be resting," Lincoln says, after he enters the room and finds me. Penelope must have called him when I snuck out.
"It's not going to get better if I don't use it," I say.
"It'll never get better if you strain it too much. You can't even hold it parallel yet," Lincoln says and I hold my arm out, straining to keep a straight face as I do, the corners of my mouth and eyes betraying me.
Lincoln pressed the button brought my target back to me. I had it set at seven meters. When it stopped as close as it could get, Lincoln pulled the clip from my pistol and counted the ammunition, then the holes in my target.
"You fired six rounds, you're on paper once," Lincoln said, pointing at my one shot that was on paper, but not on target. I hit the top right corner. "Go home."
I put the clip back in the gun, release the slide to chamber a round, switch off the safety and empty the clip point blank into the target. Lincoln flinches away covering his ears while mine start ringing. The recoil kills my shoulder, but I finished shooting and look at the target.
"Well look at that, all on target," I say sarcastically and walked away, ramming his shoulder to push him out of the way as I leave. That really hurt, but the point is to show it doesn't.
