Bodyguard: Target (38 page)

At first Charley grieved the loss of her
legs, crying herself to sleep each pain-racked night.

In her dreams she was whole again,
surfing endless oceans or running over mountains, faster
and faster, her feet barely
touching the ground. Then she’d wake believing she could walk, her heart light
and her head happy until she tried to move. Her legs would refuse all commands.
Sweat would pour from her brow as she mentally screamed at them to respond.

This denial of her crippled state
didn’t last long. Soon Charley grew to hate the sight of her legs.
What
use
were they if they didn’t work?
They were like two logs of rotten
wood. She could saw them off and wouldn’t feel or notice a damn
difference!

At the end of her first week in
hospital, she was moved from the intensive-care unit to the high-dependency unit.
Progress
, the nurse told her with a cheery smile.

It didn’t feel like progress to
Charley – just a different room
with the same antiseptic smell and the same
routine as before.

Then, in the second
week, while a nurse was washing what used to be her legs, Charley felt a slight
sensation of pins and needles. She still couldn’t tell which leg the nurse was
touching, but there was a definite feeling. She’d enthusiastically told the
nurse and a doctor had been called. But when he performed
a series of sensory tests
her legs didn’t react to any other stimuli. The doctor was encouraging, but
Charley’s spark of hope faded.

Yet a couple of days later some
sensation returned to her bowel. This time the doctor was noticeably animated.
A
vital neurological sign for future leg function
, he’d said. It still
seemed like the thinnest of threads reconnecting her to
her lower half. But it was
enough to reignite Charley’s hope and carry her through the long dark hours,
alone and scared of what the future might hold.

The changes were small, but towards the
end of the first month Charley was convinced some feeling had returned to the soles
of her feet. It was as if her legs were waking up from a decade-long hibernation.
Some days she
could even sense their position on the bed. At night the nerves inside
buzzed, like a broken hard drive trying to reboot itself.

One glorious morning Charley discovered
she could wiggle her toes. Only a fraction – but it was movement. Then, just
as she was celebrating this progress, her whole body went into spasm. It started in
her legs, rushed up like a tsunami through her
body, arched her spine backwards and
turned her hands into claws, crushing the paper cup in her grasp and sending water
flying.

There was no pain. But Charley was
terrified.

The spasm lasted a
minute or so, yet felt like eons to Charley. When it subsided, she discovered the
doctor at her side. Soothing her, he explained that spasms were a side effect of her
spinal
injury. Her body’s normal reflex system was being short-circuited. The
explanation brought Charley little relief.

One afternoon, after a particularly
violent spasm, there was a knock at her door. Ash popped his head in.

‘How you doing today?’ he
asked.

‘All right,’ she lied,
wiping perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand.

‘I’ve brought some more
grapes and a couple of new books.’

‘Thanks,’ she replied as he
put the gifts on her bedside table and pulled up a chair. He’d visited her
almost every day and this afternoon he seemed more lively than usual, his knee
jittering up and down with repressed excitement.

Ash took her hand. She let him, her
fingers lying in his palm as lifeless as her legs. ‘I know I’ve said
this before, but I’m so sorry about all this.’ He glanced down the
length of the bed.

Charley forced a smile. ‘Pool had
to be on the roof, didn’t it?’

Ash’s laugh was as hollow as her
smile. ‘Hey, I’m not doing that crazy stunt ever again. Where’s
your phone, by the way?’

Charley nodded to the desk drawer.
Pulling it open, Ash paired his own phone with hers
and transferred a file. As he
waited for it to download, he explained enthusiastically,
‘I finished recording your song last night. Finally nailed it. The
producer and Kay both think the track’s a classic. It’s going to be the
lead single off my new album –’

‘Why do you keep visiting
me?’ Charley interrupted.

Ash blinked in surprise. ‘Because
I want to.’

‘No,
really
?’

‘To support you, of course. Like
you looked after me. That’s why I’ve stayed on in LA to record my
album.’

‘Not because you feel obliged to
… or guilty?’

Ash averted his eyes. ‘Of course I
feel guilty. You were hurt protecting me.’

Charley withdrew her hand. She no longer
wore his bracelet and she was sure that he’d noticed – not that she
cared. During
her enforced stay in hospital, she’d had a lot of time to think
and one doubt had been plaguing her. ‘How come so many people were out to get
you?’

Ash shrugged. ‘I’ve wondered
that myself. I suppose, fame makes for an easy target.’

‘OK. Then tell me one other thing.
Did you honestly write “Only Raining”?’

Charley saw the answer in his eyes
before Ash even replied.

‘Yes …’ he began,
before looking away from her withering glare and admitting, ‘Most of
it.’

He sighed heavily. ‘I had a verse
but no chorus. Brandon Mills wrote the chorus. And he would’ve been credited
if he hadn’t cheated on Kay. He knocked her about too. Brandon wasn’t a
nice guy. So Kay literally wrote him out of the song. Her revenge. She swore me to
secrecy.
You see, Kay was building a story around me as
this genius singer-songwriter. We had to protect the legend.’

Charley nodded, accepting it without
judgement.

‘I wrote
all
of
“Angel Without Wings”, though,’ Ash was quick to point out.
‘And it’s better than any song I’ve ever recorded.’

He reached out to take her hand again,
but this time she refused to take it.

‘Charley,’ he said,
‘I’m donating all the royalties from this song into a recovery fund for
you.’

Charley was briefly lost for words. Then
she snapped, ‘I’m not a charity case! Don’t pity me!’

‘I’m not,’ he replied,
his tone wounded. ‘I just want to help you.’

‘Then leave me alone.’
Charley turned her head away and stared resolutely out of the window.

‘No, you’re
my muse,
remember? My inspiration. I have to take care of y–’

‘I said,
LEAVE ME
ALONE!
’

Stunned by her hostile reaction, Ash sat
motionless for a full minute, then stood up. ‘If that’s what you really
want, Charley. But I won’t abandon you. The song is yours. The money too. And
if one day it can help you walk, then it’ll be the greatest song ever
written.’

With a longing last look at her, Ash
left the room.

When he was gone, Charley sobbed her
heart out. Why was she pushing away the only person she’d truly fallen in love
with?

But she already
knew the answer. Ash reminded her too much of all that she’d lost.

Through tear-filled eyes, she saw an
update blink on her phone:
FILE DOWNLOADED
.

Slipping on her headphones
and pressing
play
, Charley listened to the song –
her
song –
and wept …

‘Why here in particular?’
asked Jason, pushing her wheelchair down the boardwalk of San Clemente pier.
‘There are other beaches far closer.’

‘I used to surf here,’
replied Charley sadly.
‘Used to.’

Foaming white breakers rolled in like
familiar friends along the sandy strip of coast. But they passed her by on the pier,
like they’d forgotten who she was, no longer recognizing her.

And who’d blame them. She was a
cripple in a chair.

Charley watched a young girl with blonde
hair catch a wave and ride it all the way in. It could so easily have been her.
But
surfing was just a pipe dream now. Like everything else in her broken life, nothing
was simple or easy any more. Just taking this trip down to the beach had been a
mission. Climbing out of bed, going to the toilet, putting on clothes, getting in
and out of the car, negotiating the path, even making it up the shallow incline to
the pier. It had been one major challenge after
another. On this, her first
excursion into the outside world, Charley was confronted by all the things she used
to do effortlessly.
Instead of celebrating her day out of
hospital, she just felt an aching sense of loss.

The sight of the surfer girl was the
final straw.

She began to cry.

Jason stopped pushing her. ‘Hey,
Charley, what’s the matter?’

‘I-I’m not
meant to be
trapped in a chair!’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t dress or wash myself or
even go to the toilet on my own. And I can’t walk, can’t surf –
can’t do anything! I can’t stand another day of this. I simply
don’t have the strength!’

Jason knelt down beside her, placing a
hand on her knee. She could feel it now – just.

‘Charley,’ he said softly.
‘You’ve more strength
and courage in your little finger than all of us
boys together. What was it that philosopher said …?
Whatever doesn’t
kill you makes you stronger
.’

‘If that’s true,’ she
retorted through clenched teeth, ‘I should be stronger than reinforced
steel!’

But she certainly didn’t feel that
way. Inside she felt as brittle and fragile as Styrofoam.

‘You are,’ said Jason,
his
gaze unwavering. ‘You overcame everyone to be the best in bodyguard training.
You overcame every threat in every assignment. And you will overcome this setback.
Nothing has stopped you before. Why should this?’

Charley didn’t answer him. Jason
couldn’t possibly understand what she was going through. Only those suddenly
paralysed could.

The two of them
fell silent
and Jason continued pushing her along the pier, the wheels of her chair
rattling over the wooden boards. Charley felt every bump and jerk as she sat
immobilized, a prisoner in her chair. She was surprised and touched that Jason had
made the effort to visit her. But she was also cut up that Blake hadn’t come
– he’d sent her a get-well card, but that was it. Jason had been right.
She was better off without him … better off without anyone.

‘I hear once you’re fit,
Colonel Black’s asked you to return and head up Alpha team,’ he said
casually as they reached the end of the pier. ‘I think that would be good for
you. Give you a focus. Have you thought about it?’

Charley gave a barely perceptible
shrug.

‘For what it’s worth,
I’ve asked to
be part of Alpha team if you take up the offer.’

‘What? So you can be my legs for
me?’ she said, more harshly than she intended.

‘No,’ said Jason, brushing
off the sting in her words. ‘Because I think you’d do a great job, with
all your experience.’

Charley glanced up at him. ‘I
thought the colonel was going to put you in charge of your own squad.’

‘He was, but
I want to be in the
best
team. Led by you.’

‘Listen, Jason, that’s very
flattering of you. And I appreciate you flying over to see me. But … can I
have some time alone?’

‘Sure,’
said Jason, flicking on the chair’s brake. ‘I’ll get us a
drink.’

As he headed back down the pier, Charley
gazed out at the shimmering blue ocean. She studied the thin line of horizon
that
separated sea and sky and waited for the telltale ripple that would swell into the
perfect wave to ride.

It wasn’t long before a glistening
ridge of sea rose up in the distance. Subtle at first but approaching with ever more
promise. As the wave rolled towards the shoreline, Charley desperately wanted to
throw herself off the pier and surf her way in. But that was
impossible.

IMPOSSIBLE
…
I’M POSSIBLE.

The opening to Ash’s show flashed
before her eyes and a small voice in her head spoke up.
Who’s to say
you’ll never surf again? It’s only yourself putting up
barriers.

Charley pushed away the false seeds of
hope. As the wave drew nearer, she took out the badge from her bag and clasped it in
her palm: the gold winged
shield of a guardian angel.

Who needs wings … to be an
angel?

She’d come full circle. This was
where her journey had begun – and where it would end.

She’d lost her best friend and her
parents, and now the use of her legs. What more could life take from her?

Charley drew back her arm to toss the
badge into the sea, but stopped in mid-throw. She stared once more
at the gleaming
gold badge, then pinned it to her shirt. Fiercely, she flicked off the wheelchair
brake and used the strength
of her own arms to turn and roll
herself back down the pier. One thought in her head …

We cannot change the cards we are
dealt, just how we play the hand.