The Radio Secret – My Sister In Love with My Fiance Chapter 06
Our first medical team was deployed to the most brutal war zones imaginable.
The plane touched down in Country K, and we were immediately loaded onto military trucks. Along the drive, I witnessed a world I’d never once laid eyes on before.
War seeped into every corner of this nation, trapping everyone in unending chaos and disorder. Our team lead ran through safety protocols over and over- the threats we might face, how to shield ourselves from harm.
All we barely got a minute to rest before we were thrown straight into emergency triage and surgery rounds.
Just one month in, I’d grown accustomed to performing emergency surgery inside flimsy canvas tents while artillery shells boomed nonstop overhead.
Our patients ran the full gamut of traumatic injuries, the youngest barely old enough to count on their fingers.
War saturated everything here. Busyness kept the ache at bay, but silence always let it seep back in.
I’d always thought vast, overwhelming global suffering would dilute personal heartache–but my pain stayed raw and unshakable.
I caught myself wondering about Calista and Logan more often than I’d admit.
Had her wrist wounds fully healed? Had they gone through with their wedding?
My heart was as ravaged as this war–torn country, split wide open by two jagged wounds–inflicted by the man I loved, and the sister I’d raised. I could never
fully forgive them, never let the hurt fade, yet I couldn’t bring myself to hate either of them entirely.
“Dr. Keith, we need to evacuate now!” Dr. Nathan Kingston, our field team lead, tore back the flap of my medical tent. “Intel came through–this sector’s about to take a missile strike.”
I’d long since memorized how to pack my gear in an emergency. Three minutes flat, and everything fit into one single canvas pack.
At first, I’d panicked, desperate to save every wounded soul I crossed paths with. Now I understood the brutal
truth: I had to preserve my own life first, to keep fighting for more patients later. I couldn’t tell if that shift made me stronger, or colder.
The airstrike hit far sooner than our advance warning.
We hadn’t finished evacuating the camp when artillery
shells detonated right beside us.
Screams, gunfire, and explosive blasts tangled together in a deafening roar, thick clouds of dust swallowing everything–like stepping into a separate, hellish reality.
A small child knelt beside his mother’s lifeless body, already numb to such devastating loss. A grenade lay meters away from his tiny frame.
“Look out!” I sprinted forward, scooping him up and
sprinting for cover. The grenade exploded; the shockwave sent us flying head over heels across the dirt.
“Rosie!”
I curled my body to shield the boy beneath me, then a much broader frame crashed over my back, absorbing the full force of the blast.
The ringing in my ears faded, and I blinked awake into total blackness.
“Rosie, are you alright?”
“Dr. Kingston?”
“Stay still.” Nathan braced my shoulders and guided me to sit with my back pressed against concrete rubble. “We’re buried under collapsed debris. Lucky
for us, this triangular support beam left a small pocket of air and space.”
“Are you hurt?”
Nathan had thrown himself over me to take the blast impact. I fumbled for my phone, its faint flashlight
cutting through the dark to examine his back–only minor superficial scrapes, thank god.
I exhaled in relief, then checked the child tucked safely under my torso.
He stared up at me with huge, unblinking eyes, no
trace of fear on his face amid the wreckage. “Doctor, are we gonna get out?”
Nathan and I exchanged a glance; neither of us had an answer.
“I wanna live,” the boy said, his voice eerily calm.
My throat tightened into a painful knot. I dug a hard candy out of my pocket and pressed it into his palm.
I couldn’t help asking him, “Why do you want to stay alive? You’ve known nothing but hopeless war since the day you were born.”
The boy shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I just wanna see the sun rise tomorrow.”
The three of us fell into a long, heavy silence. After a stretch, he spoke again, quiet and earnest. “Mommy said tomorrow might be better. I have to stay to see,”
I leaned my head back against the jagged concrete wall. Will it? Will tomorrow ever be gentler?
“It will,” Nathan said, as if he’d read every dark thought swirling in my head. “As long as you’re breathing, there’s always hope for better days.”
“Rosie Keith–do you even want to keep living?”
I turned to face him. His eyes burned bright, even in pitch–black rubble.
“From day one on this mission, you’ve volunteered for the deadliest assignments. You step foot where no other medic dares, you quarantine and treat contagious patients everyone else avoids.”
“Your life matters just as much as every patient’s.
Don’t throw it away.”
“You’re young, brilliant, beautiful, a gifted heart surgeon–your whole life stretches out ahead of you. Life’s fragile; you have to cherish yours.”
Salty tears slipped onto my lips. I stared down at the child in my arms, his gaze glowing with desperate hunger for life.
So many people fought tooth and nail just to survive another day, yet I’d been wasting the life I’d been given, drowning in heartbreak.
You’re such a fool, Rosie Keith.