Road Tripped (Satan's Devils MC Utah #1) - Manda Mellett Page 0,45
the only consideration, it’s also important to consider timing.
I’m armed, but outnumbered.
11
Swift…
A soldier needs to be aware of their situation at any given time. The last thing you needed was insurgents creeping up on you. I had been taught to use my ears, my eyes, and even on occasion, my nose would come in useful to detect a waft of perfume in the air or the approach of an unwashed body.
To have one of those senses taken away was crippling.
Bolt had lost his hand, but that had been replaced by a bionic one. While he probably doesn’t sleep in it, he wouldn’t need to take it off during a flight. He’s also got his real one that he can use to scratch any itch if need be.
Despite the best endeavours of my audiologist, my hearing aids don’t completely restore what I’ve lost. I can hear, but not normally. Sound is converted into a digital signal which is then amplified and directed into each of my ears. Mine are some of the best on the market, small and neat, and work well enough that I’m able to have functioning conversations in most environments, adjusting for ambient noise automatically, or with the aid of my app I have on my smartphone. But even they have limitations due to my type of hearing loss. A constant drone, of an engine particularly, seems to reverberate in my head and I have to turn them down. Once I do that, I lose one of the senses I rely on. I cease to feel normal and become vulnerable.
No, I don’t, I rebuke myself firmly.
It had been Pip who’d forced me to become part of the deaf community. As a condition of prospecting, he’d made me reach out to others with the same disability. Yes, it is disabling to be unable to hear properly, but it didn’t lessen the contribution I could make in the world or the enjoyment I, myself, get out of life. Learning to appreciate things differently was all part of the process I had to go through.
At first I had found the world a frightening place, my hearing aids amplifying not just speech, but ambient sound. Too many people talking at once made it hard to follow a conversation. But switching down or removing my hearing aids left me feeling isolated and excluded. My audiologist had worked with me so we’d found the best match we could, and now, with aids in, a lot of issues had been resolved.
At first, I’d rebelled against using sign language or trying to lip read as I refused to acknowledge what had happened. Then, when I tried, I felt like a kindergarten kid just starting school, or even a baby learning their first words. Lip reading I haven’t conquered just yet, but sign language I have got under my belt. It helped that signing is a way that soldiers communicate, so to me it was an enhancement, not a step back.
Pip suggested the brothers learn to sign as well, and to my surprise, some of them had done just that, acknowledging being able to communicate without words would be helpful on missions. They’d also become more circumspect about their contributions in meetings, trying to control themselves so no one talked over the other, or at a signal from Pip, would slow down. Music in the clubhouse is kept to a reasonable volume.
While I appreciate what those around me do to give me a near-normal life, I hate that they had to make adjustments. I’m Swift, one of the strongest and most badass females in the world. but without my hearing aids, I no longer feel like her anymore.
I hate the silence that removes me from the world, but Snatcher was right. I’ve had debilitating headaches before, so going quiet, as he put it, on a plane journey was best all around. I need to be in tip-top condition when I re-enter normal life and perform my duties as a soldier once more.
I didn’t want to read or stare at the clouds out the window, so I’d dozed throughout the journey. Not fully asleep, the pressure in my ears and sinuses signal the change in altitude telling me we’re coming into land. I open my eyes and find Road settling in beside me. He makes some gesture with his hands, miming a plane going down.
“I can see that.” I grin at him, jerking my head toward the window, but I appreciate his efforts.