A murmur rippled through the watching soldiers.
Eli couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Thin. Too thin. His jacket was several sizes too big, sleeves frayed, sneakers worn down at the heels. He wasn’t a cadet. He wasn’t enlisted. He wasn’t supposed to be here at all.
“You think I haven’t been examined by the best specialists in the country?” the general said coldly.
“Yes, sir,” Eli answered evenly. “And I think some of them stopped trying.”
That landed harder than an insult.
Whitaker leaned forward slightly. “You’re out of line, kid.”
But Eli’s hands didn’t leave the brace.
“Your glute and quad muscles still respond,” he said. “Barely. But they do. Your lower motor neurons still fire. That means the pathway isn’t dead. Just weak.”
The general blinked.
No one had spoken to him like that in years. Most doctors talked around him now—pain management, maintenance, accommodation. No one talked about possibility.
“You’ve built a life around the chair,” Eli continued. “You led from it. Commanded from it. Earned medals from it. But you never finished what your body is trying to do.”
The field had gone completely still.
Whitaker’s jaw tightened. “You think I haven’t tried to stand?”