“Doc?” said the man next to me. “You’ve been hit by some chemicals, and we need to cut you out—plates, shirt, bra—all of it, now. You tracking?”
A moan that wasn’t mine came from somewhere close. A wet cough.
“Where’s Rav?” Panic splintered through me, almost enough to shove the pain aside. “Rav! Where?—”
“He’s fine.”
He’s not fucking fine!
He’d knocked me over. Jumped in front of me? Something.
“It’s just your team here.” The hand on my sternum pressed harder. A second strap gave way, fabric scraping my burned skin. Tugging at my shirt. Cool metal sliding across my chest, and my bra popped open. A knee nudged my hip, levering me enough to drag all my clothes away. “We’ll cover you back up as soon as we can.”
Cold stung my bare back when it touched the floor. Relief. Followed by my eyes snapping open when a new kind of agony flooded my body. Oxygen fed the chemical eating into me.
“Rav!” I screamed again. Or maybe that was my inside voice this time. I could barely tell anymore.
“Brooke.” My name bounced around as if it had more syllables than it owned. “Hey. Stay with me.”
I rolled, gagged. The hand on my sternum pushed again. “No rolling. Flat. We’ve got you.”
“Get back.” My throat was raw. “Don’t! Don’t touch it! Lewisite!”
Through tear-streaked vision, I spotted a green pouch being ripped open. The RSDL—Reactive Skin Decontaminant Lotion. The pad that hit my shoulder was cool at first, then flared.
Another scream.
Why had I come here? Why didn’t I go into a research lab at home?
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, and the taste of blood grounded me for a heartbeat. The pad moved lower, over ribs, over the curve of breast, and around my side. The sound in the room got smaller, sucked away through the little window.
“Doc.” Another hand, warm and sticky like nitrile, slid under my neck to lift my head. Water splashed on my lips. I gulped and choked. The water spilled down my chin, down the hollow of my collarbone, and the drops that found the chemical sizzled against my skin. I turned my head from the bottle, knocking it from whoever held it. Hands caught it before it rolled.
“Bird is ten out,” someone yelled—not at me, at the air. “Push nine-line again. He’s crashing.”
He.
Not me.
“Rav.” The name was barely sound on my lips. “Tell me?—”
“Hey.” The SEAL above me—Hart, yeah, that was his voice—brought his face into my narrow field of view. Dark beard. Eyes that didn’t blink. “You’re going to be okay. You hear me?”
“Rav,” I said again, because everything else felt optional now. Voices swam. A crack in the ceiling over my head doubled.
“He’s okay.” The lie didn’t sound any more convincing this time. “Look at me.”
I tried. His face kept moving. The pad worked its way lower, left side, each press a new electric slice. My hand wrenched free and found the front of Hart’s plate carrier. Fingers hooked the webbing; I held on like the room would drop me if I let go.
“Morphine,” someone said. “She’s at ten.”
“Doc, you’re getting a jab,” Hart warned, and then a sharp punch to my thigh. A warmth blossomed, heavy and slow. The edges of the pain softened, turned from a knife to a rough stone. Still there. Less eager. The room stretched wider, sound returning in pieces—the fan buzz, a voice praying underhis breath, hemostats clacking, someone dragging a table that squealed against the rough floor.
Someone removed my hand from Hart’s plate carrier.
I knew this phase. The softening. The trick my brain played when it couldn’t hold two things at once—pain and detail. As the pain receded, the detail began to bleed back in.
My memory found the room before everything had gone to shit: long benches scavenged from a school or a clinic, brown reagent bottles with hazard diamonds half-scraped off, glassware in a crooked lattice. A smell like body odor and pennies. An old fan rattling in a window. Voices down the hallway. Percival opening a door with the back of his wrist, rifle high. Rav’s shoulder an inch from mine.
