Jin rubbed his cheek against his pants, getting rid of any suspicious wetness.“You can’t exactly claim this is my first.”
“I guess that’s true.”
What did it say about their lives that in a little under three days he’d gone through more life and death situations than most did in their entire existence?
It wasn’t likely to get better anytime soon either.
No, it was going to get much worse.
“How do you do it?How do you keep moving through the fear?Sometimes, it’s like my body is not my own.”
“Organic beings are basically just a bunch of chemical reactions,” Kira said.
Adrenaline.Dopamine.Serotonin.Endorphins
Hormones to bring you up.Hormones to bring you down.
“The trick is not letting them control you.”
It was hard.Impossible to master fully.Biology was one of the most powerful forces in the universe.There was no defeating it.But you could fool it sometimes.Delay your reaction—or suppress it.
“How?”Jin asked.
“Practice.”
The military trained its soldiers in a specific way for a reason.There was no way to guarantee that someone would hold up during actual battle, but by pushing them to their breaking point and replicating certain conditions you could get a fairly decent sense of what they might do during the real thing.
Some broke apart and had to be built back up.Others soared, made stronger in the forging.
“For my part, I like to play a game with myself.See how close to the fire I can get without being shot or otherwise maimed,” Raider volunteered.
Kira and Jin stared.
“He asked,” Raider defended.
“Her.Not you.I don’t need a glimpse into your twisted mind,” Jin said.
“Last time I try to comfort a tin can.”
Despite the harsh words, Jin’s faint smile showed no hard feelings.He, like Kira, probably sensed the concern under Raider’s bravado.
“Maybe next time someone tells you a mission isn’t for you, you’ll listen,” Kira pointed out.
“If not for me, you’d be dead, you insufferable woman.”
“Maybe so, but you’d still be kicking your feet up and enjoying the easy life if you weren’t so insistent.”
So really, there was no reason for her to feel that guilt sitting in the middle of her chest like a ten ton city-killing bomb.
He’d volunteered for this.
Raider made a placating motion with his hands.“Alright, you two, back to your individual corners, we—”
Before he could finish, a giant force lifted them up and threw them against the ruins.
Kira’s head collided with the stone wall.It was light’s out.
Seventeen
