Not scrambling.
Prepared.
“Clear!” Ghost shouts.
Brass and I lift Jackson between us. His weight sags, his body fighting gravity with the last scraps of consciousness he has left.When we lay him onto the waiting gurney, a low, broken groan rips out of him—pain dragging through every syllable of sound.
“We’ve got him.” A woman steps forward. Auburn hair pulled tight. Eyes bright and unshakably calm. Her gloves snap on before the wheels even start turning. Her voice is sharp and controlled in a way that steals the air from my lungs.
The scrubs team moves instantly around her—fluid, rehearsed, terrifyingly efficient.
“BP’s dropping, Skye,” a tall woman says, fingers already probing for a vein.
“Ryker, airway. Tia, induction. I want blood, pressure bags, and a FAST exam on the table. Move.”
It all happens at once.
A laryngoscope appears. Fluids spike open. A mask drops over Jackson’s face. Someone squeezes a bag of medication into his IV with the smoothness of muscle memory.
They push the gurney forward.
Not toward an elevator.
Not toward any marked clinical area.
Toward a structure I didn’t see until we were almost on top of it—a clear vinyl tent set up in the center of the loading dock like a pop-up operating theater.
Bright LED panels hang from improvised rigs overhead, illuminating the inside of the tent with surgical clarity. Stainless steel trays sit ready. A portable anesthesia machine hums beside a surgical table.
It looks impossible.
Out of place.
Unbelievably professional.
A battlefield OR dropped into a parking garage.
They roll him through the vinyl flap. I go with them. My hand stays locked on the rail of the stretcher, every instinct screaming that letting go is equivalent to deletion.
No one stops me.
No one tells me to move.
No one even looks surprised that I’m glued there.
Inside, the temperature drops—cooler, controlled. The smell shifts to antiseptic and adrenaline.
Skye steps to Jackson’s right side, ultrasound probe in hand. She presses it against his abdomen, images blooming across a portable monitor inside the tent.
“Positive in the upper quadrant,” she says. “He’s bleeding into the belly. Prep now.”
Tia—the one managing the anesthesia—adjusts dosing like she’s conducting a symphony. Ryker secures the airway with a precision that makes my chest ache.
The rest of the team fans out around Skye, every hand moving with the practiced rhythm of people who have done this in worse places, under worse fire, with worse odds.
Jackson is the battlefield.
They are the counterattack.
