The team lifts Jackson out, steady, coordinated, trained for this exact moment. They guide him up the metal ramp into the jet’s interior.
Equipment is bolted to the walls. A stretcher mount waits in the center. Monitors hang from ceiling rails.
It’s a flying OR.
Ghost touches my elbow.
“Stay with him.”
I climb the ramp after Jackson, the cold night air swallowing behind me as the hatch begins to close. Inside, the hum of equipment replaces the quiet of the city.
I take the seat closest to Jackson, my hand finding his without needing to look.
Engines spool.
The jet vibrates under my feet.
The world outside slips away.
And even surrounded by people?—
I am alone with the fear of losing him.
Later,much later, Ghost guides me out of the jet, into a waiting car, and we drive to a building in Seattle. He walks me to a room and leaves me, with instructions to clean up and rest if I can. We both know I won’t.
I stand in the center of the strange room, staring at my reflection in the massive mirror.
The woman looking back is a stranger. Her face is streaked with grease and soot. Her eyes are wild, the pupils blown wide. She is wearing a tactical vest over a ruined shirt.
I strip.
The vest hits the floor with a heavy thud. The shirt follows. The pants.
I step into the shower. It’s a rainfall head, wide as a manhole cover. I turn the water to scalding.
The spray hits me. The water turns pink.
I watch it swirl around my feet. Jackson’s blood. Washing away.
I grab a sponge and scrub. I scrub until my skin turns red, until it stings. I need to get it off. I need to get the smell of the Halon out of my hair, the taste of ozone out of my mouth.
He took the hit.
The moment plays in my mind, a relentless loop. The shooter. The angle. The timing. Jackson saw the vector. The math he couldn’t beat. So, he changed the variables. He inserted himself into the trajectory of the bullet.
He traded his mass for mine.
A sob breaks out of my chest. It’s ugly, raw. A jagged sound that echoes off the marble tiles.
I slide down the wall, curling into a ball under the spray.
Nathan used to tell me I was a robot. That I processed life instead of living it. That I had an algorithm for a heart.
He was wrong.
I’m not a robot. I’m bleeding. I’m breaking. The pain isn’t data; it’s a physical weight crushing my lungs. I love Jackson. I love him, and I might have just watched him die to save me.
I stay there until the water runs cool. Until my fingers prune and the tears stop coming because there is nothing left to weep.
