“How did I know what?”
“That the internal damage was worse than the surface wound suggested.” He moves closer, not crowding, but present in a way that fills the space between us. Heat radiates off him, reaching me from two feet away. He's close enough now that I tilt my head back to hold his gaze, and there’s something about that angle, that vulnerability, that makes me pause. “Veth assumed the burn was the primary concern. You went straight to the abdomen.”
A test, maybe. Or genuine curiosity. I can't tell which, but my answer will be honest.
“Plasma wounds lie. The surface damage looks catastrophic because that's what heat does to tissue, but plasma penetrates deeper than it chars. If the entry angle is right, and the weapon was hot enough, the real damage happens underneath.” Krel's monitors become the safer focus, anything other than him. Safer, because looking at him makes my skin feel too tight. I'mpainfully aware of every inch of space between us, and even more aware of how little effort it would take him to close it. “Field triage taught me to ignore what looks worst and find what kills first. Internal bleeding kills faster than surface burns, nine times out of ten.”
“Field triage.”
“You learn patterns or you lose patients.” Adjusting a reading that doesn't need adjusting gives me something to do. “After a while, your instincts read the wound before your brain catches up.”
He's quiet for a moment. Processing, maybe. Or waiting to see if I'll fill the silence with something he can use against me. I don't. Two can play the waiting game, and I've held silences with generals that lasted longer than this.
“Where did you train? Xenobiology is a specialized field. Most human medics don't have the expertise to operate on Draveki physiology.”
“The military trained me on human anatomy. Everything else I learned from necessity.” Checking Krel's pupil response gives me something to do with my hands. “When you're the only medic in a forward position and a Thessalian sergeant is bleeding out in front of you, you don't get to say 'sorry, wrong species.' You figure out where the major arteries are and how the organ systems differ, and you do your best not to kill anyone through ignorance.”
“Thessaly Station.”
He knows my service record, probably read it before I ever walked into his compound. I shouldn't be surprised. Of course he researched the female selling herself into his service. Any competent businessman would do the same, but the way he says it carries weight beyond research. Like he's placing the name in context, fitting it into a larger picture he's been building.
“Six weeks with the medical facilities overrun.” I keep my voice neutral. Facts without feeling. “Three species among the wounded, limited supplies, no evac in sight. You either become a xenobiologist or you watch half your patients die from things you could have prevented if you'd known better.”
“And Kepler IV?”
The monitor controls go still beneath my fingers. Kepler is not a memory I take out to examine unless someone forces me to. The silence that follows his question tells him more than I want to reveal.
“My unit held a position that should have fallen in three days instead of the eleven we held on for. We had wounded we couldn't evacuate and dead we couldn't bury and enemies who kept coming no matter how many we put down. Seventeen of us went in. Four walked out.”
“You walked out.”
“I was too stubborn to die.” The joke falls flat between us, the way it always does. I try again, reaching for something closer to truth. “I had patients who needed me. Giving up wasn't an option as long as someone was still breathing.”
The quiet between us holds a different quality, not uncomfortable. This silence holds space for what I've said, lets the words exist without demanding more or less than I've given.
“You hum.”
I glance up, uncertain where this is going.
“During the surgery.” His gaze remains fixed on Krel's monitors. “You were humming while you worked.”
I hadn't realized. The habit surfaces when my focus narrows, an old reflex from field hospitals where humming kept the silence from becoming unbearable.
“My mother used to...” He stops. The sentence dies unfinished, and his expression closes like a door slamming shut on a room I wasn't meant to glimpse.
He said more than he intended. I recognize the signs. The way his jaw tightens, the way he's studying the monitors instead of looking at me. A male unused to sharing pieces of himself, catching himself mid-fall.
I don't push. Some wounds aren't meant to be examined by strangers.
“Krel has a sister.”
The statement catches me off guard. I search his face for some indication of where this is going.
“She sends him messages every week.” His gaze moves past me to the bed where Krel sleeps. “Asks when he's coming home. Tells him about her classes, her friends, the things she wants to do when she finishes school. He reads them to himself in his down time, over and over again.”
The why of it escapes me. Why he would know this level of detail about one enforcer among dozens, why it would matter to him, the Chief Enforcer of House Draven, what messages a subordinate receives from his family.
“He'll be able to answer her soon. Once he's mobile, he can send whatever messages he wants.”
