Angel sets the bird down on a tarmac marked with a large red cross. The moment the skids settle, the side doors slide open.
"Let's move."
Kade unbuckles his harness, sways when he stands, and waves off Flint's offered arm. He walks to the door under his own power.
I scramble out after him, my legs tangling in the foil blanket. Kade catches me with his good arm, steadying me on the tarmac.
"I got you." Rough with pain, steady.
"I should be holding you up."
"Not today."
We move toward the building, flanked by the team. Flint on my left, massive and reassuring. Frost on my right, still scanning the perimeter like we haven't left the mountain. Behind us, Hawk moves with the unhurried ease of a predator who is never off-duty.
The group waiting by the medical bay doors stops me short.
A woman in scrubs storms out to meet us. Brown hair in a messy bun, hands on her hips, looking less like a doctor and more like a furious older sister catching her brothers breaking curfew.
"I swear," she shouts over the dying rotors, "if you boys ruin my weekend one more time, I'm going to charge by the stitch."
Frost steps off the skid, unmoved. "It's technically still Friday, Doc."
"Don't you start with me, Harrison." She points a finger at his chest. "Or I'm using the dull needles on you next time." The glare swings to Kade, and the anger evaporates into weary, exasperated affection. "And look at you. You look like something my cat dragged in. And my cat drags in dead things."
"Good to see you too, Doc Summers." Kade grins through the pain.
"What's the damage this time?" She moves into his space, checking his pupils with practiced speed. "And if you say'it's fine,' I will sedate you right here on the asphalt."
"Arm's a mess," Flint rumbles helpfully. "Leg's carved up, too."
Skye throws her hands up. "The leg? Again? Bishop, I just fixed that leg after the Rio job. Do you have any idea how hard it is to reconstruct a hamstring?"
"I was trying to save you the trouble." Kade wheezes. "But the bad guy insisted."
"I hate you. I hate all of you." She's already tucking herself under his good side, taking his weight from me. "You're all trying to give me gray hair before I'm forty."
"You love us." Hawk smirks from the back, slinging his rifle case over his shoulder.
"I tolerate you because the insurance checks clear," she shoots back without pausing. "And because someone has to make sure you idiots don't bleed out on my nice clean tarmac. Now move it. Trauma One is prepped. Bishop, you're mine. Calloway—" Her expression softens. "I want you in Triage for a full workup."
"I'm okay."
"Honey, you're covered in mud and holding up a two-hundred-pound operator." Deadpan. "You're getting a workup. I run a dictatorship here, not a democracy."
Frost leans down and murmurs in my ear. "Doc Summers runs the show. Don't let the size fool you—she's terrifying."
"I heard that, Harrison."
Before we can move, a blur of motion cuts across the tarmac. A woman with a pixie cut dyed a shimmering rainbow of colors vibrates into the circle. T-shirt reading I READ YOUR EMAILS. Tablet in hand.
"Is this her?" She bounces on her toes, eyes wide and lit up. "Are you Wren? Did you write the mirroring script?"
"I... yes?"
"Oh my God, it's beautiful!" She looks like she wants to hug me. "I'm Mitzy. I run Tech. The way you piggybacked their own authentication token? Chef's kiss! You have to come and see the lab. I have so many questions. We could use someone who thinks like you?—"
"Mitzy!" Doc Summers steps between us. "Let me patch up the bleeders before you snatch the goods, okay?"
