Someone laughs, short, sharp, and relieved.It breaks the tension just enough to keep the panic from spreading.
Inside the infirmary, everything smells like antiseptic and old metal.Steel is there before we are, gloves already on, eyes sharp.I help guide Ghost onto the table, controlling the descent, keeping pressure where it needs to be.
My hands don’t shake.That’s the lie my body tells.But inside, something cold wraps around my spine and squeezes.Terrified isn’t loud.It doesn’t scream.It whispers in precise detail...What if the bleeding’s worse than it looks?What if this is the moment everything tips?What if Savage walks in and it’s too late?
I push it down.I don’t get to feel that right now.
“Knife wound?”Steel asks.
“Shrapnel,” Saint replies.“Secondary blast.He shielded a prospect.”
Ghost snorts weakly.“The kid fucking panicked.”
“The kid fucking lived,” I say.“Because you did your job.”
I meet his eyes and hold them.Keep him anchored.People bleed out when they let go, and not just physically.Mentally.Shock is patient.It waits.I don’t.
“Pressure,” I tell Steel, already handing him gauze.“Here and here.He’s guarding his left side.”
Steel nods and moves.We work in tandem without stepping on each other, a choreography no one taught me, but my body knows anyway.Savage hasn’t come in yet and I don’t look for him.I don’t need to.
I can feel the absence like static before a storm.
Ghost groans as Steel probes deeper.I keep talking, nonsense, instructions, anything that keeps his eyes on me instead of the ceiling.
“You’re going to hate this part,” I warn him.
He grimaces.“Story of my life.”
“Breathe,” I say.“In through your nose.Out through your mouth.If you pass out, I’ll be offended.”
That gets me a real laugh this time.The bleeding slows and the color comes back to his face in uneven patches.Steel gives me a look—not relief, not yet—but possibility.
And for now that’s enough.Only then do I feel it.The delayed impact.
My hands are still steady, but my chest tightens like I’ve been running without noticing.My vision sharpens too much at the edges.Every sound lands louder than it should.
Savage steps into the room but I don’t turn.I know he’s there by the way the space shifts, men straightening without thinking, the quiet recalibrating around him.He doesn’t speak.Doesn’t interfere.Just watches.
Good.If he tried to take over, I might lose my grip on the last bit of control I have left.
Steel finishes the initial stabilization and steps back.“He needs imaging.But he’s going to live.”
The room exhales.I don’t.Because the fear doesn’t vanish when the danger passes.It waits.
Ghost is moved.Orders go out.Men file away, adrenaline bleeding off in controlled bursts.The infirmary empties until it’s just me, Savage, and the echo of what almost happened.
My hands finally start to shake just like the rest of me is doing inside.I step back, bracing my palms against the counter, breathing through my nose like I told Ghost to do.My reflection in the metal cabinet looks calm.Capable.Unmoved.
It’s a good mask.
Savage comes up behind me, not touching yet, not crowding.Just close enough that I can feel his heat.
“You did good,” he says quietly.
I nod.If I speak, the terror might slip out with the words.I was steady when it mattered.I held the line.I didn’t fall apart.But now that the men are gone and the blood is cleaned and the danger has a name instead of a shadow?
Now I’m shaking with the knowledge of how close it came.And how easily it could happen again.Savage doesn’t tell me to calm down.He doesn’t tell me it’s over.
