Distantly familiar voices shouted messages, pleas and warnings, that resonated with old memories.
Need more ammunition.
Men down.
Target sighted.
Air support, where’s the goddamn air support?
Under heavy enemy fire, we need more—
Lance jolted up, his heart pounding and sweat beaded on his skin. A nightmare. Or whatever they were called when the nightmares were a jumbled collection of hellish memories. Either way, not nearly the first time he’d had one. He scrubbed a hand over his face as he gathered his breath. He just needed a moment to push down the raw, agitated feelings those damn nightmares always roused.
Naturally, Claire burst into the room before he could find his metaphorical footing. Didn’t seem he’d gotten enough sleep to skip over her shift. She hustled up to the frenzied machines he hadn’t been paying attention to, silencing the obnoxious sounds and making disturbed noises she probably thought were cute. Then, inevitably, she turned to him. She laid a hand on his shoulder in a soft but not tentative touch. “Did something happen? Are you feeling sick?”
He grunted and dropped back just to jar her hand from his person. “It was a nightmare. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”
Claire blinked at him. “A nightmare.” Her gaze returned to the machines for a lingering second, then back to him. “Lance, your vitals—”
“You ever been to war, Claire?” He met her stare through slanted eyes. “It tends to get your heart pumping. Sets your nerves on fire. Watching men die all around you, dropping like flies, does some pretty fucked up shit to your head. Planting yourself on a rock, or in the weeds, and putting holes in the heads of men you’ve never shared a room with—men you’ve only seen through the scope on your gun—fucks with your head. So, yeah. My vitals may have gone a little haywire for a second. Because I was back there, in the pit, watchingmy brothersdie and not being able to fucking stop it. You think your vitals would be cool, calm, and collected?”
She paled and took a step back as if he were threatening her. “Um, no,” she said on a whisper. “I don’t … I don’t think I could handle that at all.”
Didn’t think so.
She swallowed visibly. “Could I get you some water or something? Is there anything you’d like?”
Lance exhaled. “Yeah, actually. Some water’d be great.” She hurried out without another word, and he reached for his phone. If he’d clocked their schedules right, flirty Claire ought to be clocking off by hour’s end. So at least he’d slept through most of it.
He didn’t know Lynn’s schedule. If she was back on morning duty or if he wouldn’t see her until later. If he’d see her at all. He was going to have to ask Jon to have Jenna get him Lynn’s number. The not knowing, the having no way to know, was way fucking harder than standing in formation two hours too early had ever been.
Jenna’s SUV had a newer radio, and played CDs, but Lynnette had stupidly not thought to prepare so she didn’t have any CDs with her. She wasn’t about to mess with Jen’s radio. So, she left it off, remembering Jenna didn’t default to the same taste of music, and drove to work in a crushing silence.
She was driving her best friend’s SUV, because her dependable pickup needed body work. Most mechanics would have turned up their noses and declared her truck totaled because it had a small bit of frame damage and was ‘outdated.’ But Jon had found her a guy in Klamath, through some former Army guy he’d recently met, who had assured her he could do it. It wouldn’t be done overnight, nor would it be cheap, but the man had convinced her he understood the importance.
Or maybe her bruised, split, still reddened knuckles and blood stained shirt had convinced him not to fuck with her.
She dropped her gaze to the knuckles she’d done her best to clean after getting home. The blood was gone. She’d washed up, cleaned out from beneath her nails, carefully patted the worst splits and scrapes on her hands. She’d even washed out and home-patched the cuts on her body. The one on her side was thin. It really only needed cleaning and a Band-Aid. The one that had bitten into her trapezius muscle between her neck and shoulder was more of a bother. She’d had to stick on a few butterfly stitches for that and cover it with a gauze pad. At least it was far enough from her neck that she could conceal it under her scrubs.
Which she could not do for the bandages she’d applied to her hands. Her hands made her look like some sort of underground fighter. She bit out a laugh. With the way they’d hurt even after a night’s sleep, and how she felt looking at them, shefeltlike an underground fighter. There was no disguising the tape and gauze wrapped around her hands. And the closer she got to the hospital, the higher her nerves spiked.
She knew how her usual superiors would react to the sight of her currently. She could only guess how her temporary nurse manager would react. Assuming she made it past the barricades of the unit nurses and whatever doctor was on the floor.
Lynnette swung Jenna’s SUV into the parking lot as a curse crawled up her throat. With all the insanity of the previous evening, she hadcompletelyforgotten to check her email for that damn video. Her hands flexed over the wheel. Depending on what Bishop had done or said in response, her showing up the way she was might work very much against her.
Her foot pressed a little too hard on the brake as she settled in a space. For several heavy seconds, she debated driving away. Just calling off. She could tell them she’d been in an accident and hurt too much to be effective at her job. But, of course, there would be the pressure ofhas she gotten medical treatment yet?She’d have to procure something. She could lie outright and go with the unprovable standby of being sick. But she was already the temp in the unit and most of the unit didn’t care for her.
Dammit.
Lynnette gave herself a hard shake and threw the SUV into park before killing the engine. She wasn’t going to drive away or lie to her employer. If she walked in, and was sent back out, they couldn’t accuse her of not showing up prepared to do her damn job. Then it would be on them. For whatever difference that was worth.
At least no one paid her much attention as she made her way to her work station, though that wasn’t anything new. She’d brought another change of clothes, because she was scheduled to be off around the dinner hour. She honestly had no idea what she’d do with that. Maybe pop in on her truck.
That would be stupid.
Not any more stupid than returning to the hospital not half an hour after she was off the clock, with food for a patient in hersection. She wasn’t sure how many people had seen her coming or going, but even one put her in jeopardy.
She flexed her hands as she walked toward Amy’s desk, head stubbornly held high. She was not going to spend the entire damn day worrying about her life exploding every time she turned the corner.
