Like hell he was.
It was instinct. God forgive me, it was.
My hands came up, swiveling to grip his wrists from beneath and shove pressure onto them. His grip eased enough with a grunt of pain, and blindly, I thrust my face forward, my forehead meeting the bridge of his nose. He cried out, but I didn’t stop as he reeled back, using my legs and my hip to roll him onto his side, curling my legs up between us and thrusting, jettisoning him away from me with a startled cry from him.
Even with him away from me, I curled up on the bed and shoved back, crouching as he hit the ground and sprang up with a swiftness that would have startled anyone who saw him as a crippled, broken man. Except he wasn’t; no leg or not, he was a soldier, one forged by war and battle in a way that thankfully too few people understood. He was up, ready to launch at the threat that had hurt him, by the time I recovered. I knew already that a proper fight between us would be one-sided; I wasn’t small or weak, or less trained, but he was bigger, stronger, and he wasn’t in his right mind, unlike me.
I had one choice.
“Cade,” I barked at him. When that did nothing, I realized and said, “Sergeant Wilcom, you will cease and desist! Atten-hut!”
It took every inch of my being, drawing on an authority I had never possessed, and yet?—
He stiffened, and I recognized he had frozen reaching for a knife that was no longer on his person. His eyes, which had been so perfect in their distant gaze, were now clouded in confusion as he went rigid.
“Cade,” I said again, gentler now that I had his attention. “Cade, please, baby, it’s me.”
More confusion. “Baby? I…Walker?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to be too energetic or forceful, but damned if I wasn’t at least going to try. “Where are you?”
“I…where am I?”
“Look around, tell me.”
He did, his eyes wide and his brow low as he looked around. “Arete. It’s…it’s Arete.”
“Yessir,” I said quickly, still not moving.
“You’re…okay?”
“I am.”
“Our team?—”
“Oh…oh, Cade, I?—”
“They’re gone,” he said, and the cloudiness in his eyes disappeared. “They’ve been gone. Long gone. They ain’t?—”
“Cade,” I said cautiously as the aggression in his body disappeared.
“Gone,” he whispered, slumping to the floor.
“Cade,” I groaned as I approached him, knowing it was safe as I put an arm around his shoulders. “Cade, c’mon.”
“Alone,” he said, and it was the dazed way he spoke that alarmed me. “We’re alone, aren’t we? Alone and I just…oh God, I’m so?—”
“No, don’t,” I began, and I remembered how he had described how he’d been before I’d come along. How he got ‘confused’ and others had to help drag him out. Except I wasn’t any of those people; I wasn’t?—
“Phone,” I said, gritting my teeth and searching until I found his phone in a drawer. “What’s your…never mind, give me your hand.”
“No, don’t,” he grumbled as I pressed his thumb to the screen. Only to remember that people set up that sort of protection in a certain way and had to change the phone around so I could get his thumb to it and scroll.
“Cade, what’s wrong?” came a sleepy voice I didn’t recognize.
“Isaac,” I barked into the phone. “You might not know who I am, but?—”
“Walker?” said the same voice, sharper and more attentive, worried. “Is it Cade?”
