It was chaos on the ground. My opening into Earth had shrunk to the size of a chair. They would have to crouch to get through at this rate, and Dawn wouldn’t make it. They’d also have to abandon the trucks. Nox was holding off the breeders with his flamethrower, but I knew that would run out soon.
The breeders were vicious in their attack, and had come around to block the opening, keeping my team from exiting. Seeing Nox with the fire gave me an idea.
‘Dawn needs to breathe fire on breeders. Make them move,’ I told her as I simultaneously tried to hold the opening and talk to Dawn.
Without responding, she dove. I held on, fighting the epic headache threatening to make me pass out. I was entangled with the breeders’ hive mind now; I didn’t know where they ended and I began. I yanked to pull myself out, but they held on to me, causing pain to flare along my entire body.
I was barely aware of Dawn breathing a wide arc of fire onto the breeders who were blocking the portal, or my team scurrying through the opening. Military personnel on Earth were peering into the opening, wide-eyed. I saw a flash of Damien, but they held him back.
It was absolute chaos. Chandler was holding on to a breeder. Kicking and screaming, she pulled her through the opening, and that’s when asnaprang through my ears, or maybe it was my body. It was everywhere. An audible crunch.
Then a trickle of blood ran down my nose and onto my lips. The moment I tasted the salty copper, I passed out.
* * *
When I came to,my first thought was that I was high as fuck, like straight-up floating on a bliss cloud that could only be morphine.
When I peeled my eyes open, I was looking right up at Ronnie’s sweaty face.
“Jesus, Kit!” she screamed, shaking me.
“Ow.” I growled, and then looked at my surroundings a little more closely. We were in a cave.
On Skyhome.
Not on Earth.
Shit.
Craning my head to the side, I saw Dawn lying in the entrance to the cave, her wings bandaged. Maxine was here too. Her hand was… oh God. It was bandaged and still bleeding heavily.
“What… happened?” I sat up slowly as Ronnie started to tear through her med bag.
“When you passed out, it snapped the opening shut. Maxine and I got stuck on the inside. Dawn flew all three of us up here. Tore a dozen tendons in her wings holding that much weight.”
Holy shit. I looked over at Dawn and she gave me a sleepy-eyed look. I think we were both equally high on morphine. Ronnie had not held back with that shit.
“Maxine?”
I looked down at my unconscious friend. Ronnie pulled out a surgical tray and I knew shit was about to get real.
“Lost three fingers. I’m going to try to save the hand. I didn’t know how to wake you. All your vitals pointed to shock, so I gave you morphine in case it was intense pain. I think you might have suffered a mild brain bleed.”
What the hell?
My eyes widened. My best friend was in surgeon mode, just spouting shit without thinking emotionally.
“How can I help?” I scooted forward and pushed the “brain bleed” and “shock” comments to the back of my mind.
“I need you to assist. The swelling is going to take her hand if I can’t get it under control, and I need to work on these bleeds.” Her explanations were ominous but her voice never shook. She wasn’t sweating; she had nerves of steel.
I didn’t assist her often. She’d made all of us take basic training, so I knew what all of her tools were called. But holding clamped-off blood vessels was more of a Brisk thing. That shit made me queasy. Yet for Maxine I would deal. I was also still high.
I crawled over to sit next to Maxine. “How much morphine did you give me?”
“I dosed you, Dawn, and Maxine around the same time. I might have gone a little heavy, but I was short-staffed so—”
“It’s fine,” I assured her. I didn’t mean to make her feel bad, I was just questioning my ability to hold anything right now.
