“He’s injured,” Hallie said, voice muffled behind the mask.
“We know. It’s alright. Modron knows what she’s doing.”
As Hallie watched, one of the tactical team members set a medical kit bag down next to Girard and then covered his mouth and nose with a mask that looked identical to the one Hallie was using. All the same, Hallie didn’t relax until she saw that Girard’s chest was rising and falling as he breathed. Relief brought more stupid tears to her eyes. He was alive. With Girard breathing, the other woman - Modron - took the medical bag and headed over to the van and the too-still body of her team mate. From the way she reacted when she got there, Hallie thought that the man was still alive. Modron carefully lowered him to the ground and began running her hands over his body. Looking for injures. Hallie’s eyes stung again, relief coursing through her that there wasn’t another dead body to add to Kasmo and Oreste.
She looked over at the body of the attacker. There were two members of Frollo’s team there. They’d stripped off the man’s head covering, and from the way he was lying, Hallie could tell he was dead. She wasn’t sure she could feel sorry for that. Not after he’d tried to kill them all.
“Attacker,” Hallie said, and had to cough again. Breathing was getting easier, but apparently she couldn’t talk properly yet.
“We got him. Dead, unfortunately, but he’s not a threat.”
“Another one,” Hallie said, her voice harsh and rasping.
“Where? Did you see?” Dechtire asked, her head snapping around as she scanned the area.
“No. But two were missing. One down.”
“So there’s one left. Frollo, you got that?” Dechtire asked.
“One hostile still on the loose. Copy that. Everyone stay alert.” Frollo’s voice was somewhere nearby. Hallie twisted her head around to find him standing not far away, towards the corner of the house, weapon held ready. He was on high alert. He mightbe a terrible driver and a daredevil, but he was focused where it mattered.
Even as Hallie’s body relaxed a fraction, knowing that everyone around her was far more qualified than she was to keep watch, another flicker of movement snapped her attention round. Another object was hurtling through the air, heading for the house. It snapped through the open doorway and then the world exploded.
Hallie came back to herself in bits and pieces. Every part of her hurt, inside and out, and there was something over her nose and mouth. She tried to lift her hand to brush it away, felt something slide off her arm and heard it clatter on the ground. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, and saw a chunk of wall plaster on the ground beside her. Blinked again and realised that she was covered in bits and pieces of mud bricks and more wall plaster. Turned her head and saw that the wall she’d been resting against was partly gone, the jagged edge of it rising just above her head, clear sky visible beyond where there should have been more wall and a cheap metal roof.
She tried to get up and couldn’t move, then shifted some of the broken bricks and plaster off, tried again as more dust and smoke rose around her, stinging her eyes yet again, raising more tears. Moving anything - from her head to her toes - hurt. The pain she’d been aware of sitting on the ground doubled and tripled as she wavered to her feet. The thing over her face slipped and she caught it just in time, tucking the oxygen cylinder in by her side and pressing the mask over her nose and mouth again. The clean air helped. She didn’t have the urge to cough, which was something. She wanted to wipe her face, clear her eyes, butevery part of her was covered in dust and plaster and the once-clean cloth she’d used before had fallen to the ground.
She couldn’t see anyone nearby. Not Dechtire, not Girard, not Frollo. She hoped that meant they were safely in one piece somewhere close by.
She took a couple of staggering, uneven steps away from the now-ruined house, and checked her progress when she saw that the van was still there. It was half-covered with a large, rusting sheet of corrugated metal that might once have been part of the roof. What she could see of the van was damaged - windows fractured, and at least one tyre completely flat - but it was still upright. There were two figures lying on the ground beside the open door, just beside where the metal sheet had landed. The team member who’d already been unconscious and Modron. Hallie wobbled her way over to them and dropped to her knees by their heads, reaching out to touch Modron’s arm.
The woman started, and lifted her head. With her face covered, Hallie couldn’t see her expression, but she imagined that the woman blinked. Then Modron struggled into a kneeling position, facing Hallie, and shook her head, pulling her face mask off to show pale skin streaked with tears from her bloodshot brown eyes.
“Are you alright?” Modron asked.
“I think so. You?” Hallie asked, taking the mask off her face to speak and discovering that she could breathe more or less comfortably without it.
“Bruised but in one piece.”
“Is he still alive?” Hallie asked, pointing to the unconscious man.
“Yes. Got shot with a tranquilliser. He should be fine. I shielded him from the blast.” Modron grimaced and rolled her shoulder as if it hurt.
“Tranquilliser?” Hallie repeated, shaking her head as she wondered if she’d imagined it.
“Yes. Dart into his neck. Here.” Modron pointed and Hallie saw the small red mark on the man’s pale skin just between his helmet and the collar of his combat gear.
“That looks like a close-range thing,” Hallie said, then shook her head again. “Later. What happened to the others?”
“What do you mean?” Modron asked, frowning.
“Frollo, Dechtire, Girard. The others. I can’t see anyone apart from us.”
“Oh.” Modron looked around, blinking as if she was having difficulty focusing, and then reached for the radio clipped to her shoulder. “Frollo, this is Modron. Come back.”
The hiss of static was her only answer.
“May be out of range,” Modron said, and made some kind of adjustment to the device, then tried again.
