Page 73 of Duty Preserved

I was scared for her. I was watching her come apart, and I didn’t have a single useful thing to do about it.

“There was so much blood.” Her voice was distant. “I couldn’t—I kept packing it and it kept coming. There was so much of it.”

“I know.”

“Her face. Donovan, her face.”

“I know.”

She wasn’t telling me what happened. She wasn’t making an argument or giving a report. She was just relating pieces of the memory out loud. Her brain was trying to process it, but it was going to come at her sporadically and potentially out of order.

“Should I have gone with her?” She looked at me. Her eyes were glassy and wide. “Should I be on that plane right now?”

“No. The plane is for the medical crew and the patients. If you had gone on it, you would have been just as lost there as you feel right now. Besides, Alyson would probably want at least one competent vet still here on the ground.”

She stared at me. Searching for the lie in it. She knew I hadn’t given her one, though.

“We’ll call the hospital as soon as they land,” I said. “We’ll get an update. Cole is going too, he can keep us updated.”

That was the thing I could give her. Information updates and where the next step was supposed to be.

“Let’s go,” I said.

I got her moving. That was the first task. Off the airstrip and across the compound toward her cabin. She walked beside me, and I kept my hand on her back, guiding without pushing. Her legs worked, but the rest of her had checked out.

I got her inside. The cabin was about as dim as everyone’s current mood. I sat her on the edge of the bed and crouched down in front of her.

“Arms up,” I said.

She looked at me.

“I need you to raise your arms so I can get this off you.”

She lifted them. I pulled the ruined shirt over her head and set it on the floor. Her tank top underneath was less saturated but still covered with blood. She pulled it off herself with slow, mechanical movements.

“Shower,” I said. “Hot water.”

I walked her to the bathroom and turned on the water, made sure it was warm. While it heated up, I crouched down again and unlaced her boots, pulling them off with her socks one at a time. Her pants were coated, more red than tan, also stiff with drying blood. She undid them, and I helped her step out of them and her panties together. Then I found a plastic bag under the sink and put everything in it. The shirts, the pants, underwear, the boots. I’d deal with them later.

“Okay. Go ahead.”

She stepped in and stood under the stream with her arms wrapped around herself.

The water ran red at her feet. She didn’t look down.

“Almost done,” I said. I found a washcloth on the rack and stepped in close enough that the water hit my arms. I worked the cloth across her shoulders, her arms, the places she couldn’t see. Then I took her hands one at a time and scrubbed her fingers, between them, under the nails, getting the dried blood out of every crease so she wouldn’t have to look down and do it herself.

The water finally ran clear. I stayed close, one hand on her arm, filling the space with my voice because she shouldn’t be alone in there with what was running off her skin. I helped her out. Found a clean towel and dried her off. She changed into a dry shirt and shorts.

“Come on,” I said as I tried to guide her to the bed. “Lie down.”

She shook her head. Stepped away.

“Try for me. Ten minutes.”

“I can’t.” She was standing in the middle of her cabin, her arms crossed tight over her chest. “I can’t lie still right now.”

I didn’t force it. “Okay. Come with me.”