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“Saturday,” I say into the mask. “June twenty-eighth. I’m Tara Iverson. My dog’s name is Billy Bob. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, but you’re improving,” Odette says. “Keep the mask on.” She looks at Tav. “I’ve already called it in. There’s an ambulance two minutes out. She’s going to Good Samaritan, and they’re going to look at her blood and her lungs properly, because I can’t do that on a loading dock.”

“It’s six o’clock,” I say into the mask. “The doors open at nine. If I’m not on the premises at nine...”

“Then you’d better be a good patient,” Odette says. “It’s ten minutes away. If they clear you, you’ll be back in time. If they don’t, you stay, and the four of them can deal with the paperwork.” She doesn’t look like she’s joking. “You’re going.”

“Yes,” Tav says, before I can argue.

She goes to check on Grady, who came out of the mechanical room behind Tav and was standing in the corridor when the door came down and the fog rolled out over him. He’s sitting against the wall of the dock, gray-faced, coughing into his sleeve, his hands black with grease.

We sit there, waiting for the ambulance. Long enough for my hands to stop shaking.

Tav’s don’t.

He’s still holding me. He hasn’t said anything since Good. Again. His ears are pinned flat. His nostrils flare every time he breathes. Pell comes over and hands him a bottle of water for me, and he tries to unscrew the cap, and can’t. His fingers keep slipping on it. He tries again and it still won’t turn.

I take it from him. I unscrew it. I hand it back.

He looks at me then.

“I told you to stand there,” he says.

His voice is so low I can barely hear it.

“By the bed. I told you that was the safe place. I walked that room an hour before you came down. I put my hands on every cable I could reach. I thought I’d put my hand on that cable.” His ears flatten further. “And I told you to stand right where it would go.”

“Tav.”

“I heard it go. I was twelve feet away with a wall in between. I knew where you were standing because I put you there.” He swallows. “I got to the door, and the door wouldn’t open. And I could hear the suppression going, and I knew what that does in a room that size, and the door wouldn’t open.” His hands are shaking so hard now that water’s sloshing out of the bottle onto his knee. “I hit it once and it didn’t open. And I’ve never hit anything once in my life that didn’t open.”

I take the mask off my face.

“Odette’s going to kill you,” Tav says.

“I’ll put it back in a second.” I reach up. I put my hand on his face, on the short fur along his jaw, and then I slide it up to the base of his horn and hold on. He makes that low sound again and closes his eyes.

“I was lying on the floor,” I say. “Right by the door. And I heard you coming. The first hit. I knew it was you.”

“It took four,” he says, with his eyes closed. “It took four, Boss.”

“Well, it was a really good door.”

He laughs, but his hands are still shaking. Then he puts his forehead down against mine, careful of his horns, and stays there.

I kiss him. I don’t care that I taste like whatever that fog was, or that my lips are dry, or that Odette is going to yell at both of us. I kiss him slow, and he kisses me back carefully, and I can feel his breath shaking against my mouth.

When I pull back, I put the mask back on. He holds it there for me with one big finger.

“Later,” I say through the plastic.

Merek gets there first. He comes through the dock door at a dead run, with his lines blazing white up both arms and his throat and his face, so hot that Pell steps back from him. He drops to his knees on the concrete in front of us.

“I’m okay,” I say into the mask, before he can say anything.

He puts both hands on my knees. They’re burning hot, and they’re shaking too. He doesn’t say anything at all. He just looks at me, and then at Tav, and then he puts his forehead against my knee for a second and breathes.

Lenart comes after him, walking, his suit perfect, and he stops on the edge of the dock and looks at me, and he stops breathing. Then he crouches beside Tav and puts two cool fingers against the inside of my wrist, over my pulse, and holds them there.