The rickety recon helicopter shook violently, and every shudder sent a fresh wave of pain radiating outward from my abdomen. I was flat on my back on the gurney they'd strapped me to before liftoff, staring up at the rattling ceiling. One of the medical techs had a bag of blood held up over me, the line running down into the crook of my arm. I could feel the cuff tight around my bicep, the pulse oximeter clipped to my finger, the slow cold drip of something else they'd put in the IV that was supposed to keep me calm, but I couldn’t tell if it was working.
My bare, swollen feet extended past the end of the gurney. Through the open side door of the cabin I could see the dark landscape skimming past below us, still buried in shadow. Dawn was beginning to bleed through at the horizon, red and orange, the color of something wounded. I watched it without really seeing it.
I kept thinking about Kiara. The way she moved. The way she fought. Not like a soldier following a doctrine, but like something older and more wild than that, something that had been burning in her long before anyone gave it a name. I knew that feeling. I'd spent years trying to convince myself I was the only one who did.
I thought it was just me.
That was the part I couldn’t let go of. The Jethro infection, the Shard, whatever he called it in my nightmares, I’d carried it like a private damnation for so long that finding it in someone else wasn’t a relief. It was a door opening onto a room I couldn’t face. Where did it come from? How many more of us were out there, walking around with this fire in our blood? The voices spoke of it like something ancient, with its own agenda. If I let it in, would it give me the answers it gave Kiara? The thought was a poison. I knew what that would open me up to… what I’d done. What I might still do.
My eyes drifted over to the tech as he adjusted the blood bag and checked the line without a word. The helicopter shook again. I closed my eyes.
As we banked toward the hanger I turned my head and caught sight of Shiinx through the open door, standing apart from the other medical responders beside a second gurney, her arms crossed tight against her chest. Even from here I could read the worry in the set of her shoulders. The sight of her steadied something in me that the IV couldn't touch. Without her standing there, arms crossed, looking like she's already calculating how badly I've messed myself up, I think I'd lose track of which parts of me are still worth keeping. Without her, I'm not sure how much of myself would be left to come back to. Kiara mentioned something about how she was unsure why I was able to resist Jethro’s call so well. Wasn’t it just because of Shiinx and her keeping me grounded? That’s all that it seemed to be, right? Did Jethro tell her something else?
The helicopter’s skids scraped the deck as it touched down, and instantly the medics were moving me, rolling the gurney out onto the waiting tarmac. My legs buckled as I lay back, every inch of my torso slick with blood that pooled beneath me and dripped onto the cold metal surface. Shiinx barreled forward, her face twisted in fear. I weakly lifted an arm to ward her off, but she fell against me, crushing my abdomen in a fierce embrace. Pain lanced through me as her tears soaked into my fur.
She buried her muzzle in my neck, trembling. “I was so scared, Forza. I thought I’d lost you.”
My heart thundered. I forced myself to steady her, but panic churned beneath my ribs. Everything was wrong, and I was barely holding on.
Gently, Shiinx eased back and covered my hand, still clutching my abdominal wounds, with her own. “How bad is it? Let me see.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I can’t,” I rasped. She nodded.
One medic pressed down on a strap. The other checked my vitals. “Sir, we need to get you moving,” the first said.
I tried to groan but only a wet rasp came out. They secured my arms and legs, then lifted the gurney’s handles.
As they rolled me toward the ramp, Shiinx fell into step at my side. Her eyes never left my face. “Forza, what happened out there?” she pressed.
I blinked against the blur of lights. My other hand went to my forehead, slick with sweat and blood. “We were ambushed by…” My throat tightened.
“Did the Sun Jin find you?”
“No. It was,” I paused. “A Templar woman.”
Shiinx froze. “A woman? From the crash?”