The squad needed her fire, her relentless spirit.
He wasn’t sure he’d succeeded—Zaira lived, but that fire of the soul had gone into deep hibernation. The disobedient, wild, dangerous girl he’d met had become the perfect Arrow . . . who continued to argue with his decisions fifty percent of the time and who’d once shot him in order to make a point about a threat assessment.
What were you saying about the angle being impossible?
It had been a measured, glancing hit to his upper right arm that had barely taken off a layer of skin, but the memory gave him hope that the fire wasn’t hidden so deep that there was no hope of its return.
Because it wasn’t just the squad that needed it. Aden needed it most of all.
He’d been trying to provoke her since the fall of Silence in an effort to reawaken that part of her nature. Now he might be the one to end it all, to forever stifle the flame. “The risk of death is significant.”
“I’m dying anyway,” she said as rain hit his back, the canopy above not enough to totally shield them, though he angled his body to give Zaira as much protection as possible. “I’d rather go honestly, trying to fight this thing, than have my brain explode because I did nothing.” A shuddering breath. “You’d make the same choice.”
It was still the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
Holding the penlight clamped between his teeth again, he used the laser at the lowest possible setting to burn the “legs” off the implant. When the tiny metallic square didn’t fall away after all the legs were gone, he used the tip of the scalpel to lift it off. It stuck for a stubborn second and he held his breath at what could be a sign of further connections beneath, but then it was falling into his hand.
And Zaira was bleeding again.
Dropping the implant in the medkit, he said, “Disinfectant.” It was the only warning he could give her before he washed the blood out with the burning liquid—the brain might not technically feel pain, but the skin and muscle at the incision site would. He would’ve never done this had he been in an infirmary, but out here, the risk of a fatal infection through the open wound was too high.
He had to take the chance the disinfectant wouldn’t do further damage.
Her spine went stiff before her body slumped. Catching her, he leaned her against the chestnut tree on her side and, repairing the membrane, lasered the piece of bone back into her skull, hoping to hell he hadn’t done permanent harm. The wound finally closed, if raggedly so, he put a small bandage over it, then got rid of the blood-soaked bandage below her neck by placing it, his gloves, and any other detritus in a small disposal bag and putting that in an unused pocket of the daypack.
If their pursuers brought in tracking dogs, he wouldn’t leave such a rich blood supply for them to scent. At least he and Zaira had the rain on their side—it would wipe away any tracks, wash away scents. The rising wind might also ground the chopper, which would take any heat-sensing technology out of the running; even if the chopper stayed up, the presence of bears in the area would bring up false hits their pursuers would have to investigate.
He didn’t immediately have to move Zaira.
Decision made, he slid the implant into a small plas bag that had held pain relief pills before he emptied the pills into the medkit. He placed the bag in the bottom of the medkit to protect it from the elements, weighing the bag down with the burned-out laser and putting all the remaining supplies on top before he shut the kit. That done, he used fallen leaves to line the floor of another small hide under the thickest part of the canopy and carried Zaira’s unconscious body to lie on it, building a tent around her using low-hanging branches he snapped off from the trees around them. It would make them invisible from the air and provide protection from the elements.
By the time he finished, the rain was hard pellets whipped into a harsh slant by the wind, but the canopy was holding off most of it. He checked the hide, gathered three more heavily leafed branches to cover the spots where water might get in, then slid inside himself. He’d stay awake, maintain a watch, but he needed to be close to Zaira.
Her breathing was too faint, her pulse sluggish.
No.
Turning her over carefully onto her back, he unzipped her jackets, pushed up her sweater, and found her Arrow uniform once more sticky with blood. When he peeled it up and examined the bullet wound, he saw it was bleeding steadily. Grabbing the last disposable laser, he gripped the penlight again and sealed multiple torn veins. By the time the laser flickered, she wasn’t leaking fresh blood.
He had to fight himself not to try to use his M ability to reach the internal wounds he couldn’t see. Given the viciousness of the pain feedback to any attempt at using psychic abilities, she could wake to find him burned out, unconscious. And much as Zaira liked to tell him to leave her behind, he knew damn well she’d never leave him behind. She saw him as critical to the survival of the squad—he’d never been able to make her understand that she was as important. So if he went down, she’d stay, guard his back. Die.
That fact and all the others weighed against testing the padlock on his ability.
That didn’t mean it was an easy decision.
Bandaging the wound, he found another one of the small, nutrient-rich drinks in the medkit and, lifting up her head, coaxed it down her throat, drop by tiny drop. Afterward, he placed her head on his thigh and kept his finger on the pulse in her neck, under the hood he’d tugged up over her head so she wouldn’t lose heat through her skull. The fact that the top of her head was tucked up against his abdomen should also help her maintain her body temperature.
“Stay with me,” he said as her pulse refused to grow stronger.
Zaira had survived a childhood so hellish, she should be insane or broken or a monster. Instead, she was one of the strongest Arrows he knew; she’d protected their most wounded, most broken for over five years. That many long years she’d stayed dead to the world, stayed in a tiny network that he knew must’ve felt like a prison to a woman who’d grown up in a barren locked room.
And still she’d gone because he’d asked her.
He would not allow her to die now, when, for the first time, she had a chance at a real life. This desolate landscape would not claim her fire. It had no right. “You will stay,” he ordered, his lips against her ear. “You promised me.” That promise had been made nearly twenty-one years ago, but he’d never forgotten, never would forget.
Even after months of sufficient food and daily outdoor exercise, she’d still been so skinny and small and with such anger inside her. Barely four feet tall back then, at least a foot shorter than him, and yet she’d said, “I won’t run anymore. I won’t try to leave. I’ve decided to stay and protect you.”
“Why?”