Passion - By Lauren Kate Page 0,19

shell shook the ground, and Luce couldn't hold back the scream that escaped her lips.

She glanced apologetically at the soldier, took a deep breath, and hopped up.

When she was seated on the tiny stool, he handed up the jug of water and the box of gauze and bandages. He started to shut the door.

Wait, Luce whispered. What do I do?

The man paused. You know how long the ride to Milan is. Dress their wounds and keep them comfortable. Do the best you can.

The door slammed with Luce on it. She had to grip the stool to keep from falling off and landing on the soldier at her feet. The ambulance was stifling hot. It smelled terrible. The only light came from a small lantern hanging from a nail in the corner. The only window was directly behind her head on the inside of the door. She didn't know what had happened to Giovanni, the boy with the bullet in his stomach. Whether she'd ever see him again. Whether he'd live through the night.

The engine started up. The ambulance shifted into gear and lurched forward. The soldier on one of the top slings began to moan.

After they'd reached a steady speed, Luce heard the pattering sound of a leak. Something was dripping. She leaned forward on the stool, squinting in the dim lantern light.

It was the blood of the soldier on the top bunk dripping through the woven sling onto the soldier in the middle bunk. The middle soldier's eyes were open. He was watching the blood fall on his chest, but he was injured so badly that he couldn't move away. He didn't make a sound. Not until the trickle of blood turned into a stream.

Luce whimpered along with the soldier. She started to rise from her stool, but there was no place for her to stand unless she straddled the soldier on the floor. Carefully, she wedged her feet around his chest. As the ambulance shuddered along the bumpy dirt road, she gripped the taut canvas of the top sling and held a fistful of gauze against its bottom. The blood soaked through onto her fingers within seconds.

Help! she called to the ambulance driver. She didn't know if he'd even be able to hear her.

What is it? The driver had a thick regional accent.

This man back here--he's hemorrhaging. I think he's dying.

We're all dying, gorgeous, the driver said. Really, he was flirting with her now? A second later, he turned around, glancing at her through the opening behind the driver's seat. Look, I'm sorry. But there's nothing to do. I've gotta get the rest of these guys to the hospital.

He was right. It was already too late. When Luce took her hand away from under the stretcher, the blood began to gush again. So heavily it didn't seem possible.

Luce had no words of comfort for the boy in the middle sling, whose eyes were wide and petrified and whose lips whispered a furious Ave Maria. The stream of the other boy's blood dripped down his sides, pooling in the space where his hips met the sling.

Luce wanted to close her eyes and disappear. She wanted to sift through the shadows cast by the lantern, to find an Announcer that would take her somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Like the beach on the rocks below Shoreline's campus. Where Daniel had taken her dancing on the ocean, under the stars. Or the pristine swimming hole she'd glimpsed the two of them ping into, when she'd worn the yellow bathing suit. She would have taken Sword & Cross over this ambulance, even the roughest moments, like the night she'd gone to meet Cam at that bar. Like when she'd kissed him. She would even have taken Moscow. This was worse. She'd never faced anything like this before.

Except--

Of course she had. She must already have lived through something almost exactly like this. It was why she'd ended up here. Somewhere in this war-torn world was the girl who died and came back to life and went on to become her. She was certain of it. She must have dressed wounds and carried water and suppressed the urge to vomit. It gave Luce strength to think about the girl who'd lived through this before.

The stream of blood began to trickle, then became a very slow drip. The boy beneath had fainted, so Luce watched silently by herself for a long time. Until the dripping stopped completely.

Then she reached for a towel and the water and began