Chapter 2 #2
“I’d like two morning bells, Commander Hayes,” I said, closing his file.
“One: I don’t need my health score to drop. Two: I prefer Tristian. Should I call you Death’s Angel?”
“I prefer Sasha.”
“Do you have a last name, Sasha?”
My family’s faces swam before my eyes. I shook them away. They weren’t here; my family name didn’t matter anymore. “It’s just Sasha.”
His green eyes locked with mine. I didn’t know what he saw as he said, “Maybe you are frightening, Sasha.”
I had spent the rest of the day being pestered by Tristian and his endless questions, filled with an optimism I thought the war had destroyed.
He was completely undeterred by my reputation; maybe that was why I lingered.
Maybe it was the life that radiated from him.
Or maybe it was the way his eyes lit up when he smiled.
I stayed long past when I should have left.
He asked my age, about the Hospital Ward, my medical knowledge, then turned to mundane questions about my favorite food and activities before the war.
He told me he chose the Force because he had enlisted during the war.
He’d been told he was good at fighting and leading.
He must be in order to be a commander already.
He loved something called chicken-fried steak with potatoes and gravy.
I had asked what that was and instantly regretted it as he went into a long-winded explanation.
Then he asked, “Is any of your family still here?”
Everything ground to a stop. My insides seized up as walls slammed down. “I…have to go get more stuff,” I said lamely, ducking past the isolation curtain.
I avoided his area for several bells. Eventually, another white apron found me, saying my patient needed me. I returned to his bedside and found him sitting up in bed, his curls messy, like he might have slept. Good, he needed it.
“Death avoiding me would normally be a good thing,” Tristian commented with a smile. “But I’d like to be bothered right now.”
“You should be resting.”
“I don’t rest.” He shifted over on his bed, as if he was giving me room to sit.
“You should.” I took his temperature, leaning into the space he had created for me.
“Do you like to rest?” he asked.
No, but I couldn’t say it. To rest was to let the events of the war catch me. To see my family’s faces. I spent most nights by patients’ bedsides.
“Is that a no?” he asked, observing me.
I stepped away. “My shift is ending, Commander Hayes.”
“Tristian.”
“I will see you tomorrow,” I said firmly. “Stay alive. Good night.”
It wasn’t until I returned the following day, prepared to be bombarded with more questions, to find an empty bed, the sheets neatly folded, that I realized I had been looking forward to being bothered by him.
I stared at the bed for several long minutes, then carried on, convincing myself I was thankful for his absence, until that tiny bubble of something long forgotten ruptured.
I fell back into a routine and the safety of aloneness.
Each bell closed off that part of me that he had helped reignite.
I had lost count of the passing moons before he reappeared.
“I’ll only see Death,” I heard him saying to the front desk worker. “She and I are friends.”
I rounded the corner, my arms filled with supplies, and came face-to-face with a fully healthy Tristian Hayes.
He towered over me, his strength restored.
His hair was pulled back, exposing his devastatingly handsome face that shone with a fierceness I had only glimpsed when caring for him.
He had an untamed wildness, too free to be stifled underground.
His forest-green eyes found mine, and his white teeth flashed in a smile. “Hey, Death, remember me?”
I was certain I’d never be able to forget him. I swallowed, nodding my hello.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Tristian said before leading me to a bed in the back of the Ward, where a Force member, a Black man, sat clutching his left leg, face pinched in pain. His pant leg was a deep burgundy.
“Can you help him?” Tristian asked after I had removed the man’s pants to reveal a nasty gash on his left quad.
I cleaned the man’s wound. “Stitches aren’t really my forte. I’m just an assistant. I think one of the actual doctors would be best for this. I’ll likely leave a scar.”
“I don’t care about the scar. Just do what you did for Hayes’s score,” the man gritted out, steel determination etched across his tense jaw.
Shock shot through me. I hadn’t realized he would notice that I lied on his forms, cutting his time spent here in half, saying I gave him bed rest orders instead.
I had made the marks against his health score as insignificant as possible.
It was dishonest, and a complete abuse of the system, but the fear of a dropping health score usually caused people to avoid the Ward until it was too late.
I knew the consequences of waiting. So, occasionally, I would lie.
No one had noticed before, or if they did, no one had bothered to say anything.
“Yeah, I noticed that, Death.” Tristian smirked, his eyes flashing. My breath stilled. He was radiant fully healed.
“Have you told anyone else?” I whispered.
“Only those I can trust. Levi’s a steel trap,” Tristian told me. They both had that matted look to them like they had just descended from above. “Can you help?”
“I can’t numb it,” I said. “I’d have to get permission for those medications.”
“Don’t care. Just patch me up,” Levi said determinedly.
“It’ll hurt.”
Levi smirked at the challenge. “Try me.”
So I did. Twenty minutes later, Levi’s thigh was properly stitched; to my disbelief, it looked better than I thought it would.
Perhaps it was not the cleanest closure, but it lined up, and the stitches were uniform.
To Levi’s credit, he remained quiet. He joked through gritted teeth until Tristian laughed, his fingers slowly turning white as Levi squeezed desperately.
I saw them out and marked no significant injury to Levi’s form.
I deposited the documents and carried on.
Several weeks passed. No one questioned me, and I assumed the sutures had healed since I hadn’t heard from Levi or Tristian.
I was walking toward the cafeteria during a lockdown to be first in line when quick footsteps caught my attention.
As they got too close, I grabbed my knife from my left side and whirled toward the sound.
Tristian raised his hands, looking between the knife and me. “Fuck, Death, what’s with the knife?”
“What’s with running up on a woman in an empty tunnel, Commander?”
“I was coming to thank you. I saw Levi’s file.” He zeroed in on my pistol, also concealed on my other side. “How many weapons do you have on you?”
“Enough to eliminate whatever threat presents itself,” I said, sheathing my knife and pushing past him.
“Why aren’t you in the Force?” Tristian asked, keeping up with me.
“I believe you said you’re here to thank me,” I stated, brushing aside his question.
“I am, thank you. Levi’s leg looks great.”
“Great,” I responded, continuing toward the cafeteria. Tristian kept up with me. I could feel his eyes on me. “Looking for something, Commander Hayes?”
“Tristian,” he corrected, a smile playing across his lips.
I stared at him, my spine steeled. Tristian’s eyes swept over me with a meddling glint.
“Do you need something?” I asked, irritated. So much for being the first in line.
“My unit has an assignment”—he looked around, but no one gave us a second glance—“a rather strenuous mission in unknown territory. It would be helpful if, when one of my soldiers got injured, they didn’t fight medical care. If they knew they could be seen without it hurting their score.”
“You’re asking for me to break the rules?”
“Aren’t you breaking them already?” he challenged, his brows raised as he smiled fully. He was gorgeous.
“That’s different.” I made to leave.
“Wait, don’t go. Look, I don’t want my unit scared to execute this mission for fear of some stupid score. I don’t want to lose any of them to actual illness or lose them because their score drops too low. I’m asking for your help. Please.”
Only those with elite scores could serve in the Force. If their score dropped low enough, they would be kicked out.
More people pushed past us. At this rate, I would be one of the last in line, but I found it hard to walk away from the resolute look in his eyes.
“There’s a room near the Ward,” I said finally. “The first tunnel on your right, third door down on your left. As long as I can safely do so, I’ll see your unit there.”
“Does anyone else know about the room?” Tristian asked.
“I don’t think so.” Except for my co-worker Owen, but after I broke things off, we hadn’t had a tryst in that room since. We had never been discovered there.
“It’s a deal then,” Tristian said, extending his hand. “If you ever need anything—”
“I won’t.”
“But if you do,” he pressed, “I’m at your disposal.”
I didn’t take his hand. Instead, I retreated to the Ward, saying over my shoulder, “I don’t make deals with people, Commander.”
And yet, for the next two years, I found myself summoned to that room to tend to an array of injuries: A dislocated shoulder.
Stitches above a brow. A high ankle sprain.
An infected cut. A concussion. A ferocious stomach bug that resulted in half his unit coming in.
Tristian himself had wound up in the small room, pale and clammy, complaining to me between retching that he didn’t understand how I wasn’t sick.