Chapter 14
Forty-eight bells passed too quickly. For two days, I watched the unit more closely than ever before, reciting their blood types until I had everyone memorized.
They all moved about Haven differently leading up to the mission.
I hardly saw Tristian; he seemed to live in the Exploratory Room.
Patrick had a restless energy to him as the unit was pulled from all patrol shifts, including the witching hour shift.
Most people bitched about the shift, but Patrick never did.
Both nights, Patrick was the last one on the couch, cross in hand, and each morning he was in the same exact spot.
I didn’t know if he slept there, if he slept at all.
Ingrid wasn’t around outside of her duties.
She was always in the Kitchens visiting her sister.
Isla seemed the most unfazed, smiling through it all.
Her partner took to lying around the living quarters a lot.
I knew Damien was resting his ankle. Rumi flitted about like a ghost, in and out of the Gym and living quarters constantly.
The only time she remained still was when she meditated.
Levi was glued to my side, escorting me to my lessons with Kumar and returning when they ended.
I didn’t know what I expected from Kumar.
Maybe I expected an emotional reunion, but he had never been one for emotions, especially when there was work to be done.
Possibly a confrontation for how I had left.
Neither occurred. He had told me we had limited time before launching into an intensive crash course on everything I might need to know, as if the time since I had left had never happened.
Nothing personal was exchanged, only knowledge.
His glances toward my father’s knife, which I had taken to carrying everywhere again, were his only tell that he might have more to say.
His silence finally ruptured the last session when I demanded to donate blood to take on our mission the next morning.
He told me it was worthless but caved. I gave as much blood as I could.
“I do not have a heater for you,” Kumar told me again, sitting next to me, his long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. He removed his glasses, cleaning them on his white coat.
“I know, but one of the members can take only my blood. What if he needs more than I can give with what you’ve taught me?
” I demanded, exhausted. The knowledge I endlessly repeated to myself, along with the med bag that I spent every night unpacking and repacking until I could close my eyes and see the contents, had drained me almost as thoroughly as the donation of my blood would.
“It will be difficult to warm the blood to use it. You risk hypothermia and countless other complications. This is all you can give tonight.” Kumar cut off the flow and placed a napkin of dried fruits and nuts in my lap.
“I can give more,” I protested. “We both know I can give a pint. I need to know I have the option. If I don’t, I could lose him.”
“No, you cannot. You will be too depleted and weak for your mission. Your body is still trying to heal from the attack. Eat,” Kumar said, removing the line from my arm.
He placed gauze where the line had been.
“You have considered your unit, as you always considered your patients. Tell me, Death’s Angel, what of you? ”
I flinched against the name. “What of me? I’m the medic. My role is to keep them alive. I’m supposed to consider them.” I held pressure to the gauze.
“You still hate the name,” he observed.
“It’s hard not to when it’s simply a commentary for my inability to get sick and die. It’s a reminder of all the people I have failed,” I confessed, fatigue loosening my tongue.
Kumar chuckled. I couldn’t see what was funny. “I never intended it to be that.”
I gaped. “You—you gave me the name. Why?”
“You stayed with people in their most vulnerable moments, Sasha. We do not have enough resources to care for patients for as long as we once did. I have told Uri for years we walk away too soon. He worries for the masses, and I worry about every individual. It is our biggest disagreement. I have lost count of how many graveyard shifts I served to find you slumped over beds or chairs with people you owed nothing to so they did not meet the end alone. That is a rare strength.” Kumar replaced his glasses.
“People shouldn’t die alone,” I said quietly.
“And you ensured that for countless souls when the inevitable loomed. You didn’t abandon them.
You did something much more heroic. You stayed, guaranteeing they wouldn’t die alone.
You listened to their last confessions and dreams. Others ran from it, rushing toward life.
You did not. I found that interesting. I was willing to teach you, and you begrudgingly showed up, only to bail whenever death approached. ”
“Did you allow me to donate blood just to force me to talk to you?” I asked, incredulously.
Kumar grinned. “It would be rather hard to run away when I have you connected to a bag. But of course not. That would be horrible medicine, Death’s Angel. I wish you and Commander Hayes’s unit luck. Mr. Williams.”
I turned to find Levi waiting for me. I didn’t know how much he had heard.
“Dr. Kumar,” Levi said, and Kumar clapped him on the shoulder.
“Good luck above. I am glad you are her partner,” Kumar said, leaving without bidding me goodbye. I grabbed my bag of blood and the med bag and followed Levi out.
Levi silently took me to a room off the Gym to be fitted in my above radiation gear, which was an all-gray metal suit that fully encompassed every part of my body, leaving nothing exposed.
I hated it. The hard exoskeleton suffocated my senses.
I suddenly found myself claustrophobic. The helmet tried to make up for the stripping of our senses.
A device was attached to my left wrist, littered with buttons that changed the function of the helmet—night vision, navigation, tracking, group communication, and SOS.
“We can mess with them the first day as we walk until you’re comfortable with it,” Levi reassured me. He gave a rundown of the numerous functions. We replaced the equipment as Levi signed the paperwork before we left. The day done, our time was down to eight bells.
“You good?” Levi asked me. I couldn’t find the right words. He waited, his brow raised, quiet curiosity there.
“What’s the point of any of it?” I finally asked.
Levi shook his head. He offered no niceties. “Honestly, sometimes I don’t know.”
“I’m not sure there’s anything worth saving,” I admitted. There it was. The thing I had contemplated about Haven. Humans. The entire damn earth. But mostly about myself and all I had lost around and in me.
“There is,” Levi said. “There is always something worth saving, Sasha.”
The morning of the mission, I awoke to dark silence. I heard no snores, no deep breathing, just the slight movement of sheets. I wasn’t the only one awake, but no one spoke. I followed their lead. My heartbeat was in my throat, an anxiousness I hadn’t felt in years running rampant.
The shower turned on in the living quarters, giving away someone else’s movements. I turned to my other side to come face-to-face with Ingrid. She was wide awake. She pushed up, fully clothed, grabbed her bag, and headed toward the door without a word.
“Tell Bretta hi,” Isla whispered in the dark. Ingrid left.
“There’s no point in trying to sleep,” Isla groaned as she too sat up. She stretched down, touching her toes. “Did you rest at all?”
“Some.”
“That’s good. Eat a big breakfast.” She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself. “Braid your hair as well. It’ll get matted down in the helmet if you don’t. Rumi is best at it if you need help. I’d stretch too; you’ll ache everywhere by tonight.”
“Anything else?”
Yawning, she shook her head as she stretched her arms high.
“Isla, why did you join the Force?” I asked.
We were leaving to attempt an impossible mission. Why did everyone in Unit Seven go? What were they trying to save? Was it everyone in Haven? Was it more personal?
Isla sighed, her smile evaporating. “Love. But I ruined that a long time ago.”
Shocked by her answer, I asked, “Then why stay?”
“I guess some part of me believes in second chances.”
The door to our living quarters opened.
“That’ll be Levi,” Isla said, leaving. I followed her out.
“Morning, partner,” Levi greeted from the sofa as I entered the living room, a tray of coffees on the table before him. Isla stretched on the mat while taking sips from a cup. Rumi sat in the corner, meditating. “How’d you sleep?”
“Horribly,” I confessed, grabbing a cup as I took a seat. “Thanks. Did you sleep well?”
“Well enough. You ready?”
I snorted into my drink. How could anyone be ready for a wild-goose chase with all of humanity’s future relying on the outcome?
“It’s going to be great,” Isla told us, smiling.
Levi took a long sip from his drink. I was saved from responding as the doors to the bathroom and the living quarters both swung open. Patrick walked in the main door, holding several stacks of paper as Damien entered the main living room, a towel wrapped around his waist.
“Levi, this new bringing-coffee thing is spectacular,” Damien stated as he fell onto the sofa next to me, grabbing a cup. His towel came loose. I scooted away. Damien noticed. “We’re going above today. You’re going to be seeing a lot of this. No secrets above.”
I rolled my eyes, taking another drink.
“Do you want a coffee?” Isla asked, smiling, as Patrick’s gaze ran over every exposed inch of her. Was this the love she had ruined?
Damien and Levi took a long drink, avoiding the two of them. I followed suit.
“I’ll take one,” Rumi interrupted from the mat. She cut right between Isla and Patrick. Patrick followed her.
“Rums, you okay?” Damien demanded, his brows high. “Did something in that meditation finally illuminate how fucking phenomenal coffee is?”
Rumi sipped her cup and shuddered, her lips pulling back.
“It’s horrible.” Rumi sat beside Levi, leaving a seat beside her and the chair open.
There was no space for Isla and Patrick to sit next to each other.
I didn’t understand what exactly was going on between them, but whatever it was, Rumi wasn’t having it.
Patrick sat in the chair as Levi handed Rumi and him steaming cups. Isla perched on the arm of the sofa.
“No, I’m just tired,” Rumi said heavily.
“What’s the latest?” Levi asked Patrick.
Patrick flipped through his papers. “Weather looks promising; we might breach the fifties. Radiation is still higher than we would like it to be. I don’t want to get our hopes up. It’s looked promising before, only for a storm to roll in.”
Levi stood up, grabbing two more cups of coffee, leaving one extra. “We should get moving. We all need food and I need to go pull Hayes from the Exploratory Room.”
Damien’s hand darted for the extra coffee.
One second Levi stood, both feet firmly on the ground; the next, his boot rested on the table, lightly trapping Damien’s outstretched hand as he balanced on one leg.
He didn’t spill a drop. The sureness in his stance was born from his time on the mats. “That one is for Sasha.”
“You can’t play partner favorites,” Damien exclaimed.
“I’m not,” Levi drawled, removing his boot from Damien’s hand. Levi glanced at me and nodded toward the cup. Hesitantly, I reached out, taking it. “She’s the only one of you who bothered to thank me.”
A grumbling of thanks was offered.
“Mess hall, move out,” Levi ordered the group. I downed my first cup as the others came to stand. Isla darted into the bunk room to dress. The rest pulled on their boots as Rumi handed her cup to Damien. He placed a quick kiss on her forehead as he chugged it in one go.
“You know, I tried to get coffee for the unit, and I got told by a very bossy Unit Three cadet it’s for unit commanders only. So tell me,” Damien said, grinning, “are you hooking up with her for the conversations or the coffees?”
Levi stared at Damien. “A wise man once said a gentleman never tells.”
There was a chorus of laughter.
Damien slung an arm around Levi’s shoulders as they left the room. “Touché. Let’s go save the world.”