Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
JESSICA
Rachel’s laughter lingers even after she walks out of the tent, leaving me alone with bitter coffee and thoughts I wasn’t ready to entertain.
I turn back to my workstation, wipe down the tray, and stare at the discarded bandages. The silence feels louder than the mortars now retreating in the distance.
My thoughts turn to Captain Noah Reyes. There’s something unsettling about him. Not the way he spoke, but what he said with his eyes. He bled, yes, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. Like pain was a language he’d memorized long ago and no longer feared speaking.
I’d seen that look before, the same look that stares back in me when I look in the mirror.
I grab my notebook and start charting Torres’s wound. Routine. Except the adrenaline hadn’t quite left my system. My handwriting slants harder than usual.
Then, like some cosmic punishment for feeling even remotely calm, the ground shakes from a mortar hit, too close, right before the comm crackles to life.
“Contact northwest perimeter—possible casualties inbound.”
Damn.
I rush to prep the tent again, tossing on fresh gloves, lining trays with instruments. Out of habit, I check for crutches, splints, and blood bags. Rachel bursts back through the flap, combat vest already on.
“You felt it too?” she asks.
“Like thunder before the storm.”
She nods, grim. We don’t waste words when soldiers bleed.
Twenty minutes later, the wounded arrive in waves. Dusty boots, blood-soaked uniforms.
I work fast. A shrapnel wound to the thigh. A cracked rib. A dislocated shoulder.
And then Captain Reyes.
He walks in with a soldier half-dragged across his side, face tight with focus. The soldier has a nasty gash to the forearm, blood pouring through a torn sleeve.
Without a word, Reyes helps lower him onto the table.
“You again,” I say, too tired to sound annoyed.
He raises an eyebrow. “Miss me already?”
I don’t respond. I need to focus on the soldier’s injuries and saving him.
I treat the soldier, barking instructions at Rachel, stitching fast. Reyes leaves and then comes back with more wounded soldiers.
This time he stays, watching us work after he brings in the last wounded soldier. His eyes never leave the chaos that’s going on in the tent.
After the soldiers are stable and wheeled off, Reyes still doesn’t leave.
“Sit,” I bark at him.
He looks at me with confusion.
“You’re limping is worse,” I say, letting him know nothing’s gone unnoticed.
He doesn’t answer.
“Sit,” I tell him again.
This time, he does. No protest.
I kneel down, take off his boot and peel back his pant leg. I find swelling at the ankle. His skin is bruised from what looks like a tendon strain.
I don’t say anything at first, just work on it.
But my voice breaks the silence after a moment.
“You carry everyone on your shoulders. That gets heavy.”
He looks at me, startled, before he whispers, “Someone has to.”
I finish wrapping his ankle, stand, and hand him an ice pack, then state, “Just because someone has to, does not mean it always has to be you.”
He takes it, lingering longer than necessary.
“Stay off the ankle for a few days and ice it three times a day. The swelling should go down, but if it doesn’t come back and see me,” I tell him as I hand him crutches to use.
“I don’t need those,” he tells me as he stands and hobbles out of the tent.
I sigh, putting the crutches away, and start cleaning up the tent as I shake my head.