Chapter 10 Crippled
Crippled
The greatest enemies in a combat survival and evasion situation are fear and panic.
— U.S. ARMY FIELD MANUAL
The guilt over ignoring Zara boiled over the next day, and I met her at the quarantine house.
Given that the local hospitals were either abandoned or only treated loyalists of the NAO, we’d been forced to commandeer a roadside hotel to provide more privacy for the patients who needed long-term healing.
All medics took weekly shifts at the facility.
They were like a breath of clean air compared to the suffocation of the hospital wing at headquarters, where the injuries proved endless.
The patients at the quarantine house needed little more than TLC.
It gave Zara and me plenty of time to chat.
That used to be something I looked forward to. Now, I couldn’t stifle the fear that gnawed at me as we settled into our usual chairs in the old check-in lobby.
What would the next loss do to me? Who would it be? Would it be Zara?
Which of my friends would I hug goodbye, only never to see again?
I first met Zara Akbari when she’d cared for me during a flu outbreak more than a year ago, but the woman had taken me under her wing when Theo assigned me as a medic.
Twenty years my senior, she’d been a practicing physician for at least a decade before The Fracture.
She’d taught me pathophysiology and pharmacology while Dr. Grayson schooled me on the nitty-gritty of field medicine.
While Dr. Grayson was quick and dirty, Dr. Akbari was all nuance and gentility.
“Why do we still call it the quarantine house?” I asked as I sank deep into my chair.
She laughed. “I suppose it’s a misnomer, given it isn’t used for quarantine any longer.”
“Nor is it a house,” I said with a forced chuckle.
“Old habits, I suppose.”
We used to find whatever bags we could for tea and spend an hour or so chatting after a shift. It had been months since I’d let myself do this, and I pulled my feet beneath me in the chair, looking everywhere but her eyes.
She set my teacup beside me, then took a sip from hers. “How are you doing today, Sophia?” She had always asked this question first, as if it were a therapy session.
And maybe it was. She’d helped the cuts that used to be fresh and bleeding scar over to something cold and stiff.
Still painful, but different. Chronic.
“I’m fine,” I answered, even though nothing was ever fine. Nothing would ever be fine again.
My lie was met with a pitying gaze. “I don’t think that’s true.”
I shrugged. None of us were okay, and we both knew it. We were treading water in a vast, violent ocean with nothing to hold on to. I longed to sink beneath the surface. I could marvel at the sanctuary in drowning. Either way, I couldn’t breathe, so why not just…submerge?
There was tranquility in death.
No prayers. No words. No oxygen.
Only peace.
“You’ve been keeping busy?” she asked.
“Yeah. As much as I can.” I took a mouthful of tea. It tasted of bitter ash.
“I heard you’ve been meeting with the general regularly,” she said. “I’m so glad. Things had seemed strained between you two for a while.”
Would it sadden her to know that I was only meeting with Theo to relay the information I gathered after he sold me to a spy? My gaze trailed over the check-in desk nearby. Behind it, the blue decorative tile that had once been trendy was now chipped and dusty.
“He’s your only family left, right?” Zara asked, voice gentle.
My throat constricted. “I guess. What about you? Do you have any family, Zara? We never talk about them.”
She took a sip of tea. “My parents passed long ago, but I had a husband once.”
“Where is he?”
She offered a sad smile and set her cup aside. “Sometimes we fall in love with the wrong person.”
I considered that, wondering whether it was truly possible. “Maybe it wasn’t love, then,” I finally said.
She gave a slow nod, thoughtful. “Have you ever been in love, Sophia?”
I shook my head.
“When you fall in love, you’ll see. Even when it ends badly, it was still love.”
How had it ended badly? Was the man dead? Or worse, a Hunter? “Do you miss him?” I asked.
“No. I miss being in love, though. It’s like flying and falling all at the same time.”
I thought of the swooping sensation that attacked during times of turbulence in an airplane. I hated that feeling—flying and falling and completely out of control.
“Sounds scary,” I muttered.
Her smile warmed. “It is. But it’s also wonderful. There’s nothing like it.”
Something uncomfortable poked at my heartstrings. “I wouldn’t want another person to care about.”
Her gaze dropped. “There aren’t many left, Sophia. I understand how hard that is, but if you care for no one, what’s the point of anything?”
I sighed. “Maybe there is no point.”
A long silence passed before she said, “I want to help you through this.”
I finally met her gaze. Within it, I could see the compassion, the desire to fix me. “I don’t know how you could. Maybe… With some time…”
Her eyes grew bright. “Well,” she said, her voice a bit more wobbly. “At least you’re here now. I’ve missed you. Being with your people is good for you.”
A powerful urge to spill it all washed over me.
I wanted to open my mouth and tell her everything—my thoughts of death, my panic attacks, my secret mission with a Blood Colonel whose mysteries had become my sole reason for living.
I wanted to explain to her why my muscles were sore and where I’d obtained the suspiciously finger-shaped bruise on my arm.
What would she do?
Would she pity me? Tell me to stop? Wish me well?
Would she worry over me? Thank me?
I’d never know.
Because I couldn’t tell her.
The secret was mine, and spilling it would lose the Defiance its biggest advantage. In this, as in everything else, I was utterly alone.
I set my teacup down. “I think I should go.”
She straightened. “No. Please stay. We can talk about anything you’d like.”
Easing back into my chair, I studied her hopeful face and nodded.
She turned the conversation to bland matters—a novel she thought I’d like, the patient in room four who never failed to demand a glass of orange juice, a commodity we didn’t have.
I actually giggled when she confessed that the soldier in room six came on to her every time she checked on him.
“His lines are so cheesy,” she whispered, a glint of humor in her eye.
“Tell me his best one,” I said through a round of genuine chuckles.
She bit her lip and leaned closer. “Yesterday, he said, ‘You must’ve went a long way when you fell.’ And I just looked at him, so he said, ‘Because you’re like an angel in hell.’”
A bark of laughter burst from my mouth, and I slapped a hand over it. “Is he cute?”
“He’s your age! He looks like a baby.”
As the conversation wore on, the knot in my chest eased, and smiling grew easier. It was only later, when I lay in bed and decided that my day hadn’t been terrible, that I realized Zara had been right. Being with my people was good for me. My body felt lighter. Brighter.
But it wouldn’t last. It never did.
And that was why I avoided them. If I didn’t care, their deaths wouldn’t hurt so much. I was terrified of the pain my heart was capable of suffering.
There was a reason they called it crippling fear.
I was utterly crippled. Ruined.
But maybe…
Maybe I wouldn’t always be. Maybe reopening myself to Zara was the first step in regaining my humanity.
Or maybe we were all doomed.