Chapter 22 Field Duty
Field Duty
He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.
— SUN TZU, THE ART OF WAR
Weeks passed. Every Thursday I’d arrive to Lucas waiting for me, yards of space between us.
He’d give me his information and refuse to engage if I tried to speak of anything else.
In turn, I declined to listen to any points of information that might lead to his immediate demise, something that frayed his patience with each vanishing hour.
I wanted so badly for things to go back to how they were before we slept together. Strangely, I missed wrestling with him. I kept up my workouts in case he ever changed his mind, but each week I was sent on my way without even a lecture.
To keep from brooding, I took more medic shifts. Zara was thrilled when I agreed to sit down for a chat one afternoon. We stole a small area of the sparsely populated café, far from the riveted windows where cold air leaked through.
She handed me a cup of English breakfast tea and settled in the chair beside me, elbows on the table. “It has been too long.”
I chose to stare at the table instead of looking her in the eye. “Sorry. Been busy, I guess.”
“Oh? Have you made new friends?”
I thought of Lucas pinning me to the ground. Lucas throwing a knife at the door to keep me from leaving. Lucas doling out life advice like a mother hen.
Never look at what’s obvious, Sophia.
“Not really,” I said.
She smiled. “Well, time gets away from us sometimes, doesn’t it?”
“I can’t believe we’ve been dealing with years of this.”
Her smile dimmed. “It seems as if things are improving a little.”
I shrugged, and Zara shifted the conversation to happier subjects—the rookie medics she was training, the soldier who always hit on her, a new interest in sketching the oak tree just outside the quarantine house.
I asked questions, but was at a loss to volunteer anything from my own life. I had no new hobbies or interests, nothing to speak of that wasn’t top secret or debilitatingly depressing. She must have sensed my growing discomfort, because her hand squeezed mine where it lay listless on the table.
“I’m here for you, Sophia,” she said. “I hope you know that.”
My lips rolled between my teeth as I battled the tears that always sat so close to the surface. I stared at her hand atop mine. “Do you remember when you told me that sometimes you fall in love with the wrong person?”
In her silence, I glanced up. Her dark eyes sparked with interest, and she set her cup aside. “I do.”
“Do you think it’s possible to make yourself fall out of love?”
She studied my face as a crease deepened between her brows. “I’m not sure it’s a decision that can be consciously made.”
“But what if—what if it’s doomed? Like, there’s no chance for a happy ending?”
A short silence, and then, “Have you fallen in love, Sophia?”
I jerked my hand back. “No. It’s just theoretical.”
“I—”
“Reeves!” barked a voice outside our sphere.
I jumped and turned toward the stranger, hand pressed to my racing heart. A soldier stood near the café entrance in combat fatigues, the rank on his chest declaring him a Second Lieutenant, though I’d never seen him before.
I stood and saluted him. “Yes, sir?”
“New mission orders. You’re on rotation for field duty. Briefing in the rotunda in five.” He spun and left me gaping.
Field duty?
But…I’d been exempted from field duty by Theo.
I turned to Zara. “I’m so sorry. I have to go.”
She nodded, her expression a mask of concern. I sprinted from the room, heading straight for Theo’s office. When I reached it, the handle didn’t budge.
Locked.
“Theo!” I banged on the door, ignoring the strange looks from passing soldiers.
No answer.
“Hey, hey,” came a familiar voice, and I whirled to find Adam wearing a confused smile. “Need something?”
“Where’s Theo?”
“The general is out until tomorrow. He had a meeting.”
My heart stalled, then picked up its pace. If Theo wasn’t there, he couldn’t stop them, and I didn’t have the rank or authority to refuse a mission.
“What’s wrong?” Adam asked.
“They’re sending me into the field.”
He laughed. “You go into the field all the time.”
But I didn’t. Not for months.
If they waste you, they lose me. That is non-negotiable.
Lucas had made it clear that he was my only field duty, and Theo had agreed with that request. If I went out and something happened, I wasn’t entirely certain how Lucas would respond.
But he’d been so cold of late that maybe it wouldn’t matter to him if I was hurt.
Besides, as medics, we were always kept out of direct battle. The last time had been a fluke.
“I have to report,” I murmured to Adam.
“Good luck,” he singsonged as I walked away.
I sprinted to my room to change into the combat fatigues I hadn’t worn in months. The white armband with the red cross stood out starkly against the olive green. I pulled on my boots, then slipped Lucas’s knuckles into my pocket. I always had the weapon on my person, just as he’d asked.
When I arrived in the rotunda, it was bustling with soldiers, and many of my fellow medics stood at attention, ready for instruction. I grabbed one of the medic packs and took my position.
“Alright, listen up!” shouted a captain I had recently treated for a scalp laceration.
Every soldier fell silent, eyes straight ahead.
“We’ve got a situation at a lookout southeast of command post B,” the captain continued.
“Friendly patrol got hit—hard. A dozen confirmed injured, with at least that many unaccounted for. It’s on us to get in, secure the wounded, and get the hell out.
Wounded personnel will be on floors three and above.
This is extraction only, but expect enemy presence.
We go in fast and stay tight. Only engage if fired upon.
Medics, you’re lead for triage. Prioritize stabilization.
Rally point is here”—he pointed to a map behind him, right at the cross streets near command post B—“and if comms go dark, fall back to Safe House Blue. Exfil once objective is secured. You know your roles, soldiers. Gear up. We leave in ten.”
The room exploded into action.
Before I’d taken a single step, Isaac appeared before me. “You’re with me, Reeves.” He pointed to a group of armed soldiers standing nearby. “This is Maldonado, Khattab, Phan, and Andrews. We’re taking the sixth floor.”
The soldiers wore scars and mean expressions as proof of experience, but my stomach dropped at the thought of joining them. It’d been months since I’d seen direct action, and the captain said there were Hunters in the area…
Few people walk out of a knife fight.
Luke’s voice echoed through my head like a warning siren. He wouldn’t like this.
I didn’t have a choice, though. With my heart picking up speed, I turned to Isaac. “Yes, sir.”
“Stay close,” he said. “They’d been on a recon patrol when they were attacked. Hunters are probably waiting for their extraction party.”
I nodded.
He gripped my upper arm, right over the red cross. “If they engage, don’t hesitate.”
I swallowed the sense of doom. Anxiety pooled in my stomach, but I ignored the nausea and my shaking hands.
“We got you, girl,” said Phan with a big smile. “You won’t have to fight. You’re only there to heal.”
Was this guy new? What an idiot.
We headed out shortly after, and I rode in the rear of an electric ATV with Maldonado driving.
Sunset had just passed, and the brisk November air seeped beneath my heavy gear to chill my very bones.
While my temporary squad joked around, I stayed quiet, certain they could hear the erratic pounding of my heart.
Darkness had enveloped us by the time we made it to the location—a six-story glass office building that had apparently been reappropriated as a lookout. Other squads had arrived before us, their footfalls crunching on the asphalt as they marched toward the building, guns in hand.
How many soldiers had received a firearm? How many rounds were they given? Since the Gunlock Law, firearms had grown increasingly harder to find. How the Defiance armed themselves was a mystery to me, though I suspected stealing from the NAO—thanks to Lucas—was the prime method.
I stayed close to Isaac as our squad moved in. The glass of the main door had been smashed in, and we stepped through in silence, following the other squads. I flinched at the crunch of glass under our boots.
We found the stairs behind the abandoned check-in desk.
Isaac peeked around the corner before giving us the go-ahead.
In the pitch-black stairwell, I followed the bouncing flashlight of the soldiers above and below.
The other squads peeled off as they reached their assigned floors, and the familiar sounds of medics barking triage orders filtered from the propped doors.
Six floors up, Isaac set his hand over the push bar.
Metal scraped against metal as he pushed it in, then peeked into the darkened interior.
Cubicles spanned out with offices at the perimeter. I strove to see through the darkness, keeping my ears perked for suspicious noises, but there were none. Not enemy soldiers, not dying comrades.
Nothing.
We snuck through the gloom, clearing each cubicle and conference room, every office and restroom. The place was empty…except for a break room on the south side of the building.
I stepped in after Isaac and Maldonado, my gaze darting to the dark masses on the floor near the windows. A beam of light grazed over the six bodies lying at strange angles in pools of red.
My heart sank, but I approached the bodies to check each one—riddled with bullets and pulseless.
Sprays of blood spattered the windows, now pockmarked with holes.
I peered into the dark world outside, wondering what these soldiers had been surveilling.
What portion of the Hunter domain had they lost their lives to observe?
“They’re gone,” I said, voice steady.