Incursion

Chapter 16: Cracks

Rhodes and Yansen carried the body of Amanda Hall down to the street in front of the Emergency Room after verifying that the underground parking levels were empty save for a few military and abandoned civilian vehicles, and upwards of ten Army casualties between the two sublevels. As Rhodes suspected, the last of the prisoners being held down in the basement were gone.

There were only a handful of survivors left, and some of them may as well have been dead, in Rhodes’ opinion – shell shock, various degrees of injury, uncertainty about what to do next. Rhodes wasn’t interested in helping them or easing their burdens; he had his own problems and a fresh body to bury. Still, one thing was for sure: the South Health Campus was done. With its power source destroyed and about seventy-five to eighty percent of its occupants dead, Rhodes seriously doubted the site would remain an outpost for the US Army.

He and Yansen put Hall’s cadaver in a body bag and flew via Osprey back to CFB Calgary, where they laid her remains temporarily in a tent in the northwest corner of the defunct base. Hall would be flown back to HQ on the next prisoner transport to the States.

When the two men laid the body bag down on the cold pavement, Yansen stayed crouched at Hall’s feet, gazing at the dark mass with a mildly subdued expression on his face.

He noticed Rhodes looking at him from the tent flap and gave a half-hearted wave of a hand.

“I’ll stay here for a while. Keep her company, you know,” he said, his voice surprisingly quiet.

Rhodes gave a nod, then left Yansen and headed back to the Currie Barracks where he had taken a liking to sheltering during his time at the base.

The body of the one operative he had strapped to the bedframe was long gone, filling Rhodes with a strange feeling of despondence. He supposed a large part of his mood came from what transpired this evening, but he’d barely known Hall. She’d been assigned to his team only months ago.

No, Rhodes was simply apprehensive about having to report more mistakes to his superior.

He took a seat in front of a small desk in the candlelit room he claimed as his temporary abode and took out the long-range radio from his rucksack. He spent nearly five minutes simply staring at the device before resolving to powering it on and initiating a call to Lancer.

It didn’t take long for the connection to stabilize.

“Lancer,” came the usual terse voice of Rhodes’ old team leader and contact.

“It’s Hornet,” Rhodes began, already feeling his mood sinking further.

“Hornet. More news?”

Rhodes winced a little. “Well… yes.”

“More bad news, I presume?”

“…Unfortunately.”

Lancer did not respond for a few seconds. Rhodes had a vision in his mind of the man silently stewing in frustration over his desk.

“Fine,” Lancer said in a thin, cold tone. “I may as well hear how bad. What happened?”

Figuring it would be less painful to just spit out the facts, Rhodes focused on relaying the news quickly.

“An outpost housing over fifty prisoners was attacked tonight. Heavy US military casualties. The prisoners are gone, and when my team responded to the site of the attack, Hall was killed.”

There was another pause before Lancer spoke again. “Did you find out who attacked the outpost?”

“No. But I suspect Christina Valentine.”

Lancer actually sighed. “Do you have any evidence to support that?”

“No. Just working with recent events.”

Lancer paused again. This time, the silence was a bit too much for Rhodes to bear.

“Lancer?”

“Yes?”

“I have a question.”

“And that is?”

Rhodes hesitated, wondering if he was merely making conservation to rid the dead air over the line, but he went ahead with asking anyway.

“It’s about those… LATCHKEY subjects. How many do we have, again?”

The man on the other end seemed to hesitate as well, but replied after a few seconds: “Currently, four. Why?”

“Are they all accounted for?”

“What are you saying?”

“We don’t… have any rogues, do we? Missing subjects?”

“Not to my knowledge. The doctor would have said something.”

“Right…”

“Hornet. Why are you asking about LATCHKEY?”

Rhodes recalled the mountain of bodies he found in the hospital, and the man who had nearly gut him with a blade. There was no hard evidence pointing to that man being involved in the project, but Rhodes couldn’t help noticing some similarities.

If Lancer says the abominations are all accounted for, then I have no reason to suspect otherwise.

“Nothing. I was simply asking if they were being used as of late,” Rhodes said after a short break in the conversation.

“Of course. You know this.”

“Ah. Yes.”

Even Rhodes could sense Lancer’s suspicion that he may be hiding something, but Lancer chose not to pursue the conversation.

“Speaking of LATCHKEY, Hornet.”

“Yes?”

“Doctor Hayden is looking to send one of them over to one of the more… problematic cities.”

Rhodes clenched his free hand upon hearing this. “Surely there are other cities?”

“Of course there are. Over the past week we’ve had multiple reports of disturbances like the ones you’re contending with. But none of them have been as impactful as the ones in yours.”

Rhodes began to pace the room uneasily. “All due respect, Lancer. I can handle things here.”

“Recent developments don’t point in that direction, Hornet. I’m suggesting Calgary as a test for one of the LATCHKEY subjects.”

“But—” Rhodes tried to protest.

“I’m aware you want the girl taken alive,” Lancer cut across him, speaking in a slightly impatient tone. “I will make a note to Doctor Hayden about her. The subject will be tasked with getting rid of the problems within your city. After that, they will leave you in peace.”

Rhodes wanted to argue but hesitated upon remembering that Lancer wasn’t the most receptive to them.

“Understood,” he said, a little glum.

“Good. I’ll direct the subject to your location. They’ll arrive within the next forty-eight hours. No need to worry about supervising them. They’ll have a set objective to meet and will require minimal management on your part. Just continue with meeting your quota.”

“Copy, Lancer.”

“Is that all you had to report?”

“Affirmative.”

“Then I will talk to you another time. Lancer out.”

The connection was terminated. Rhodes squeezed the radio in his hand in frustration.

Did those freaks even understand non-lethal force? Capture instead of kill? How could they possibly avoid collateral damage?





Josh parked the troop truck in the emptier parking lot toward the back of the recreation centre. Genel parked hers right beside Josh’s, and the three of us and Burke piled out of the cabs to begin ushering the civilians inside the building.

Sergeant Burke and I headed to the back of the trucks, where the reservist called out to the weary and fearful former prisoners looking out the open end of the vehicles.

“Okay, everyone please disembark. We’re at our destination. You’ll all be safe here from now on.”

A middle-aged woman close to the mouth of the troop compartment gave us a wary stare and spoke up. “Are you with the Army?”

The sergeant nodded at the woman. “41 Canadian Brigade Group. Yes, Canadian Army. I’m Sergeant Damon Burke, acting CO.”

“Won’t they find us here?” another civilian, a teenager, in the other truck asked the soldier.

“We’re taking precautions to ensure they won’t,” Burke answered the young man who’d asked. “Please, disembark. The recreation centre here will have food and water for you. Since the electricity is still running, it’ll be warm inside, too.”

At the mention of something to eat and a warm shelter, the ones closest to the exit rose to their feet and began to file out of the trucks. The sergeant stayed behind one truck to assist the passengers – some who were too young while others were among the elderly – in getting off the vehicle, while I did the same for the passengers of the other truck. All of the people I helped off the back of the truck were in various states of dishevelment, malnutrition, and mental distress. Some of them came down off the compartment in hysterics, while others look like they were next to catatonic. I helped carry a couple of five year-olds whose eyes lacked the typical light and innocence of children their age off the truck. As much as it angered me to see children in this predicament, I did my best to smile as I took them in my arms and lowered them safely to the ground. The girl I helped first bravely gave me a little smile when she was on the ground.

“Hi there,” I told her when I set her down carefully, bending down a bit and propping my hands on my thighs. “What’s your name?”

The little girl looked up at me, surprisingly not that wary in the presence of a stranger like me. “Marlene.”

I smiled a bit more widely and rubbed her shoulder. “It’s nice to meet you, Marlene. I’m Chrissy. Don’t worry now, you’ll be safe with these soldiers. Mister Burke and his friends will take care of you now, okay?”

“Okay. Can you bring Danny down too?” She pointed up at the other five-year old boy waiting for his turn to be helped off the truck.

“I surely can. One Danny coming right down.”

I took the boy in my arms, ignoring the pang of pain from my healing ribs as the child pressed against me, and brought him down beside Marlene. He wasn’t as conversational as his friend, because as soon as he was on the ground he took Marlene’s hand and tugged on her hand, leading her away from me and following the flow of civilians heading for the recreation centre.

Josh. Genel, and Corporal Ingridson led the disembarked civilians into the building through a back door while Private Emmerich helped Corporal Gow off and into the makeshift infirmary in the basement. My truck was the first to empty out, with the last two getting off being girls a little younger than me.

As I helped the first girl off the back of the truck, her green eyes found mine and her expression turned to one of mild shock. Her hands which I’d been holding to keep her steady squeezed mine a little.

“Christina?” she said weakly, tilting her head slightly as if to study my face.

I did the same and observed her features. She had unkempt, long, light brown hair and flushed cheeks from the cold. She was a few centimetres taller than me. Her clothes – a short denim jacket, plain white T-shirt, and dark leggings – seemed to strike me as familiar. I felt as though I’d seen those eyes before, too.

My heart jumped when I placed her face.

It was Sarah Mason, one of the girls I’d been locked in a cage with back in the Stampede. She looked much more haggard than I recalled her back during our shared incarceration. Dark bags had formed beneath her eyes and her face looked more gaunt than ever.

“S-Sarah?” I blurted, almost unable to believe my eyes.

She quickly turned to the girl behind her, who was watching us beadily from the mouth of the back of the truck. “Oh my God. Livi, it’s… it’s Christina.”

I looked up at the last civilian left on the truck.

I recognized her shoulder-length reddish brown hair, her pale blue eyes, and the woollen, peach shrug sweater. It was Olivia Munn, the youngest of the five of us put in that cage in the Stampede.

Sarah took Olivia’s hands and assisted in getting her off the truck, When both girls were safely on the ground, they turned to me. Olivia looked like she was having trouble believing her eyes at the sight of me, while Sarah appeared to be on the verge of tears.

The older Sarah enveloped me in an embrace and buried her face in my toque as she began to weep. I put my arms around her without hesitation.

Within seconds, Olivia joined in and she too began to sob against me and Sarah.

My chest tightened as the two women crushed me in their arms and cried into me. It was a strange feeling. I felt equal parts relief at seeing them both again, and guilt at having left them behind in the first place.

“I’m… sorry for leaving you,” I managed to choke out, fighting not to break down myself. Even now I felt the need to put on a front for their sake, if not because I was the oldest of the five of us in that cage, then because I was the only one who got away and managed to live relatively comfortably after escaping that hell. “I didn’t… I should have—”

My strained apology was met with harder weeping from the two of them, but at the same time they both seemed to hug me even more tightly, so much so that I felt I was going to cave from the pressure.

“It’s okay, Christina,” Sarah sobbed into my ear.

“We’re okay,” Olivia whispered to me.

A single teardrop made its way out the corner of my right eye despite my best efforts to contain it. I bowed my head in an effort to hide it from the two women embracing me.





I managed to make it back to the armoured truck Shadow Team, the reservists, and I parked in the fields to the east of the hospital after several minutes of staggering at a brisk pace out of the South Health Campus. I took an extra few minutes to make sure I wasn’t being followed back to my only getaway vehicle. With how close the rec centre was to the hospital, I could’ve walked if I had to, but right now I wasn’t in the best condition.

I slammed the driver’s door shut once I was behind the wheel and allowed myself to catch my breath. I took off my backpack, placing it in the seat beside mine, and finally looked down at myself.

Okay, you got yourself hurt. The first step is to assess the damage.

I could practically hear the cold, calculating tone of my mentor telling me those exact same words. She was brusque and had no time for nonsense, which she made clear the second we met. But if there was one thing she wasn’t, it was abrasive for the sake of being abrasive.

Then again, before she’d tell me to assess my injuries, she’d first tell me something along the lines of being an idiot for hesitating in the face of an enemy.

You hesitate in front of your enemy for one second, and it’s all over. You’re dead. If you’re going to kill, follow through with it. You half-ass it, you’re done. You’re an anonymous casualty.

Admittedly, part of it was hesitation. I recognized the figure I was stabbing at as a high value individual and pulled back a bit. I let the thought that we needed Hornet alive to get answers about Northstar’s objective get to me at the wrong time. Part of it was that I’d already sustained an injury fighting the US military on that floor prior to Northstar entering the picture, and I had slowed a bit with the use of my right arm.

See, this is why I liked things better when I was just doing hits. Point and shoot, no theatrics, no grey area BS.

I sighed, shaking off the thought. I could moan and groan as much as I’d like, but that was the past whether I liked it or not.

Assess. Right. So… I’ve got a gunshot wound just off the side of my right pectoral. The vest didn’t stop the rifle round, but I’m fortunate the shot didn’t land a few centimetres further to the left, or I’d be looking at possible lung damage and I may well have dropped dead in the stairwell. I don’t know if the bullet went through and out the other side.

My legs and arms still work. They feel fine.

I’m not feeling faint… yet.

Then there was the most glaring issue. I eyed the silver blade sticking out of the center of my abdomen. From the pain emanating down there – fairly excruciating now that my adrenaline was thinning out – I could easily surmise that the blade pierced my vest and buried itself deeply enough to damage muscle but maybe not any internal organs. I’d be in bigger distress if the knife had damaged anything vital.

Obviously, my head is still straight, so…

Assessment: I was stable for now, but I couldn’t patch myself up because I lacked the necessary first aid supplies. I’d also be running the risk of bleeding more profusely if I tried to dislodge the knife from my stomach.

I consulted my TACPAD and went to ‘COMMS’. I stopped myself before nearly initiating a team channel call. Sighing, I selected ‘0-9-8’ from the list and initiated a direct call, then tapped my earpiece.

“Knight to Angel, come in.”

After a lengthy five seconds, a response came.

“This is Angel.” The team XO’s voice came through, sounding a bit distracted but also relieved. I could hear the chatter of several people overlapping in the background, even the bawling of a child. “Knight, glad to hear from you. Where are you?”

“Sitting in our truck in the fields, about to head over to the rec centre. Did you get all the prisoners out?”

“Affirmative. Fifty-four of them. None were hurt or killed.”

“Good work.” I cleared my throat. “Is Archer there with you?”

“Yes. Well, no. She’s in the level upstairs with Sergeant Burke and the rest of the 41 CBGs. Why?”

“Did you bring a trauma kit?”

“Always,” she answered immediately, then paused for a second before her tone shifted. “You’re hit?”

“A little bit.”

“God. Can you make it back here?”

“Yeah. That’s not the issue. Is there… a private room you can meet me at there?”

Christina paused again for two seconds before speaking again. “Away from Archer, you mean?”

“That’s right.”

“Sure. There are empty conference rooms on the first floor. We can use one of those.”

“All right. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”





Just over five minutes later, I parked the truck in front of the rec centre and got out, carrying my backpack by its one strap in my right hand.

The two guards at the front door nodded plainly at me at first, then they noticed the hilt of the knife protruding out my stomach. Their eyes went wide at the sight.

I limped slightly to them, intending to push through the door in between them to get inside. One of them spoke to me as I walked up the porch.

“Sir? Are you… okay?”

“I’m fine.”

The soldier nodded slowly, letting me go without further questions. Just by the receptionist’s desk was Christina, who noticed me as I walked through the front door.

Her eyes widened as well as she got a closer look at me. She rushed forward a few steps to meet me halfway.

“Oh my God,” she murmured, eyeing the knife handle sticking out of my vest. “Knight, you’re—”

“Still alive,” I interrupted her, trying to alleviate her worry. “Don’t look so shocked.”

Her lips pursed tightly and her eyebrows furrowed to form a determined expression. Before I could say anything else, she grabbed my free left hand and began leading me down a nearby corridor that led to the other side of the building’s first floor.

“There’s no need to drag me,” I told her, both a little annoyed and taken aback by her assertiveness. She didn’t reply to my comment and did not let go. For someone less than half my size, she certainly tugged on me with surprising strength.

Christina brought me into one of the small conference rooms with nothing but a round table meant to seat four people, with a landline phone on top. She practically pushed me inside, shut the door behind her, and flicked on the lights.

“Take a seat,” she told me curtly, motioning toward the office chairs set up around the table.

I stifled a sigh, dropping my backpack under the table, and sat down in one of the chairs facing the door. I shrugged out of my windbreaker as the team medic crouched in front of me and zipped open her backpack to bring out her trauma kit.

“Are you feeling faint? Weak?” she asked me in a heavily businesslike, no-nonsense manner as she popped open her kit and took out a roll of bandages and packets of gauze.

“Not particularly.”

She glanced up at me, scrunching her nose bridge and narrowing her eyes.

“No, I’m not feeling weak,” I clarified after a moment.

“What about coughing up blood? Anything?”

“No.”

“Give me a quick rundown of what injuries you’re aware you have.”

“Gunshot wound just off my right pectoral, and the stab wound to my abdomen.”

Christina brought out a carton of antibiotic cream and two bottles of drinking water. Afterward, she stood up and inspected my back without removing my vest.

“You’ve got an exit wound,” she informed me after a reasonably quick inspection. “Looks like the bullet exited just above your shoulder blade.”

I grunted, not knowing what else to say about that. She didn’t seem to be looking for a response to it, though.

She stood in front of me with a slightly somber look, her eyes flitting back and forth between the gunshot and stab wounds.

“Can’t treat either wound without taking your vest and upper clothing off, but I can’t take the vest off without yanking the blade out. I’m going to need your help, Knight.”

“Sure. Just tell me what to do,” I replied, looking her in the eyes.

“Help me loosen and undo the straps of your vest. Just loosen it, not remove it. I don’t want to make you bleed more until I’m ready, okay?”

“Okay.”

Together, she and I undid the straps of my ballistic vest and got it to the point where after the blade was dislodged all I’d have to do was lift the vest over my head to remove it.

Christina tore open four packets of sterile gauze and readied them on the table. She stared me down with a serious, almost grim expression.

“Okay, the hard part,” she said with a little sigh. “Here’s how we’ll do this: I’m going to pull out the knife, then as soon as it’s free I want you to very quickly take off your vest and undress. Okay? I stress ‘very quickly’, because I don’t know how deep exactly that knife is buried but I’m going to assume you’ll start bleeding a lot. I’m going to plug the wound as fast as possible. Got it?”

“I got it.” This was hardly my first puncture wound, but the seriousness and deliberateness Christina was emanating was a bit reassuring all the same. She clearly knew what to do.

She nodded twice, then tentatively grasped the handle of the knife jutting out of me. “Are you ready?”

I took a breath. “Ready.”

“This is going to hurt.”

“I know.”

“Right,” she said, then took a couple of steadying breaths herself. “One. Two… three.”

Christina grunted as she yanked on the blade, pulling it free of my stomach with a quick motion. At the same time, a stinging, burning pain tore through my body from the spot where the knife left me. Despite being ready, I couldn’t help cursing in a hiss. My eyes watered a little as I scrambled to remove my vest, sweater, and undershirt. I felt something warm pouring down my belly and staining the top of my combat pants, but only for about two seconds.

My XO had pressed a patch of sterile gauze to my abdominal wound before I could even take off my sweater. She had lifted the bottom of it as soon as my vest was off and applied pressure to the puncture as I worked at taking off the rest of my clothing.

Once my shirt was off, she pressed a second patch of gauze to my right chest to cover the entry wound of the bullet that had hit me.

“Here, press the gauze on both wounds,” Christina instructed, and I took over applying pressure to the two wounds on my front. “I need to get the exit wound on your back.”

Doing as she ordered, I let her get behind me where she pressed another patch of gauze below my right shoulder.

“Good,” she commented, her relief all too noticeable in her voice. “You’re not bleeding too much back here.”

It took over five minutes before Christina allowed me to remove the gauze from the entry wound and began to wash both punctures on my chest and back with water and clean them with alcohol.

I let her work in silence as she applied bandages to the gunshot wounds. Just as she had finished dressing the injury, my earpiece suddenly came online.

“Knight? It’s Archer,” Genel’s voice – with badly veiled anxiety – spoke in my ear. “What’s your status?”

I tapped my earpiece as Christina sat in the chair in front of me. The call was over the team channel, so I knew Christina could hear Genel, too. I kept applying pressure to my stomach with the gauze in my left hand.

“Knight here,” I replied, trying to sound normal. “I’m… just leaving the hospital.”

Genel breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“How did the evac go?” I asked, even though Christina had already told me the answer.

“Well. We got the civilians out. No casualties.”

“Nice work. I’ll see you soon.”

“All right. Angel, are you with the civilians? I’m coming down.”

Christina cleared her throat a bit noisily. “Oh no, I’m… I’m in the—”

Her eyes darted to mine. I could see the gears turning within her head before she came up with something, though she looked a little exasperated as she went on.

“—the washroom,” she finished, complete with an awkward tone.

“Oh.” Genel sounded uncertain. “Okay. Anyway, I’ll see you when you get back to the command centre, Knight. Archer out.”

When the team channel was terminated, Christina let out a sigh of relief. She shook her head a bit wearily, then lifted her eyes to meet mine again.

“Thanks,” I said to her, feeling relieved myself.

She knelt down in front of me again and took hold of the gauze I was pressing to my stomach, lifting it a little to check if I’d stopped bleeding.

“You know she’ll find out eventually,” she told me, swapping the used gauze for a clean one.

“Not necessarily. I just… have to act normal.”

“Knight, people don’t usually come out of lopsided gunfights unscathed.”

“Not usually.”

“Is it really worth all this trouble keeping your injuries a secret from Genel?” Christina looked genuinely curious.

“Yes,” I replied stiffly, “Last thing I need is another outburst.”

“That’s because your plan was crazy.”

“I gathered as much from Genel, thanks.”

“Why go to such extremes, Knight?”

Christina’s eyes stayed locked on to mine, her curiosity seeming to mount.

“If it were up to me… I’d never have agreed to your part of the plan,” she continued.

“But it wasn’t up to you, Christina. Besides… we had to get all those civilians out.”

She tilted her head minutely, her lips pursing tightly. The stare she gave me made me feel mildly uncomfortable, so I looked at the table instead.

“It’s part of our mission. I’m just doing my job, same as any of you,” I explained, hoping my XO would drop the questions soon. I didn’t want to deal with an interrogation from her, either.

To my surprise, I caught her smiling a little, which made me glance at her again.

“What?” I demanded.

She shook her head, trying to moderate that smile. “Nothing. Just remembering something Genel told me about you during my first day on the team.”

“About me?”

“Yup.”

“What was it?”

Christina paused to give me a dubious look. “Do you really want to know?”

I caught myself before speaking again. This was starting to get personal again. “No… not really. She can say whatever she wants.”

She chuckled discreetly, further surprising me with the noise I’d never heard from her mouth before.

“She told me you were a good guy.”

I inhaled sharply, setting my gaze on the door of the conference room. “I’m just doing my job.”

“I know.” She replied a bit too immediately, as if she didn’t even listen to me. “I’m just saying what she told me back then.”

“Right,” I said, thinking it best to get the first aid over with. “Can you hurry up with the dressing? I’m bound to arrive from the hospital any minute now.”

“Sure,” Christina replied, her voice sounding light and her tone seeming to hum somehow. Her small smile lingered on her face as she rechecked my last wound, then began to disinfect it and apply antibiotic cream.

Odd time to be smiling. Wasn’t she all business just moments ago?

“Hey, can I ask one more thing?” she asked as I was staring off into space.

“What?”

I felt a finger tap my left wrist twice gently. I looked down at Christina, who was looking down at the braided cord wrapped around my wrist.

“I noticed you wear this bracelet all the time,” she said nonchalantly, though I knew she was more curious than she tried to sound. “Is there a meaning to it?”

That question alone sent minor ripples of nausea throughout my body. My head suddenly felt a bit lighter.

Keep it together. It’s a normal enough question.

“You noticed?” I repeated, raising my eyebrows at her. How could she have noticed that? I wore long sleeves all the time.

Christina looked up at my face again and nodded. “I did. Err. It’s just… you know, colourful and all. And, well—”

She trailed off, but I could fill in the blanks from there. She thought ‘colours’ weren’t in my wardrobe’s vocabulary. Made sense, since I favoured dark clothing.

For a moment, I couldn’t decide what to say.

While waiting for me to elaborate on the cord, Christina wrapped my wound in bandages and eventually finished her task of patching me up. When she was done, she sat in the chair in front of me and gave me a slightly expectant look.

I gave a tired sigh. “A friend of mine—”

I hesitated. My throat suddenly felt like it was collapsing on itself. I put my slightly trembling right hand loosely around my neck, barely aware I was doing it. Breathing in through my mouth, I looked away from Christina and shut my eyes tightly for a while.

A fleeting wave of vertigo swept me, momentarily threatening to tip me out my seat. My stomach churned. My heart drummed loudly in my ears.

Inhale, count to two. Exhale. Inhale, count to two. Exhale. Inhale…

A warm hand perched on top of my knee, prompting me to open my eyes again. I half expected to find myself in that same brightly lit street again, or looking up at the tiny pinpricks of stars against a pitch black canvas, but I wasn’t there this once.

All I saw was a girl with rose pink hair leaning in toward me, her lips shaped into a thoughtful frown and her auburn eyes staring into mine as if they wanted in on what was on my mind. Her hand slowly slid off my knee.

“You look sick all of a sudden. Are you all right?” Christina asked me, her tone soft and comforting.

“I’m fine… I’m just hungry.”

The medic leaned back in her chair. “You didn’t eat before the op?”

“Not a lot. I didn’t want a full stomach slowing me down.”

Christina made a face that suggested her doubt about my admittedly crappy excuse, but she thankfully didn’t press me on my momentary weakness.

“Well… okay. In any case, you’re good to get dressed. I’d suggest not making any big, sudden movements. The stab wound wasn’t too deep and I don’t think the knife got any of your internal organs, but you’d rather not start bleeding again,” she told me as she put away her medical supplies and slung her backpack across her body again.

“Right. And… thanks.”

I put on my clothes, vest, and windbreaker again. If I acted normal enough, Genel might not notice the gaps in the vest… or the bullet hole in the back of my coat.

Christina waited for me to get dressed and pull on my backpack before she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

I walked up behind her, finding it easy enough to walk normally. She glanced at me, the light in her eyes gleaming again.

“One last thing. It’s… not really a big deal objectively, but it is to me.”

“What?”

“Those prisoners we rescued back there. Two of them were girls who were with me at the Stampede.”

I blinked, prompting Christina to smile a little again. It was strange seeing her exhibit this much by way of positive emotions, but it wasn’t unpleasant to see.

“I see,” I told her, uncertain of why she was bringing it up.

“I still think what you did was reckless,” she said steadily, though she didn’t sound condemnatory at all. “But… I guess what I’m trying to say is… umm. Thanks, Knight.”

I stared at her, watching that tiny smile on her lips for a second or two.

“Honestly didn’t know who was there,” I replied with a small shrug. “So no need for thanks.”

Christina nodded, choosing not to respond. Instead, she made her way to the other side of the rec centre with me close behind.