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“I’m fine,” I answered, smoothing her hair. My shirt was soaked through, but the bleeding from my stab wound had already slowed down. I didn’t think it hit anything vital. “Listen to me and rest, baby.”

Her eyes fell shut again, either because she heard me or because she couldn’t help it.

We got back to the White Rose garrison in one piece, mostly because the truck we were riding in was less a vehicle and more a piece of armour on wheels. We must’ve driven through skirmishes between the military and the Order because I heard gunshots and the ricochet of bullets off the truck, but nothing made it through. It was incredible.

There was a rush of activity at the approach of a Delta military truck. Luckily, though, when the guards saw me jump out the back, they held their fire.

“We’re here to help,” Hamilton called out. “I’ve been in contact with your leader, Ayanna.”

“We need a medic,” I said, and they noticed my blood-soaked shirt with alarm.

Hamilton and one of his crew wheeled Claire out on the stretcher, and they let us in. They led us to an empty warehouse that they used as a makeshift field hospital. Inside was chaos, with injured people everywhere, mostly lying on blankets on the floor. The few medics were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. It took me a minute to find Kimmy, who was finishing bandaging a nasty-looking head wound on a dizzy-looking civilian woman.

“We’re taking in civilians, too,” she said to me in a rush, “because the Order has blockaded the hospital. As if I didn’t have enough—”

She looked at me for the first time and her eyes narrowed on my bloody shirt. She snapped into action immediately.

“Where are you hit?” she asked, grabbing her scissors. “Are you still bleeding or has it slowed?”

“I can wait,” I said. “It’s just a stab wound. Claire—”

My throat clogged, but Kimmy’s eyes flew wide when she finally spotted Hamilton with the stretcher behind me. Again, though, she only took a second before she was striding over to the stretcher.

“Bring her over there,” she said to Hamilton, nodding at an open doorway a few paces away. It was storeroom they’d converted into an exam room.

We moved her, even as I still heard Claire struggling to breathe. Her breaths sounded like short, painful gasps for air.

“What happened?” Kimmy demanded as she cut loose Claire’s heavy black dress.

Claire was still drifting in and out of consciousness, so I gave her the fastest summary I could. Claire’s eyelids fluttered as Kimmy took her vitals, and she managed to stay awake enough for Kimmy to do a basic neurological exam.

“No obvious brain damage,” Kimmy told me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

It didn’t last long. As soon as I mentioned the weird sounds from Claire’s chest, Kimmy grabbed a stethoscope from a nearby table and jammed the earpieces into her ears. She took moved the stethoscope over Claire’s torso, listening intently.

“Claire,” Kimmy said, tapping her cheek. Claire’s eyelids fluttered again. “If you can, take a breath for me. As deep as you can.”

To my surprise, Claire was awake enough to follow. When Kimmy frowned, my worst fear was confirmed: something was deeply wrong.

“Breathe in for me again,” Kimmy said. Claire inhaled with a groan of pain, and Kimmy’s frown deepened. She lowered the stethoscope, biting her lip.

“Your left lung has collapsed,” she said, and my stomach dropped. “There’s no entrance wound, so my guess is that one of your broken ribs punctured it. That’s why you’re having trouble breathing.”

“Hurts bad,” Claire mumbled, confirming. “Every time I breathe.”

Kimmy chewed her lip, looking worried, and that scared the hell out of me. I’d seen her look cool as a cucumber in many medical crises. If she was worried, it was fucking bad.

“John,” Kimmy said, gesturing for us to go outside.

I followed her out of the room, out of Claire’s earshot.

“How bad is it?” I asked in a low voice.

Kimmy sighed. “Bad. The crackling sound when she breathes is probably blood and fluid trapped around her injured lung. The puncture in the lung itself is likely minor and will heal on its own, given enough time. The time part is the problem.”

“How do you know?”

She bit her lip. “Because if it was severe, she’d already be dead from internal bleeding.”