Page 89 of Under Fire

“Engage! Engage!”

Warren didn’t expect the body armor and repositioned to get the guy’s head. But the guy turned slightly, and Warren missed his first shot.

“Fuck,” Warren grunted and immediately refocused, taking a second shot. “Shit!”

The second shot hit—the target’s head spun and hit the ground. Warren observed splatter against the wall of the building and pavement. But then he realized—his first shot had landed.

The kid… The kid chasing the ball. She was lying on the ground, covered in blood.

He’d just fucking killed a kid.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Warren said, thrust into emergency mode.

Grabbing his rifle, moving as fast as he fucking could down the outer stairs of the building, he lunged toward the front of the building, finding his team already storming it.

Warren saw his body moving toward the kid who was bleeding out on the ground. He saw the bright red blood. He was kneeling down. He was over the kid. He was trying to stop the bleeding. He was huddled over, holding her tight to his chest, exposing his back completely as his plates rode upward. Yelling out over the explosives and gunshots, he couldn’t admit he’d already lost her. He didn’t want to tell himself the truth. Her mother was screaming. Geoff was yelling into his ear to get the fuck out. Bullets were raining down on him, hitting him in the helmet and hitting the kid’s body in his arms.

He was hyperventilating. He’d just fucking killed a little girl. Nothing else mattered, and his mind disconnected from the war zone he was in the center of.

“No!” he yelled out at the street, that same cold feeling running down his cheek. “Fuck!”

Then he felt a painful slash up his back—way underneath his plated armor. He choked, unable to breathe. An enemy had taken advantage of his vulnerability, sending a hunter’s blade so damn deep into his flesh that he’d undoubtedly caught organs. Coughing out, Warren’s grip tightened on the little Iraqi girl, as if they could die together—as if he could always be there for her, as if she wouldn’t have to die alone on the side of a shitty, blown-out street in Iraq.

Then everything went black.

Warren prayed he’d died.

He prayed that he could take her place—and that she could live.

But he woke up empty—his arms as empty as his heart—in a hospital bed. He woke up to the sounds of a woman’s voice, coaxing him out of it.

“What’s going on in here?” He heard a familiar feminine voice echoing through the room, drawing him out of whatever state he was in.

Lying on his side in a hospital bed, holding nothing to his chest, he looked over his shoulder, immediately shocked to see Alisa standing there, sporting green scrubs and a high ponytail. A badge on her shirt read ‘Student’. He lay there, stunned.What the fuck is going on?

“Holy shit,” Alisa said, seeming to realize who the real patient was.

Alisa maintained a chilling presence. Professional, confident. It’s not that the nurses weren’t, but something about Alisa was markedly different. As she called over to the nurses, he heard her being told that Brooke was holding Katy in an adjacent room. Then, Alisa focused only on him—her patient.

He felt every ounce of oxygen get sucked out of his chest, like the room had turned into a vacuum. He was darting his eyes back and forth between Alisa and the nurses moving into the hall, and the moment became so goddamn surreal that he questioned his lucidity.

Is any of this even real?

As Alisa checked him over in the hospital bed, Warren edged himself up, leaning on his elbow.

“We need to check her oxygen level,” he slurred, watching Brooke holding Katy in the next bed. “Is she breathing all right? I can’t find blood on her head—”

Alisa cut him off. “Just let us handle this.”

She flashed a warning to him.

His cell vibrated again and again in his pocket, warning him that something was going down. His time was almost up. He had to get back.

“Look… With all due respect—” he said, continuing to try to get up.

“No.” Alisa stood her ground, chopping him in the chest, pushing him back down. “I’m the medical professional, and you arenot. Lie the fuck down.”

But, as she pushed him back, that familiar slashing pain shot up his back, and he felt like he was going to pass out.

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