Page 92 of Under Fire

“Alisa, I get reminders. Your ring—a reminder. This scar—it’s a fucking reminder, too.”

“Of?”

“I shot a kid in Iraq,” he said, shaking his head. “I fucking killed her—”

But his voice seized, seemingly unable to continue.Is he choking?

Alisa stumbled backward, grabbing at the IV drip for stability. Though, being on wheels, it did not prove helpful. Her stomach turned, trying to understand what he’d just told her.

“Oh, fuck.”

He let out a long, haggard breath. She felt that.

“Katy’s dad—Geoff, he ran that op. He ordered me to take a shot. I shouldn’t have, but I did. A bullet went haywire. It was a goddamn accident, but I killed her.”

“God—” she started.

She locked eyes once again with Warren. That same look flushed over his face—the same pained look he’d given her before he’d walked away the night prior. And she knew—the weight he carried was far heavier than he’d ever let on.

“Geoff blamed himself.”

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“He killed himself”—Warren looked up at her, his face pale—“when we rotated home.”

She froze.

“You have survivor’s guilt,” she said.

“It’s not just that. It wasmyfault. Neither of them had to die.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Without a doubt,” he said, his expression unmoving.

She caught a feeling of the war fighter’s spirit, his hardened soul. A chill shot up her spine, giving her a shudder she couldn’t repress. She’d seen it in him before but never as pronounced. She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. This was a man who’d seen death like she’d never know, even as she worked in the ER. The difference between him and her was that she worked to prevent death, while he worked to cause it.

His jaw flexing, he narrowed his eyes, awaiting her response. She leaned back, trying to find a place for her hands.

Then a knock came at the door, and the nurse peered in. “Dr. Zucker wants to know if you are planning on looking at the girl after he is finished with her.”

“Yes—I’ll be right there,” Alisa responded.

Chapter Thirty-One

Warren

Warren lumbered out of the hospital bed, following Alisa into the adjacent space where Katy and Brooke were. He tried to relax, his mind racing with questions about what had just happened—and what Alisa was thinking. For the first time, Alisa was so damn cool that he was failing to read her as she jotted notes at Katy’s bedside.

Brooke nodded to him that she needed to go deal with the front desk for the insurance. She was asking him to watch Katy in her absence. He stood over the bed, taking a deep breath while Katy fiddled with the TV remote for cartoons.

He took the brief moment to slide his cell out of his pocket, seeing all of the messages he’d missed. Not only had nearly every guy on his team sent him something, but he had a whack of missed calls, most from the master chief. It had been well over an hour, and he was late to return to the tarmac. They all thought he was dead, clearly. He quickly fired off a message to his boss, letting him know he was alive, and fingered through the words received from the guys. What shocked him was the level of support. Guys weren’t pissed he’d bailed. They were genuinely concerned about his well-being.

A man who introduced himself as Dr. Zucker waltzed in, rubbing hand-sanitizer all over his hands. He motioned at Alisa to have Katy sit up on the bed.

Warren reached down to hold Katy’s hand, helping her, reassuring her, but he was thwarted. Alisa stepped in between them, nodding to the chair beside the bed.

“You can sit there,” Alisa said.

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