Page 13 of Shielding Instinct

Petra, without any context to rest a thought on, was lost. “What?”

“Are you wearing a medical alert bracelet or necklace?” The attendant asked and, from her crouch, held her hand in the air, making some kind of signal.

Just waking up from a deep, medicated sleep, Petra was confused at that moment. As was sometimes the case under stress, there was a lag as Petra processed the words. She knew each word as an individual word. Her brain was slow in lining them up to form a meaning.

Maybe they thought that her grogginess from the meds was in some way concerning.

Petra scanned down her body. She wasn’t leaking anything from anywhere—no drool or snot. No blood. Why would they think she was having a medical emergency?

She looked at Hawkeye blankly as her mind raced, searching for a reason that explained his shift to professional calm. Professional calm was a different beast than regular calm. It had an accent of hyperawareness, a priming of the body that—while held loose and comfortable so as not to expend preciousenergy until it was needed—was still ready to dive off the X. She’d seen it in theater with the soldiers all the time.

And it usually signaled something very bad on the horizon.

Another attendant arrived with a medical kit, setting it down by Hawkeye’s booted feet, then leaned in to see what was going on. “Oh!” She sipped the word into her body with surprise.

Not helpful. Not informative. But obviously, all three of the people crowding around her agreed that something was wrong with her.

Petra felt fine.

Normal.

And also scared.

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Petra whispered.

Hawkeye pulled his phone from a thigh pocket and opened the camera app. He held it up to her face. “I’m concerned about your pupil,” he explained.

Well, lo and behold, what in theactual hellwas going on with her eye?

“You’re a doctor?” the attendant asked.

“I was trained as a medic in the military,” Hawkeye replied as he unzipped his thigh pocket and pulled out a first-aid kit.

“Flight attendants, take your seats for approach,” the pilot said over the intercom.

Petra kept staring into the camera. One eye looked perfectly normal. In the other eye, her iris was hidden behind her pupil. Her pupil had never been this large before, and the difference from right side to left had to be significant. Frightening.

Hawkeye pulled a penlight from his medical kit and held it up, asking for her permission.

“Sure,” she said on an exhale.

Flicking the light across her right eye and then her left, he announced, “Unilateral pupillary responsiveness.” He turned tocatch the attendant’s gaze. “I think we need to treat this as a medical emergency. Could you let the pilot know?”

The standing attendant took off toward the front of the plane.

“Do you have a history of strokes?” Hawkeye asked.

“Strokes?” Was that what this was? Is this how it felt to have a stroke? Because Petra felt fine?

“Could you smile for me?” This time, with context, Petra understood that Hawkeye wasn’t a cad but someone moving through stroke protocol FAST – face, arms, speech, time.

This time, she did as was asked.

“Beautiful. Nice and even. Okay, scrunch up your face like the worst sour thing you ever ate. Okay, good. Grab my hands and squeeze. Pull me. Push me. You’re very strong.”

“Yes,” she whispered. Should she tell them that her arm had gone numb? It was mostly back to normal. Still a little tingly, but her fingers were warmer.

“Bilateral strength,” he said.

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