Page 34 of Echo: Burn
"Rourke's taking your truck back to base," I say as we pull away from the clinic. "We can't leave it here for the police to process."
"Good thinking."
The silence stretches. I keep one hand on the wheel, the other on my comm, but what I want is to reach over and touch her. To prove she's alive and whole and here beside me.
Keep it professional. Keep her at arm's length.
"You did good," I say finally. "Kept him talking. Bought us time to position."
"I froze. When he grabbed me, I just froze."
"You followed orders. Dropped when I told you to." My jaw tightens. "That's what kept you alive."
She doesn't respond. Just stares out the window at the forest sliding past, processing trauma in whatever way her doctor's brain handles it.
By the time we reach Echo Base, she's stopped shaking. Tommy reports that Cray's stable, Khalid watching him in the med bay. Sarah's monitoring vitals.
"I need you to look at his wounds," I tell Willa. "Make sure he stays alive long enough to talk."
"I'm a veterinarian...”
"You trained as a trauma nurse." I meet her eyes. "I need that training now, Willa. Can you do this?"
I watch the conflict play across her face. The doctor who took an oath to save lives versus the woman who almost died because of this man. For a long moment, I think she'll refuse.
Then: "Show me the med bay."
Two hours later, she strips off bloody gloves. Cray's stable, wounds cleaned and dressed, vitals holding steady. She saved the man who tried to kill her because that's who she is at her core—someone who saves lives, even when those lives don't deserve saving.
"Nice work, Doc."
"Don't call me that right now." Exhaustion crashes over her features. "I just saved the man who tried to kill me. I don't feel good about it."
"You weren't supposed to feel good about it." I move closer, close enough to smell antiseptic and blood on her clothes. "You were supposed to do what needed doing. And you did."
"Before I put him under, he kept talking… about Jack. About Chicago. About everything I ran from." Her voice cracks. "How did he know that?”
“Cray is very thorough, he would have done his homework.”
“Does the Committee know?”
I nod. “Probably…”
“Shit. How long before they use all of that against me?"
"They won't." My hand finds her shoulder automatically. "We'll make sure of it."
"You can't promise that."
"No." Honesty is all I have to give her. "But I can promise I'll do everything in my power to keep you safe. That has to be enough."
She looks up at me, and I see the fear in her eyes. The exhaustion. The weight of everything she's survived in the past three days. I want to take that weight from her. Want to carry it myself. Want to be the shield that stands between her and every threat.
But I can't. All I can do is be here.
"I'm tired," she says. "So damn tired of running. Of being scared. Of waiting for the next attack."
"I know." My thumb traces small circles on her shoulder—probably unprofessional, definitely crossing lines I swore I wouldn't cross. "Come on. You need rest."
