Page 17 of Freedom Fighters
His vitriol sparked her own anger. Guilt pushed her into firing back. “I wanted to know how you live with yourself, Garrett. How can you practice medicine all night, save lives and ease suffering? How do you even live with the knowledge that every day you’re out there, a gun in your hand,breaking your Hippocratic Oath?”
“You’re fucking kidding me!” he cried. “You’re losing sleep overmyethics?”
She bit her lip. She had braced herself for anger. This white hot fury was more than she had expected. “Look, Garrett—”
“No,youlisten,” he snapped. “Stay out of my life. Do what you’re told. Be a good soldier or get the fuck out of my camp. Got it?”
She trembled. It would be mucheasier just to say ‘yes’.
Instead, she swallowed and made herself speak the truth. “You shouldn’t be fighting.”
A vein throbbed in his temple and his jaw rippled. His gaze wouldn’t let her go. His eyes were stormy with anger and a whole slew of emotions she couldn’t name. Why had she ever thought him to be cold and emotionless?
“I don’t understand,” she added. “You’re a smart man. You’ve gota heart. You feel. How do you live with yourself when you’re killing people like you do?”
He gave her a smile that had no humor in it. “It’s called prophylactic medicine, Escobedo. Look it up on your precious computer, if you don’t know what that means.” He shoved the laptop into her hands.
Carmen watched him stride back to the door that led to the hospital rooms. Her trembling grew worse nowit was over. She sank onto her sleeping bag, not meeting anyone’s gaze, for everyone in the refectory watched her. She didn’t open the laptop again. Instead, she rested her hand on the cover.
She knew what prophylactic medicine meant. It was preventative medicine. Garrett justified how he spent his days by telling himself he was preventing needless deaths of Loyalists at the hands of the Insurrectos.
It was such a weak argument. Did Garrett cling to it because hewantedto fight?
Her hand on the laptop reminded her of theTimesarticle.
Perhaps he did want to fight, after all.
