Chapter 2 - Room 508
Every ICU on earth smells the same. Bleach, antiseptic, and under it, faint and constant, the smell of people being afraid.
I came down the hallway still in tactical pants and a black fleece, boots loud on the polished floor. Nurses and orderlies drifted out of my path without being asked. They didn't know my name. People just know, on some animal level, when something dangerous has walked into the building.
Room 508.
Through the glass, Marin didn't look like Marin. She looked small and broken, buried under machines, her skin gone the color of paper against the sheets. A ventilator pushed air into her in slow mechanical sighs. That sound was the only reason I knew she was still here.
The doctor came up beside me. Tired eyes. Couldn't hold my stare.
"Captain Hale. I'm very sorry." He turned his clipboard over and over in his hands. "She has multiple fractures to both forearms — defensive injuries. Significant internal bleeding. We had to go in fast." He stopped. Swallowed. "We weren't able to save the pregnancy. The trauma to her abdomen was too severe. I'm so sorry."
My child. Gone before a first breath.
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I didn't shout. I didn't drop to my knees. The soldier in me stepped forward and shut a heavy door on everything else, the way you learn to when feeling something at the wrong moment gets people killed.
I turned away from the glass, and my face was nothing at all.
