The next hour tested everyone’s limits. Radio chatter was constant, updates coming in from all three shelter locations, weather conditions deteriorating further, and reports of minor flooding in several low-lying areas. Sable coordinated everything with the same calm authority she’d shown all day, but I could see the exhaustion starting to show. Her movements were slightly less sharp, her responses taking a fraction of a second longer.
She needed rest. Needed food. Needed someone to make her stop pushing herself past reasonable limits.
At nineteen thirty, during a brief lull in radio traffic, I moved to her station.
“When did you last eat?”
She glanced up, distracted. “What?”
“Food. When did you last have actual food, not a protein bar Beau left on your desk six hours ago?”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
She gave me a look that would have made lesser men back down. I held her gaze, waiting.
“This morning,” she finally admitted. “Breakfast. I had breakfast.”
“That was twelve hours ago.”
“I’m aware of how time works, Dane.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled. Even exhausted and running on empty, she had attitude. It was one of the things I admired about her.
“You need fuel,” I said. “You can’t coordinate effectively if your blood sugar drops.”
“I said I’m fine.”
I pulled out my phone and sent a quick message to the group text with Beau and Silas.She hasn’t eaten since breakfast. Twelve hours.
Beau’s response came immediately.Make her eat something.
Silas’s reply was more colorful.Boss lady gets mean when her blood sugar drops. Feed her before she snaps at someone who doesn’t deserve it.
I showed her the messages.
Sable stared at my phone, then at me, and something shifted in her expression. Not anger. Something softer. More vulnerable.
“You three have a group text about looking after me?”
“We have a group text for emergency coordination,” I corrected. “You happen to be the subject of coordination sometimes.”
“That’s not better.”
“Maybe not. But it means you have three people watching your six. Making sure you’re okay even when you’re too busy taking care of everyone else to take care of yourself.”
She was quiet for a long moment, and I could see her processing that. The fact that we cared. That we’d formed a unit around her without asking permission. That we weren’t going away.
“There’s soup in the break room,” I said quietly. “Thermos that someone brought. It’s still hot. Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Five minutes during an active emergency response.”
“Five minutes so you don’t collapse when we need you most.”
She held my gaze, and I let her see what I was feeling. The concern. The protectiveness. The absolute certainty that her wellbeing mattered to me more than anything else happening inside or outside this building tonight.
Finally, she nodded. “Five minutes.”
