I should go straight to Brenna.
The thought is clean. Sensible. Correct.
But if I report this now, the only answer will be more containment. More bodies at the door. More fear in the room. And fear is what makes him fight. I saw that yesterday. I felt his hand open when I asked gently, saw his eyes track the syringeand choose not to lunge. He let me inject him, knowing what it meant.
That matters.
It has to matter.
Reporting also means explaining the first surfacing. Explaining the first surfacing means Brenna asking questions that lead to the bruises under my sleeve and the reason I didn’t call for help when I should have.
That matters too.
One more cycle.
My hand is already reaching for the journal when Cameron appears in the doorframe.
“Sable. We need you.”
“What happened?”
“Tomas. He can’t get a full breath.”
I’m moving before he finishes. Out the door, locking it behind me, following Cameron down the corridor to the recovery rooms. The key goes into my pocket. The journal stays on the table beside the cot.
Tomas is sitting upright, one hand braced against the wall, his chest working too fast and too shallow. His lips have a blue tinge. The sound of his breathing fills the small room, a thin, whistling pull that I can hear from the doorway.
I drop my kit on the table and move to his side. “Easy. Look at me.”
He does. His eyes are wide, his nostrils flared.
“Count with me. In for four. Out for six. Ready?”
He nods. I count. He follows, and slowly—too slowly—his breathing deepens, and the blue fades from his mouth. I keep my hand on his shoulder the whole time, feeling the muscles unlock one by one as his body remembers how to do this on its own.
It takes twenty minutes to get him stable. Another ten to check his ribs, his lungs, his oxygen. The drugs they pumped into himat the facility are still in his system, still settling into places they shouldn’t be, and his lungs are taking the worst of it. By the time I’m satisfied he’s not going to collapse, twilight is settling in.
“Stay with him,” I tell Cameron. “If his breathing changes, come find me.”
Cameron nods.
I gather my supplies and head back toward the locked room. The corridor is quiet. The compound has settled into the lull between afternoon work and dinner—footsteps in the yard, the distant sound of water being drawn, parents calling their children in.
I’m halfway back to his corridor when I hear it.
Wood splintering. Low. Controlled. The sound of a door frame giving way under pressure that didn’t stop.
Shit!
I run.
Not fast enough.
The door is open.
Not kicked in.
The frame around the lock has cracked clean through, the wood split in a long vertical line where pressure found the weakest point and kept going. Splinters on the floorboards. The lock still in one piece, still turned, hanging uselessly in the broken jamb.
