“I’m a doctor. I know words. I know anatomy. I know the radius and the ulna and the...”
She trails off, staring at the blood.
“There’s a med kit in the glove box. Patch it up.”
She stares at the dashboard for a beat, processing the instruction. Then she reaches out. She fumbles for the latch with those trained surgeon’s hands, accustomed to digging bullets out of chests.
She opens it. The light spills out, illuminating her face. Ghost-pale. Dark circles bruising the skin under her eyes.
She pulls out the kit, a compact tactical blowout pouch. Not the Band-Aids-and-aspirin variety civilian cars have. This one carries tourniquets, clotting gauze, and chest seals. Tools for holes that shouldn’t exist.
She bypasses the trauma gear and finds a sterile wipe and a butterfly bandage.
She treats herself. She doesn’t ask for help. She doesn’t use the vanity mirror. She just rips the packet open with her teeth, cleans the wound with an efficient, brutal swipe that must sting like hell, and seals the cut.
The alignment is perfect. Even in shock, even in a car cruising at seventy on a mountain pass, her muscle memory holds.
Competence.
I respect competence. It’s the rarest currency in my world. Most people panic. Most people bleed and scream, effectively doing nothing but consuming oxygen. She bleeds and works.
She closes the kit and shoves it back.
“Why the mountains?”
Her voice sounds thinner now, the adrenaline reserves running on fumes.
“Altitude kills signal. And Mercer hates the cold.”
It’s only a partial lie.
She turns her head, resting her cheek against the cold glass of the window, watching me.
“You know him.”
“I know his type.”
“He called me a ‘loose end.’”
“In his ledger, you’re an unbalanced equation.”
“No.” She shakes her head, a slight movement. “You knew his name before I said it. You know how he works.”
Her gaze tracks the scar on my neck, visible in the dashboard glow.
I don’t answer. I grip the wheel tighter, the leather creaking.
She’s smarter than Hutchinson gave her credit for. Bleeding heart doesn’t mean blind. She recognizes the patterns. The logic in the violence.
“Does it matter?”
I deflect, keeping my gaze forward.
“It matters if you’re working for the same people.”
“If I were working for them, you’d be dead in that garage. I’m better than them.”
“Maybe you’re just the second phase. The extraction team.”
