Page 109 of Knot Their Soldier: Part Three

A grin tugs at her mouth, and for a few seconds, she almost looks like herself again.

Almost.

The humor helps, but it doesn’t feel real. She’s joking so she doesn’t have to look at me and remember why she almost cried.

"Would you relax?" she says. "You’re making my images distort. Besides, you were in heat. Everyone knows you were getting railed."

Heat floods my face, and Shade’s thumb keeps moving slow and steady over my wrist.

Gray and black shapes ripple across the screen, meaningless to me. Everlyn checks one image, then moves on.

"What are you seeing?" I ask, because silence is starting to make me nervous.

What if she's right, and I came back all twisted up inside? What if I'm actually on a ticking clock and I'll drop dead soon?

"A patient who needs to stop talking so I can focus."

"Everlyn."

She exhales through her nose. "I’m seeing your liver. It appears to still be a liver, which is encouraging."

Shade’s mouth twitches.

Everlyn nudges the probe lower, and the joke fades from her face.

Her brows pull together, and her left hand moves over the controls, adjusting depth and angle. The image flickers, shifts, then steadies.

I stiffen. "What?"

She doesn’t answer.

"Ev?"

Her eyes flick between the screen and the placement of the probe. She leans closer, her mouth parting slightly as if she’s forgotten how to breathe.

Then she goes still.

The room seems to narrow around the sound of the machine.

Shade straightens at my side, his thumb stopping against my wrist. "Everlyn."

"Just tell me," I say, hearing the edge in my own voice. "If something’s wrong, just tell me."

"I didn’t say something is wrong." She freezes the image, measures, saves it, and then frowns. "Stay right there."

She sets down the probe and grabs her datapad, tapping my name into the search bar with quick, jerky movements.

Hundreds of test results fill the screen. Records from Barkrood over the years, and from my time here under General Stone's endless scrutiny.

Everlyn pulls up the oldest full medical workup. The date is stamped the same day I arrived at Barkrood base and claimed sanctuary.

Shade’s fingers twitch as if he wants to snatch the datapad from Everlyn's hands so he can see what she's staring at with such intensity.

Finally, Everlyn looks up at me.

"Woah, Sparks."

Shade’s gaze cuts between us, his nostrils flared with the frustration I can feel flooding down the bond. "Everlyn, what are you seeing?"