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A healer was a master of compartmentalizing, after all. Therefore, it was all I could do to just treat one soldier at a time, then move on. They were all counting on me, so how could I let a little exhaustion get in the way of me helping them? Saving them?
I pushed myself, going further than I knew I should, and then I pushed even more. I was barely aware of who it was that I was working on now, and I didn’t want to know. I didn't allow myself to think about who I knew they were friends with, their history, the kind words we might have exchanged. Perhaps it was wrong for me to depersonalize them, but it helped me move more quickly and efficiently.
Without all that other chatter in my conscious thoughts, I could concentrate on their pulse, on their nerve-endings, and how quickly their wounds were closing up. Butgoodness, the more time passed, the more aware I became of how I was already so depleted. I felt so far beyond my energy reserves, like I wasdipping down into the well of magic within me and coming up with ash.
Nevertheless, I still somehow managed to summon the strength to take one more patient. Help one more wounded.
Just one more.
Justonemore.
That was the mantra that kept me going, and I clung to it with all I could, not wanting to let a single person down, not wanting any loving family or friends at home getting a letter that they were never going to see their soldier again.
There were, of course, dead bodies. They surrounded me with a frequency I absolutely hated. I knew they were a reality of war, that death was the ultimate and heaviest price tag for such battles, but that didn’t mean I had tolikeit.
My main strategy wasn't to look at the faces, only to note the lack of a pulse and move on. As impossible as a task that was, I did my best.
It was strange how I often felt alienated from the rest of the fort, locked away by my own insistence on being a hermit, and yet I still recognized a good number of the wounded and fallen. At least I would have if I let myself. Every now and then I'd feel myself slip, but then I’d shut that down as hard as I could.
One thing I did allow myself to notice, however, was that a not insignificant number of the bodies were from enemy forces. Those that weren’t… well, I tried not to think about them. I just needed to last until the attack ended, or at least was on the decline, and surely that would be after the next person. Or maybe the next.Or maybe the next one. The next one definitely had to be it.
I felt mechanical, working with factory-level stamina, but I still tried to be warm to my patients, or as warm as I could be considering the circumstances. I uttered comforting words, I gave them assurances, I told them with a calm and soft voicewhat I was doing before I did it, yet, despite all of that, I felt utterly separate from myself.
It was like everything that made me Ayla was below the surface, locked into an area of my mind that wasn’t important, and all that was left was my knowledge and healing abilities. They didn’t need me to beme, they just needed me to keep going.
So I did… until I felt something blazing across my senses so intensely, I nearly thought I was being attacked. It surged, it burned, and it crackled like lightning across all my senses.
What the fuck?
The wolf in me surged, as if pulling against the invisible chains of my consciousness, her howl joining with another I couldn’t quite hear with my ears as much asfeelwith my soul. It was a truly harrowing sound, rife with pure agony and anguish.
My breath left me like it was stolen by a cold, unforgiving hand. What was happening?What was happening?
I gasped, falling to my knees, trying desperately to process what was happening to me.
No, not to me.
ToKai.
I fought a ripple that threatened to overtake my spinal column and turn me into a shambling collection of disconnected bones. So much was assaulting my mind and body all at once, like I was being drawn and quartered by my own instincts.
The wolf in me was trying to force a shift, to explode into fury and vengeance, to join her true mate's side. I fought her as she tried to overpower me, having long experienced how to stop a forced shift. They weren’t the worst things in the world, but they were incredibly painful and put instinct over intellect. My wolf and I were best when we worked in tandem with each other, not with her running around uncontrolled and hopped up on adrenaline.
I clenched my fists, doubling over, praying no one near me could see what was happening and come to their own conclusions.
“Healer Everton?”
Damn it, my escort.
Somehow in the deluge rushing through my head, I’d forgotten about the three soldiers left in my party. I’d been separated from Darla several patients ago, with her taking half of our guard, and I’d also hemorrhaged at least one of my escort each time I needed them to guide a patient to the infirmary and to safety.
“I’m fine,” I managed to croak out.
“No, you’re clearly not. Let me get you to—”
Suddenly explosions sounded all around us, the ground between the vampire and me converting into a rain of dirt and debris. I used that moment to bolster myself and run, delving deeper into the battle.
“Everton? Healer Everton, where are you?”
