“How long have you felt cold?” I asked.
He blinked at me, lashes dark against his skin. “I spread out on the ice.”
I straightened slightly and signaled to the equipment staff. “Get warming blankets,” I said. “Now.” I turned back to him, forcing my voice to stay even. “Taranis, I need you to tell me if you’re feeling sleepy.”
“Taz, Doc, and I’m fine,” he said again—and then added, almost jokingly, “You’re very serious.”
I stared at him. “You’re hypothermic,” I said, because once I had the data, there was no point softening it. “Your temperature is well below normal. That shouldn’t be possible this soon, not in this environment.”
He exhaled slowly, breath fogging again. “Ah.”
That single sound did more to unnerve me than panic would have. The blankets arrived, and I wrapped them around his shoulders and torso, firm but careful. His skin felt like winter under my hands. Deep winter. The kind that sank into bone.
“You need to warm up,” I said. “We’re going to—”
“Not too fast,” he interrupted. I knew that, but I wanted to know his reason. “Because it’ll hurt,” he said mildly.
He wasn’t even afraid. He was… managing something. I adjusted my approach without quite knowing why. Lowered my voice. Slowed my movements. “You want to tell me what’s happening?”
He studied my face for a long moment. Then, quietly, “My body does weird shit when I’m hurt.”
I should have pushed. Should have demanded answers. Should have escalated immediately. Instead, I found myself adjusting the blankets, monitoring his breathing, recalculating rewarming protocols on the fly—because whatever this was, shocking him into warmth was dangerous.
And beneath it all, another, deeply inconvenient awareness surfaced:
He was watching my hands. Watching my face. Every second of my attention.
“Focus,” I muttered, more to myself than him.
“I am,” he said softly.
I shot him a look. I adjusted the blankets unnecessarily, watching his chest rise and fall, counting breaths without meaning to. His temperature was still too low, but heating pads could interfere with his heart. "I should call an ambulance."
He shook his head. "I wouldn't go."
His pulse was still slower than it should’ve been. Nothing about this lined up the way it was supposed to. I ran through possibilities again—environmental exposure, shock, adrenaline crash—and discarded them just as quickly. The numbers didn’t support it. The timeline didn’t fit.
He shifted slightly beneath the blankets and winced slightly, just enough to remind me therewasan injury under all of this. “Stay still,” I said.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, solemnly.
I focused back on my work, grounding myself in routine. Monitor. Recheck. Breathe. Whatever was happening to him, Ididn’t understand it yet—but I understood enough to know I couldn’t treat it like anything else.
And until I did, I wasn’t taking my hands off him.
And somehow that thought didn’t make me run.
Chapter two
The Blue Line - The line marking entry into the offensive or defensive zone.
Cinder
The apartment smelled like old radiator heat and someone else's cooking.
Not mine. I hadn't cooked properly in weeks. Maybe longer. The studio was so small that standing in the kitchen meant I was also standing in the living room, the bedroom, and most of the hallway. One room. One window above the sink that looked out onto a brick wall. One lock that stuck when I tried to turn it.
I dropped my bag by the door and stood there longer than I meant to, my hand still curled around the strap like I’d forgotten how to let go. The apartment was quiet. No monitors. No alarms.No thin, sharp sounds asking for attention. Just the low hum of the fridge and the weight of the day settling into my shoulders.