Page 43 of Echo: Line

Movement to my left. Another operator flanking. I swing my pistol, squeeze twice. Center mass. He goes down hard.

My heart pounds so loud I can barely hear. Cordite stings my nose. My mouth is dry as sand.

"Two more!" Alex fires controlled bursts, covering my sector while I reload. "Moving left?—"

Pain explodes across my shoulder.

Not a punch. A burn. Like someone pressed a branding iron to my skin and dragged it sideways. The world tilts. My pistol nearly drops.

I've been shot.

The thought registers with strange clarity. Not panic. Just recognition. I've crossed a line I can never uncross.

"Delaney!" Alex's voice carries something I've never heard from him. Raw. Stripped bare.

"I'm okay!" I force the words out. Keep my weapon up. Keep firing because stopping means dying. "Just grazed!"

The operator who shot me moves to better position. He's good—professional spacing, using cover effectively. He's lining up another shot.

Alex puts three rounds through the tree trunk the operator's hiding behind. The wood splinters. The rounds punch through. The man drops, weapon clattering.

Then Alex is on me. He grabs my shoulder, checking the wound with brutal efficiency that speaks to experience. His fingers probe the injury. I gasp, bite down on the sound.

"How bad?" My voice sounds distant.

"Graze. Deep but clean. Missed bone." He's still shaking. Actually shaking. First time I've seen his control crack. "Can you move?"

"Let's go."

Blood soaks through my sleeve, warm and sticky. The pain sharpens, going from burn to throb. But I can move my arm. Can grip my weapon. That's all that matters.

"Then we move now."

He pulls me up, arm around my waist. Takes most of my weight without breaking stride. We bolt into the forest.

The forest blurs. Pain finally registers—hot, sharp, wrong. My shoulder feels like someone held a lighter to it. But Alex keeps us moving, supporting me, never slowing.

We hit another creek bed. Follow it downstream. The sound of pursuit fades behind us.

Finally, Alex stops. Pulls us into heavy cover beneath a rock overhang. We collapse against stone, chests heaving.

He frames my face immediately, searching my eyes with an intensity that steals what little breath I have left.

"Are you hit anywhere else?"

"No. Just the shoulder."

"Let me see." His voice is rough, command stripped down to barely controlled fear.

He tears my sleeve without hesitation. The fabric gives with a sound like surrender. The wound is ugly—a furrow across the top of my shoulder where the bullet grazed muscle. Blood runs down my arm in rivulets, dripping off my elbow.

I watch his jaw clench so hard the muscle jumps. "I thought?—"

He can't finish. His hands are still shaking where they hover over the wound, like he wants to touch but knows it will hurt. Like he's afraid I'll break.

"I know," I say. "Me too."

We're both breathing too hard, adrenaline crash mixing with relief. His eyes meet mine and something in them makes my heart stutter for reasons that have nothing to do with being shot.