Page 50 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“Bind his hands. Use his belt if you have to.”

Together we secured the prisoner, and I finally allowed myself to feel the damage. My ribs ached with every breath. Blood trickled from somewhere on my forehead, warm against the cold. When I touched it, my fingers came away red.

“You're hurt,” Whitmore said.

“I'll live. Get him to Finch. Tell him we've got a saboteur. I want to know who he is and who sent him before the hour's out.”

“What about you?”

“I said I'll live.” I wiped blood from my eyes. “Go. Now.”

Whitmore hauled the prisoner to his feet and marched him toward the main buildings. I stayed where I was for a moment, catching my breath, cataloguing injuries. Bruised ribs, probably. Split skin on my forehead from hitting the ground. Nothing serious. Nothing that would stop me from completing the mission.

But the adrenaline was fading, and in its wake came the shakes. The familiar trembling that meant my body was processing what had just happened, what could have happened, how close I'd come to something worse.

I made myself move. One foot in front of the other. Back toward the main grounds, toward the medical hut where someone could patch up my head, toward the normal routine that would keep me functional until I could fall apart in private.

The medical hut was mercifully quiet. Dr Hart took one look at me and pointed to the examination table without a word. I sat while she cleaned the cut on my forehead, her hands efficient and impersonal.

“You'll need stitches,” she said. “Hold still.”

I held still. The needle bit into my skin, a sharp pain that was almost welcome after the dull ache of everything else.

“The saboteur,” she said as she worked. “I heard. Whitmore brought him past on the way to Finch's office.”

“Word travels fast.”

“It's a small estate.” She tied off a stitch, started another. “You did well. Could have been much worse if he'd got through the fence.”

“Could have been much worse if he'd been better with that knife.”

“But he wasn't. And you were better.” She finished the last stitch and stepped back, examining her work. “You'll have a scar. Nothing dramatic, just a thin line. The ladies will think it dashing.”

“I'll try to contain my excitement.”

She almost smiled. “Rest tonight. That's an order, not a suggestion. Your ribs are bruised, not broken, but they'll hurt worse tomorrow. Come back if the headache gets severe or your vision blurs.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

I left the medical hut feeling marginally more human and significantly more tired. The adrenaline crash was hitting properly now, that bone-deep exhaustion that came after violence, after the body remembered it was mortal and didn't much like the reminder.

I should have gone to my billet. Should have followed Dr Hart's orders and rested, let the day's events settle into memory where they could be processed and filed away.

Instead, I found myself walking toward Hut X.

Not to see Art. Not exactly. But the hut was on my patrol route, and checking in after an incident was standard procedure, and if I happened to see him through the window, happened to confirm he was safe and working and unaware of how close danger had come to the fence line, that was just professional diligence.

Lies I told myself. Comfortable, necessary lies.

I was halfway there when I heard voices. Female, animated, coming from the side of the hut where a small bench had been set up for smoke breaks. I slowed, not wanting to intrude, but curiosity got the better of me.

Ruth and Noor sat on the bench, wrapped in coats and scarves against the cold. Noor's breath came in small white clouds as she laughed at something, her dark eyes bright with amusement. Ruth looked less amused, her angular features set in an expression I was beginning to recognise as her default state of maternal disapproval.

And between them, looking distinctly uncomfortable, sat Art.

“You cannot keep skipping meals,” Ruth was saying. “I have watched you work through three shifts on nothing but tea and biscuits. This is not sustainable.”

“I ate breakfast,” Art protested.