Page 134 of Thorne
The rest of the team is arranged in the vehicle's tactical configuration. Fuse across from me, knees wide, hands loose on his weapon. Torque beside him, shoulder pressed to thereinforced wall, eyes closed but not sleeping. Halo in the jump seat near the partition, tablet balanced on his knee, fingers still moving across the screen even though the mission is over.
Whisper is on comms, voice low, coordinating with the secondary vehicle. Something about perimeter confirmation. I'm not tracking the words.
I'm tracking the rise and fall of her chest.
"Debrief." Ghost's voice comes through the partition. Low. Steady. The clinical anchor of a successful Tier-1 insertion. No drama. Just the after-action report.
I give him the facts. I keep my voice as flat as his. The halon dump. The breach. The completion of the ASHFALL handshake.
But then I stop.
I look at Julianna. Her eyes are closed under the fogged plastic of the oxygen mask. Her skin is still too pale. Her lips were blue when I brought her back. I watched the color return while I counted compressions.
I look at the men in the vehicle.
Ghost. Brass. Fuse. Halo. Torque. Whisper on comms.
The men who watched me aim a loaded weapon at her chest, what feels like a lifetime ago. The men who helped me keep her in a cage.
"There's more." My voice isn't flat anymore. Something has changed in it. Something heavy.
Ghost shifts. I see it in the rearview—his eyes finding mine in the dim tactical lighting of the cabin.
"Her mask shattered." The words feel like they're being pulled from somewhere deep. Marrow-deep.
"Debris from the ceiling. Pressure differential when the halon dumped. Her faceplate cracked, and the seal broke. She was breathing contaminated air before either of us registered the damage."
Fuse's hands go still on his weapon. Torque's eyes open.
"I gave her mine."
Silence. The kind that has weight.
"Figured I could hold my breath long enough for her to finish the upload. Ninety seconds. Maybe less. I've done breath holds under stress before."
I have. Underwater extraction training. Sensory deprivation exercises. The body can endure more than the mind believes.
But halon isn't water. And ninety seconds in an oxygen-depleted environment isn't a training exercise.
"I went under."
The admission costs something. I feel it leave.
"Blacked out on that concrete floor. Last thing I saw was her hands on the keyboard. Last thing I heard was the upload counter climbing."
Halo's tablet has gone dark. He's not looking at it anymore. He's looking at me.
The vehicle hums. The road stretches. Nobody speaks.
I keep my voice level. Facts. Just facts. "She could have walked out of the server room. The corridor was clear. Extraction was waiting. She had maybe forty-five seconds of filtered air left in the mask."
I look at Fuse. Then Halo. Then Torque.
"She didn't."
Torque's jaw drops. I see it happen. The slow slide of comprehension.
"She put the mask—the only oxygen left in that room—back on my face." My voice drops. Rougher now. "And she used the last of her strength to restart my heart."
