Wulf stepped between his commander and her, hands held in front of him as if prepared to fight.
Oh please, God, no. She flattened herself to the wall. Having a married officer and an enlisted man brawling over her would be the hottest gossip in ten deployment cycles.
Chris retreated and dug the heels of his palms into his eye sockets as if waking up. In front of her, Wulf’s shoulders relaxed.
“You’re toast, both of you.” Her inadequate threat was further weakened by her croak. Their combined stares didn’t help her recover, but after scrubbing her hand across her mouth where Chris had stifled her, she tried again. “Let me put it more clearly. You’re fucked. You better kill me and clean it up extremely well, because in three minutes I’m calling a lawyer at JAG and reporting you.” She glared while she massaged her shoulder. “For assault.”
“Wulf hasn’t done anything wrong. Just me. I’m sorry. I’m really—shit.” Chris grabbed his head. “I don’t know. Everything went red. Oh God, I’m sorry, Doc.” He seemed as genuinely horrified as the surgical nurse Theresa had known during her residency who’d neglected to count used clamps until after the appendectomy had been closed.
The weight of his career hung between them.
“I know it’s no excuse. I should never have grabbed you, never. But it feels like I haven’t breathed since everything went down today. I’m sorry.”
The fact that Chris was apologizing instead of threatening her went a long way toward making her decision. “Leave,” she ordered. “Just leave me alone.”
“I screwed up.” He turned to Wulf. “Ninety minutes and ticking until your ride’s here. Make it count.” He stumbled around the corner.
Wulf remained. “Hey.” The shadows were too dark to decipher his expression, but that single syllable, spoken low and slow, carried a familiar warmth. “You didn’t eat before you ran out.” He held out an orange wrapped in a paper napkin. “Here.”
She ignored his offering. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” The hand with the orange fell to his side. “I’m fine. Isn’t that the problem?”
“I don’t mean...that.” She waved her hand in the air, uncertain how to describe what she’d seen in the helicopter. “I mean tonight. The sergeant watching me. You, following me. Chris, just now. What’s going on?”
“The captain’s handling a lot. I’ve never seen him flip like that, but he knows he made a huge mistake.” He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. “You do like oranges, don’t you?”
“Chris was bad cop and now you’re good cop?”
“Not at all.” There was enough light to see him dig a thumb into the fruit and pull off a chunk of peel. “You have a secret clearance? Standard for officers?”
“Uh-huh.” She licked her lips and tried not to watch his hands as he unveiled the orange’s flesh. The pith glowed in the faint light at this end of the building.
“You know what level clearance we have?” He stowed a handful of peel in his pocket.
She shook her head. Her mouth felt drier as the citrus scent reached her, and she yearned for a taste, but asking would be tantamount to surrender.
“Top secret with sensitive compartmentalized information access,” he said.
“What’s that have to do with anything?”
“You need to understand there are things my team knows, things we do, that we legally cannot tell you. Things the president or secretary of defense tells our chain of command directly and that neither you nor anyone else, not even Congress, is allowed to know.” He inserted his thumbs into the end of the orange and pulled. As it separated into two hemispheres, a mist of juice sprayed the air and landed on her cheeks and lips, as fine as dew. “We could go to jail for discussing those things. So could you.”
“Today...” Was he trying to explain why no one had talked to her in the helicopter?
He nodded. “Now you know one of those things. Here.” He held out a section to her.
The orange scent that enveloped her was already strong enough to taste, so she might as well accept. It burst with flavor in her mouth, sweetness after a day of hell, and strengthened her urge to push on. “That’s not enough of an explanation.”
“Ask away.” He handed her a second slice of orange. “I can’t promise to answer.”
“You were shot today?” She continued even as he nodded. “And the other times?”
He nodded again.
“And your body repaired itself completely?”
Another silent affirmative.
“Is this...” While she considered her phrasing, she accepted two more orange sections. Their taste reminded her of sunshine. “Are you part of a medical experiment?”
He nodded a fourth time.
“The others?”
He shook his head. So it was only him.
“This is ridiculous. I suck at charades.” Although she wanted to tell him to stuff his crapload of games and contradictions into the holding tank of a porta-john, the compulsion to unravel this mystery overwhelmed her frustration. “Is this a drug trial?”
He parried her question with one of his own. “Are you familiar with hemoglobin?”
“The iron-containing metalloprotein in red blood cells? A little.” More like a lot. Curiosity built in her chest, threatening to bubble over as she leaned toward Wulf. After her hypoxia sickness on the first hike to Nazdana’s village, she’d never admit that her thesis had focused on isolating a genetic mutation that allowed certain mammals to survive at extremely high altitudes. Hemoglobin, which assisted in carrying blood oxygen, had been a key factor in her research, but she didn’t see how it could’ve caused Wulf’s abnormally rapid healing. “If it’s a research project, I’d love to help. Can I report on today to—”
“Whoa, Doc.” He raised his hand, palm out, and shook his head. “You can’t talk about what happened. It’s above your clearance, way above. You shouldn’t even think about it.”
“You think I can forget?”
“You have to.”
“A treatment that can repair injuries nearly instantly? Do you know how many lives could be—”
He leaned so close she could smell hints of Italian seasoning from his dinner, and she realized she was famished as well as excited.
“It’s no longer available.” The flat tone of his voice almost stopped her.
“But someone could—”
“The source is dead.”
Four short words, spoken so slowly they carried enough weight to crush her excitement, her hunger and maybe even her breathing.
“Go pack. You’re out of here, remember. Don’t think about me again.”
As if she could control her thoughts. Tonight she’d honor his request and let it go, because tomorrow she was scheduled to boogie out of Caddie, but like hell would she drop it.
After the crunch of Theresa’s footsteps had faded in the direction of the housing area, leaving Wulf with nothing but sticky citrus-scented hands and the memory of her distracted goodbye, his commander stepped around the corner.
“Think that’s the end of it?” Deavers asked.
Wulf snorted. “I figure it’ll take her half an hour of internet research, tops, to blow that story. Hemoglobin was the only big word I could scrounge. Remember that immune booster shot they stuck in us?” Hopefully it would stop her talking to other people tonight.
“So she’ll ask more questions.” His boss sounded tired.
“She’s not a quitter. On the other hand, I didn’t get the sense she’s going to call JAG.”
“Thanks for that.” The pause was heavier than a combat load. “Don’t know what happened with me.”
“Thought about visiting the chaplain? Seems like a squared-away guy.” There were times Wulf wanted to talk about the fog that enveloped him when his brain mixed the voices and faces of people who’d died alongside him in previous centuries with the people around him now. While he couldn’t take his problem to the chaplain, his boss could try.