Radclyffe - Oath of Honor

rounds. She’d rarely slept deeply, her body always primed to duck and

cover. Even now, eighteen months later, she instinctively looked for

cover when a car backfired or a door slammed. She hadn’t been this

jittery since she’d returned stateside. The afternoon’s brief unscheduled

swim shouldn’t have thrown her equilibrium off so much—maybe her

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agitation was due to the lingering chill the steaming shower hadn’t

dispersed.

Leaning out the open door, Evyn peered up at the sky. “Cord

said we might get snow, and I think it’s arrived—blowing in fast. You

should stay in the car until I get back. The last thing you need is to get

wet again.”

Wes reached across the seat and grabbed Evyn’s sleeve, stopping

her from climbing out. “You need to stay dry too.” She handed her

North Face jacket to Evyn, who had left the rescue station wearing only

jeans and her T-shirt. “This has got a hood. Go ahead, take it.”

“You sure?”

“The heater’s blasting in here. I’m plenty warm. Plenty hungry

too.”Evyn grinned. “Excellent prognostic sign. What do you think

about pizza? There’s a place across the street, and I doubt we’ll get

anything delivered out here tonight if a storm is coming.”

“Sounds great. Since I already know you’re not a vegetarian, I’ll

take pepperoni.”

“Perfect. Mushrooms?”

“And black olives.”

Evyn nodded approvingly. “Nailed it.”

Wes laughed. “How about beer?”

“Sam Adams if I can’t get any kind of microbrew?”

“You nailed it.”

Laughing, Evyn jumped out, shrugged into Wes’s jacket, and

flipped up the hood. She slammed the door, shoved her hands in her

pockets, and ran through the icy mix of rain and snow, her form briefly

outlined by the headlights before she disappeared into the dark. Wes

watched a few seconds longer, a strange foreboding churning inside

as soon as Evyn vanished from sight. She clasped her hands and put

them between her knees. She wasn’t cold, but her fingers were icy.

She wondered if that was her imagination. The temperature had fallen

rapidly in the face of the approaching storm, but she was used to cold

weather. She shivered and peered into the near-empty lot, a creeping

unease making her twitch.

Evyn had left the headlights on, and the halos from the slanting

beams seemed to be keeping the circle of darkness at bay. She’d never

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been afraid of the dark and didn’t get spooked by unknown terrain.

She was a naval officer and an emergency physician—she was trained

to handle imminent danger. The headlights dimmed and the darkness

drew closer. Her breath came a little faster and a heaviness pervaded

her chest.

She closed her eyes and she was upside down again, swirling in an

endless void that sucked her down into cold, dark silence. Gasping, she

shot up straight and opened her eyes. Outside her fogged window, the

snow fell thicker, a white blanket screening the world from view. She

couldn’t see the motel. She couldn’t see where Evyn had gone. Evyn.

Evyn was solid and real and warm. She fought the urge to get out of the

car and look for her.

“Okay,” Wes whispered aloud, “you know what this is. Fatigue,

residual hypothermic confusion, delayed stress reaction. You’re entitled

to all of it—for an hour or so.”

Cataloging her symptoms helped relieve the pressure in her chest

some. She took a deep breath, heard the faint wheeze of constricted

bronchioles. Evyn was right, she wasn’t fit to fly. She needed to replenish

the fuel she’d burned off while struggling against the killer current. She

needed to sleep. Evyn had to be in nearly the same shape—she’d been

in the water almost as long. And she’d fought the current for both of

them.The car door opened and Wes jumped. Evyn dropped into the seat

beside her.

“Okay,” Evyn said, wiping traces of melting snow from her cheeks

with one hand. “I called over for pizza and they said it would be ready

in fifteen. We can get settled and I’ll run over and get it.”

“Maybe we should forget that,” Wes said, her voice sounding

hoarse and foreign.

Evyn backed the Jeep out of the slot and headed farther into the

lot. The long, low motel came into view again as she coasted forward.

“Why? I thought you were hungry?”

Wes swiped at her forehead. She wasn’t hot, but she was sweating.

She wasn’t cold, but she was shivering. “Sorry. I—”

“What’s going on?” Evyn stopped in front of a green metal door

just barely visible through the falling flakes. A cockeyed 12 made

from white stick-on, glow-in-the-dark numbers identified the room.

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She downshifted into neutral and pulled the parking brake, leaving the

lights on. “You okay?”

“Yes—sorry. Just jumpy. Sorry.”

Evyn rested her palm on the back of Wes’s neck. Her fingers

were hot as banked coals. “Nothing unusual. You had a hell of a shock

earlier.”

“So did you. You need to stay warm and eat and—”

“Hey,” Evyn said. “That’s all in the plan, Doc. You can relax.

Really.”

“I know. You’re right. I’ll be fine.” Wes closed her eyes and let

her head fall back into the secure cradle of Evyn’s hand. Evyn’s fingers

glided up and down the muscles on either side of her spine, easing the

tension, sending warmth through her. She sighed. “I don’t think the

weather is going to get any better. We ought to make a run for it.”

“Let me get the door open and you get inside—keep dry,” Evyn

murmured, continuing the gentle massage. “I’ll bring in our gear.”

“I appreciate it, but I can help carry our stuff.”

“This is the part where you practice letting me take care of you.”

A tingle of unease skittered down Wes’s spine—she’d been

looking after her own needs most of her life, and her need for Evyn’s

touch, her presence, made her feel exposed and vulnerable. She didn’t

want Evyn’s attention just because Evyn felt guilty. “None of this is

your fault.”

Evyn frowned. “I suck at connect-the-dots, and I’m missing this

picture.”

“You don’t have to look after me because you feel responsible.”

“Wow. Okay.” Evyn’s hand fell away. “I’ll just let you fend for

yourself, then—and when you finally do collapse—”

Beneath the edge of anger in Evyn’s voice, Wes heard hurt. She

didn’t want to hurt her. She didn’t want the cold distance between them

that had nothing to do with the storm or the dark either. “So maybe that

came out a little wrong. I guess I suck at the being taken care of thing. I

had two little sisters who couldn’t even remember our dad. Things were

harder for them, and my mother had only so much energy to spread

around between the four of us.”

“Okay.” Evyn’s shoulders relaxed and the tightness around her

mouth softened. The red highlights in her hair gleamed against the glow

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of snow cocooning them, an ethereal image that imprinted on Wes’s

brain. She was beautiful—not model perfect but strong and bold.

Wes wanted to erase the last vestiges of wariness in Evyn’s gaze.

She wanted to trace the line of her jaw, but instead she grazed her

fingertips over the back of Evyn’s hand where it rested on Evyn’s knee.

“Can we try that again?”

A moment passed and Wes held her breath. Evyn’s hand turned

over and their fingers entwined.

“How about we get you settled and I’ll go for pizza?” Evyn

asked.The heavy weight crushing Wes’s chest dissolved. Evyn’s hand

was warm and solid. She tightened her hold. “I’d like that.”

v

The day shift had all left hours ago, and the corridor outside the

Level 4 isolation lab was deserted. Her footsteps fell soundlessly on the

white tile floor as she made her way to the airlock at the end of the hall.

She pressed her palm on the identification plate and leaned down for

the retinal scan. The light above the passage flashed from red to green,

and the hydraulic door slid open with a faint whoosh. She stepped into

the UV chamber, the outer door behind her closed, and she slipped

on a pair of protective glasses. When she input her entry code on the

wall panel, a hum accompanied the pulse of UV, and the next door

in the chain opened. She deposited her protective glasses on the shelf

and passed into the inner isolation room, where she methodically went

through the routine of testing her positive pressure protective suit—

sealing the cuffs at ankles and wrists, zipping the neck, and attaching

the air hose to the one-way valve in the center of the back. She twisted

the dial and compressed air flowed in. The pressure on the wall gauge

held steady at 1 atm. No leaks. She closed the inflow valve and opened

the vents along the neck. Air hissed out. She was ready to go to work.

Removing her shoes, she carefully stepped into the bright yellow

suit and, after closing the seals, pulled on the calf-high impervious

rubber boots. She wore no jewelry to work, not even a watch. She’d

only have to remove it—she couldn’t risk any snag or tear that might

violate the PPPS. Even a microscopic rent in the isolation suit could

allow a contagion to enter, where it might be absorbed by her skin or

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inhaled into her respiratory system. The biological agents they worked

with inside the BSL-4 lab were either highly transmissible or uniformly

fatal or both. The suit was her only shield.

Once the suit was secure, she covered the fluid-resistant boots

with disposable booties, fit the head shield into place, and pulled on her

gloves. She wasn’t concerned for her safety. She was always prepared

for any emergency. Caution was a way of life for her, and she’d been

trained since birth to be composed under extreme circumstances.

With a bulky gloved finger, she pressed the entrance code, and the

chamber pressurized. The inner door opened and she stepped into the

lab. She nodded to a colleague working at a nearby station, sequencing

a variant of Ebola. After connecting an overhead airline to the suit’s

port, she made her way down the aisle, the line following behind her

like a colorful yellow umbilicus. She’d volunteered for the night shift

six months previously, establishing her routine, arriving a little early,

leaving a little later. Her colleagues appreciated her diligence and

her willingness to take the graveyard shift for longer than the usual

mandatory rotations. At her station, she booted up her computer and

retrieved the samples she planned to run on the gel plates that night,

along with a second rack of tubes. Over the past six months she’d been

carefully siphoning off micro-aliquots of avian flu stock, too tiny to be

noticed by anyone else, until she had a single test tube half-full of one