The frost on Elena Rostova’s St. Jude’s Charge Nurse badge (#SJH-RN-4092) felt like crushed dry ice against her collarbone.
It spread in jagged white ferns across the laminated plastic, eating toward the final digit of her license number.
Three feet above her head, Speaker #4 shuddered with every breath from Mercer’s spinning tape transport.
“Lena,” Pasha’s voice whispered through the grille, wet and ragged. “I’m so cold in the triage tent.”
“Clock out of St. Jude’s and take off your badge, Lena, please.”
Elena’s fingers twitched beneath Julian’s hand on her lapel.
Her throat burned with a grief so sharp it tasted like copper wire.
“I remember the triage tent,” Elena whispered, tears stinging her lashes. “I remember the diesel smoke and the mud on his boots.”
