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This is not a promising start for my aid negotiations.
Lucia Sarmiento took a deep breath and tried to move her leg. Pain and nausea fought against consciousness as a result, but her ankle stayed pinned. Her vision swam in time with her pulse, a sure sign she'd been concussed in the crash. She couldn’t remember what you were supposed to do for a concussion, other than not falling asleep. Not that there was any danger of that. Who could doze off through this much pain? Even if you were okay with burning to death in the wreckage.
And there were few things with which she’d be less okay. She’d made too much progress to lie down and die now.
She shoved against the seat in front of her and the pressure on her calf lessened slightly. Before she could talk herself out of it, she tugged her leg free and threw herself backward into the aisle. Pain ripped through her again as she felt something tear free, and she screamed against her fist. Blood soaked through the now-ripped fabric of her trousers, already beginning to drip on the deck below. She forced herself not to see the ruined flesh beneath, pretended it was someone else's limb. The lie lasted only until she put her weight on it, and the agony sent her crashing to the tilted floor.
Take a breath. Try again. How many times had Mama said those words to her, with her patience like a mountain that could never be eroded.
Lucia shoved up onto her knees and crawled toward the front of the flitter. She needed to check on the pilot. Rasmus? She couldn't remember the name he'd given her anymore.
It took barely a glance to realize, regardless of what his name had been, the pilot wasn't going anywhere. She swallowed against the sour flooding the back of her throat, nostrils recoiling at the overwhelming smell of burnt flesh and spilled blood. A short stumble from the cockpit got her to the exit. She slapped at the emergency release. Twice. Three times. It finally triggered, and the evacuation charges blew the door open. With no way to catch herself, she tumbled through to the ground below. Pain washed over her again, and this time she did throw up. Somehow it only made her head hurt more. At least her leg had gone mostly numb.
That had to be a good thing, right?
She crawled out from under the wreckage. Things definitely looked worse from out here. While the paired rotor mounts at the back of the plane seemed fine, one of the wing structures had sheared off on the rocks. The front end had crumpled to useless garbage, like a paper airplane thrown at the wall. Flames licked at the forward housing, which explained the smoke she’d smelled inside.
She tried to figure out how much time had passed since they’d gone down. She needed to get away before the flitter exploded. She knew that much from watching action movies on the vid—vehicles always blew up after a crash.
Lucia dragged across the ground to some rocks and hoped it was far enough. Even that short distance had exhausted her. If she'd had anything left in her stomach, it would have come charging out too, but fortunately that was already on empty. Among the rocks, she was safe. She couldn't see the flitter, so if it blew up, maybe she'd be protected? It made sense.
Gods, she hoped so, because she was so damn tired.
She let her eyes close for a second. A quick nap wouldn't hurt.
Just a moment. That wouldn't be too bad, right?
#
LUCIA WOKE TO SOMETHING licking her face and found herself staring into a pair of night-black eyes surrounded by a hazy blur of colors. She squawked and recoiled, bumping her head against the rock behind her and sending a new wave of nausea flooding through her body. Other than the creature's eyes and tongue, the only other clearly visible part of it was a collar made of woven cord.
"Whatcha got, 'Ri? You find someone?" The man's voice pitched slightly high, an almost singsong tone that reminded her of talking to children. As he stepped in close, his shadow fell into the space between the rocks. "You did find someone! Good girl!" He crouched down to pet the animal, and clearly Lucia had a bad concussion because his fingers disappeared into nothing.
She blinked and refocused her eyes, looking up into a face that seemed hauntingly familiar. Dark-amber eyes, flecked with hints of gold, watched her from beneath a furrowed brow. "That's a rough-looking head wound. You shouldn't fall asleep."
Lucia shook her head slowly to keep the nausea at bay. He was right of course. With an effort she tried to piece together the information she had—beneath the unique eyes was a face, a neck, broad shoulders wrapped in a light-gray military uniform. On the shoulder closest to her, a tone-on-tone patch depicted a wolf atop a promontory, surrounded by a crescent moon. She knew that symbol—Rangers. TriSystem Joint Forces. That meant he wasn’t part of the conflict, and the dog-sized blur that had licked her face was one of the fabled umbra wolves. She let out a shaky sigh of relief and reached a hand out to touch the fascinating creature in front of her.
The wolf shied away, ducking its head and stepping back, and its handler responded instantly. "Don't. She's working. And seriously, just rest. I need to look at that head wound." He ripped open a biodegradable pouch and pulled a pre-moistened cloth from it as he leaned in to clean things up.
"Leg." Her throat was dry, and the word felt like grit in her mouth. The buzzing in her skull kept trying to make the soldier's face, his voice, feel familiar.
"The leg won't kill you. If you've got a skull fracture, that's a lot more serious. Just sit still." A strong hand immobilized her head while he lifted her hair out of the way. Her head protested the contact, but she forced herself to keep still. "It's a nasty cut. Seems to have bled plenty, but scalp wounds do that. Injury looks clean. Bone's intact, which is better news, though I suspect you'll have a hell of a migraine."
His fingers peeled back the hair from her face, and he looked into her eyes before he hissed in surprise. "Shit. Lucia Coronado."
She wanted to correct him, but the inflection on her name brought all her memories clicking into place, and the nickname he’d had in school tumbled out as one word before she could stop herself. "In-the-way."
Except Ren Inouye hadn't been a soldier, and he certainly hadn't been... She stopped herself from thinking “hot.”
And yet, the way concern and color drained out of his face at the schoolyard taunt left no doubt in her mind. The last person on Tyson she wanted to see, and of course he’d be the one to find her.