When We Met

CH 42 Rosaline

Awareness crept back in agonising increments, my senses feeling dull and muffled as if emerging from a dense fog. The first coherent sensation was one of bright, searing light piercing through my tightly squeezed eyelids. It took several ponderous blinks before my vision began to adjust enough to make out my surroundings.

I appeared to be in some sort of makeshift medical room pristine white walls and the unmistakable antiseptic aromas assailing my nostrils. Glancing down, I realised I was propped up in a narrow hospital bed, an IV line snaking from the crook of my elbow. Flashes of memory stirred, hazy and indistinct...Logan's quarters, a shattering detonation, then darkness as we were torn apart by the maelstrom.

What fresh hell had befallen us this time?

Testing my limbs, I grimaced at the leaden fatigue weighing down my every movement. Still, the call of the unknown compelled me to at least sit upright and get my bearings. Gritting my teeth, I shifted to dangle my legs over the edge of the mattress.

A flare of dizziness nearly sent me pitching forward, but a pair of strong hands locked around my shoulders, arresting my momentum. I tensed instinctively until a familiar scent and gruff tone reached me through the lingering fog.

"Easy there, easy..." Mateo rumbled, his calloused palms steadying me. "The last thing we need is you collapsing before you've even gotten your feet under you, Ro."

Despite myself, I felt my lips quirking upwards at the unexpected endearment as he stepped into view. "Mateo...you're alright. Where...?"

"We're safe, for the moment," he supplied, though the tight lines around his eyes spoke volumes of the strain he carried. "Logan had this bolt-hole set up just in case of...well, just in case."

Nodding slowly, more fragmented impressions sifted into focus. The ambush, the devastation raining down on the estate, Logan cradling me after the explosion as the world shattered around us...

"Logan! Where is he? And Maria, Alejandro, Noah...please, tell me they made it out as well!" My throat felt desiccated and raw, the words scraping painfully upwards.

Mateo's jaw tensed infinitesimally before he inclined his head. "Noah and Alejandro were with Logan when the transports pulled out. We were all in one van Alejandro was the one driving while you were with Logan and I at the back". He replied evenly but still had worried lines " but once he woke up and found out Maria was kidnapped by your uncle they made a plan and left me here to look out for you while you heal that was yesterday and they are still not back".

A tremor of dread lanced through me at his carefully edited response. Logan, battered and broken in the aftermath, had still been my last sight before oblivion claimed me. But if he yet lived...

Before I could voice my growing unease, Mateo held up a hand in a placating gesture. "Logan is too stubborn and ornery to let this break him, Ro. If anyone could survive that nightmare, it's him."

I wanted...desperately needed to believe his words, to cling to the fractional comfort he offered. But after everything, that tiny sliver of hope inside me had guttered dangerously low. Only indomitable purpose and my own ingrained self-preservation kept it from winking out entirely.

"You're right..." I rasped at length, straightening my shoulders despite the protesting ache along my spine. "He's still out there, which means our mission remains untouched for now."

Mateo's lips quirked in a fractional, familiar half-smile. "That's my girl. Now, how're you feeling? The docs insisted on a couple days' recovery time before--"

His words cut off abruptly as a muffled boom emanated from somewhere down the corridor outside, followed instantly by shouting voices and thundering footsteps approaching at a dead run. I was already in motion, ignoring Mateo's protests as I swung my legs over the bed's edge and planted my feet.

Another detonation rocked the very foundations, sending plumes of dust and debris sifting down from the ceiling in a choking haze. Gasping against the harsh, acrid air flooding my lungs, I hunched forward only to find myself steadied by Mateo's solidly-planted frame.

"Dammit, Ro...I told you we need to sit tight!" he growled, pivoting us both towards the exit as another series of heavy impacts sounded just outside.

"And let these bastards come to us in our sickbed?" I shot back acerbically, mustering enough defiance to stand somewhat upright under my own power. "Not bloody likely, my friend..."

My barbed retort trailed off into a hiss of indrawn breath as the door burst open, admitting a trio of heavily armed, masked figures brandishing combat rifles. In the span of a heartbeat, Mateo had his sidearm drawn and sweeping in a wide arc, loosing a staccato barrage of thunderous gunfire that stitched a line of perforations across one intruder's upper torso.

The figure went down in a spray of viscera as I flinched back behind Mateo's whirling dervish of defensive fire. The other two assailants split off, one unleashing controlled bursts from their weapon while the other surged straight in like an enraged bull.

Metal shrieked and shattered in an apocalyptic cacophony shell casings raining in a pinging fusillade as the hospital room rapidly devolved into a miniaturised war zone. Mateo snarled, the veins in his neck standing out in corded relief, as he grappled the charging attacker to the floor in a crash of bone and bodily impact.

That seemed to be the only opening the other gunman needed. His aim flicked towards me with almost inhuman precision, squeezing off a single deafening fusillade that seemed to unfold in slow, terrifying clarity.

A hoarse shout tore from my throat as red agony blossomed from a sudden trauma just above my right hip. Numbness radiated in sickly waves as the scent of copper flooded my senses, my legs buckling unceremoniously.

The last sensation I registered before the darkness rushed up to swallow me once again was the shriek of Mateo's rage, his howl of denial spiralling me under the merciless current of unconsciousness like a breaking wave.

Oblivion beckoned with such unassuming tranquillity that I had no choice left but to succumb to its painless embrace...