Red as the Dawn

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

(/Shade/)

Sitting outside of the medical tent was like waiting to hear a death sentence. The silence around my family was brittle, and was broken only be the soft sound of my mother's sobs as she clutched my father's arm and whimpered. I had never seen my father so distraught. His eyes were glassy and empty, and he seemed to unconsciously reach out and touch me or my brothers every so often, like we would vanish if he didn't check to make sure we were there.

I'm sure he had been like this when the letter that had declared me killed in action had been received, but this was somehow different. My parents had been expecting a box with my things and whatever was left of me. Now, they would possibly get to see one of their children's last breaths. When you only get a letter saying they're dead, it's different from actually seeing the life leave their body. Somehow the latter was more painful, because you felt like you should do more to stop their leaving, and when you read that print, you knew that there was nothing you could have done to stop them from meeting their maker.

Farley was off to the side, her head bowed as she gnawed on her knuckle. Earlier, when the medics had come out and asked us if it would be okay to operate and remove the bullet that was about to pierce her heart, I had heard her whispering something, and it took me a few moments to realize that she had been praying. I had never thought of Farley as someone to believe in a god, but she had been praying feverishly, as if her very words would breathe life into my sister.

Now, she was silent, and she had crouched down, so that she was leaning up against a beam. She hadn't looked at any of us since they had carried Mare though the tent flaps. The only thing she had said to me was that she was sorry, that she should have found some way to fit her and Cal into the back of a truck. I wanted to believe that we could have done that, but there had been no room, and it had been Cal's idea to go back and get a cycle. My sister had unknowingly walked into her demise with him.

My heart ached, but I hadn't cried yet. I had only sat in a stunned silence in the truck with Cal next to me, his sobs diminished to soft whispers of my sister's name. He had had her ragged scarf clutched in his hands like it was her very life, and eventually he had bowed his head into his hands and pressed the cloth to his lips. Maggie had sat next to him, clutching him tightly and crying pitifully into his side. Chelsea had clung to me, but her touch wasn't as comforting as I thought it would be. For a brief second, I had let my thoughts drift to her, and the truth that I had been hiding to keep her heart intact. If I told her, it would shatter her, and telling her now would be like shoving salt into the wound that was starting to form. As soon as the thoughts had passed through my mind though, I had cursed myself for thinking about anything else but my dying sister, who was a truck ahead of us, lying on the floor, as the medics tried to resuscitate her and keep her in this world with us.

Farley, who had been driving our truck, had opened the sliding door every few seconds to give us updates on Mare's condition. Her heart had stopped three times in the time it took us to get to the Delphie base, and she had almost not come back the third time. She had lost a quart of blood within that time, and the wound was only pumping more and more blood. The medics estimated that she had already lost at the least another quarter before Cal got her to us, and now that she was losing more, they had started to panic.

My sister was dying, and my other sister was inside the tent behind me, standing over her, trying to pull out a bullet and sew her up to keep her alive. Gisa was going to try and save Mare with only a needle and thread.

Next to me, the tent flaps flew open and Gisa stepped out. Dressed in her white medical fatigues, with her hair a wild mess, she looked like a fiery angel. The moment everyone was silent, and then our mother leaped out and clutching Gisa's shoulders she demanded, "What happened? Is she going to live?"