Page 13 of Lethal Game

“I think I know the basics. You go into areas where possible biological weapons have been used. Determine what agent has been released, and recommend treatment and cleanup procedures.”

“Change the wordagenttopathogenand you’ve got most of it. Treatment and clean-up can be complicated depending on the pathogen.”

“Understood.” He gave her a masculine nod that said the conversation was finished.

He was so wrong.

“That’s a nice, neat description, but in real life, there’s nothing nice or neat about it. It is dangerous, messy, and often disgusting work. I could be wading through dead and partially decomposed bodies for samples, or if the pathogen is nasty enough, having to watch people die before a treatment can be determined or administered.”

She’d been in those destined-to-die shoes and sometimes pitied the doctors and nurses who’d had to appear strong and upbeat, despite their belief she couldn’t be saved.

She’d been one of the lucky ones. She’d lived. In a cancer hospital for children, the wordremissionhad an almost mythical quality to it. A state they all attempted to achieve. Not everyone made it.

“War is never pretty and I’ve seen my share of gruesome.”

Right, he’d been blown up. Body parts were never easy to see, and if those parts belonged to a friend...perhaps he did understand.

“Point taken.” She studied him a little more. She didn’t want a babysitter, a man who’d watch her like the hawk he resembled. He’d see more than he should, but refusing him without a reason Max would accept wasn’t possible. She’d been bothering Max as little as six months ago to get out into the field. If she changed her mind and said she didn’t want to go, Max was going to want to know why.

She wasn’t ready to tell him she was too sick to go on assignment. Leukemia had taken its toll on her body, the chemo and radiation therapy leaving her with weak bones and a disorder that had plagued her on and off for years even after she was declared cancer-free. Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. In the last six months her ITP had gotten much, much worse. Her bone marrow had slowed production of platelets, special blood cells that played a big role in clotting blood. Without them, a person could bleed to death from cuts received while playing with their cat.

She was taking medication that spurred the bone marrow to produce more blood cells, but her platelet count had dipped dangerously low. She was going to have to start infusing units of the tiny cells into her blood in order to maintain a normal-looking life. Unfortunately, transfused platelets didn’t survive near long enough.Units of plasma were another option, but they had the same limitations as platelets.

Her next physical was only four months away.

She wasn’t going to pass.

If her ITP carried on like it was, she might not even survive. The cancer that had nearly taken her life when she was a child might kill her yet. She and Max had talked about a bone marrow transplant in theory about a year ago, when her platelet count had been hovering around the low end of normal. There was no guarantee she’d find a match. Even if she put her name into the system, she’d have to go home, and provide all the reasons for the move. It would effectively end her work with the military.

If she wanted to do something worthwhile, now was the time. Before it ran out. Before the little voice in the back of her head stopped whisperinghurry, hurryand started to scream it.

It appeared her partner had the same goal. If she could keep the severity of her ITP a secret, she might... Oh, this was ridiculous. She was kidding herself. She wasn’t going to be able to keep it a secret for much more than a couple of weeks. Unless she and her babysitter were deployed soon, her body wouldn’t have the strength or stamina to do the part of her job she craved to do. She wanted to help people. People who’d been forgotten, abandoned, and abused.

Sophia stared at the broad shoulders of this soldier, so desperate to do his job he was willing to babysit the geek. Could she work with him?

It had taken only an hour to get rid of the last guy Max had tried to pair her up with. Mr.Army Way or No Wayhad been intelligent enough, but with all the flexibility of a piece of steel. The one before that had treated her like a porcelain cup, fragile and delicate, rushing to do everything for her. Terrified she’d stub her toe and the damn thing would fall off.

She needed a partner, a real one.

“If I take you on, I expect to be part of the decision-making process. None of thisit’s for your own goodshit. My situation is unique enough that you can’t know what’s good for me or not.”

“I don’t have a problem with that,” he replied. “From what I’ve learned from Colonel Maximillian and Private Walsh, you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself. I’m not here to give you orders, it’s the other way around.”

“You’ll take my orders, no questions asked?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll be honest, I probably will ask a lot of questions, but not to argue. I need to understand what we’re doing and why, so the next time we’re in a similar situation, I’ll know what to do or what not to do.”

That was a pretty good answer, but she wasn’t going to make this easy for him. She couldn’t. The wrong man could end her career months too soon. “Got any other questions?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Quite a few. You’re one of the people who identify which pathogen is causing an outbreak, right?”

She nodded.

“I get how you do that here. I mean, this is a fully equipped lab, but how would you do it in the field?”

“See those large duffel bags?” She pointed around the microscope at three duffel bags, parked along the wall to one side of her desk. “That’s my portable level two lab-in-a-bag.”

Interest sharpened his gaze. “You got one of these for level three or four?”

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