Page 57 of Viral Justice

Ali went first. She had to take off her pack, but slid through with no problem after that. She came back after a couple of seconds and whispered, “All clear.”

Max walked carefully down the steps into the darkness until Ali turned on a small flashlight.

The room wasn’t very big and the ceiling was low. Both he and Tom were going to have to be careful not to hit their heads on it.

A few sacks lay in one corner.

Ali looked in them. “Vegetables.”

“I need to check your wound.” Max turned to Tom. “Can you find out what’s happening? Where’s Bull? Who started that fire? Do we need to call for a retrieval?”

Tom nodded. “I’m going to try to get up on a roof.”

“Good.” Max turned to Ali. “This will be easier with a chair or something to sit on. I’ll be right back.”

She angled her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Max went upstairs and asked if there was a stool or chair they could use.

Coban grabbed an ancient-looking chair that had lost its back at some point, leaving only the seat. The four legs were wobbly enough to make a drunk look sober.

Max thanked him, took the seat, then went back into the dark root cellar.

Ali stood in the middle of the room, looking like she was waiting for nothing more serious than a haircut.

He paused.

“What?” she asked when he didn’t move toward her.

“It’s too dark down here.”

She pressed her lips together. “They think I’m a boy,” she whispered. “We need to keep it that way.”

Damn it, she was right. “Can you hold a flashlight pointed where I need it?”

“Sure.” The word was tossed out as if she needed stitches every other day. Here he was, angry at himself for sending her out on an errand resulting in her getting hurt, while she brushed it off.

He was going to have to stitch her up, hurt her again, and she didn’t seem to care.

What was going to happen next time? She was good, but she wasn’t Wonder Woman, didn’t have super powers.

It made him want to turn her over his knee and spank her. Hard. “I know you’re a soldier, but this cavalier attitude of yours toward injury is making me crazy.” He glared at her. She really had no concept of how close she was walking the line between what he could accept and what he couldn’t. “You need to stop it.”

She studied his face. “You’re worried.”

It wasn’t a question, but he answered it like it was one. “Yes. There’s no situation where you getting injured is ever going to be acceptable. Yet, you act like it happens all the time.”

“It doesn’t,” she said, taking off her poncho and the rifle underneath it. She set them both on the floor carefully and quietly. “Happen a lot, I mean.” She removed the body armor, a thick shirt underneath that, and lifted the side of the tank top that was her last layer of clothing.

He wanted to take her out of this dark, dirty place and go somewhere safe, somewhere he could spend the time he wanted to explore her. Pleasure her. Tell her what was between them was more than just sex.

The bloody line that scored her skin an inch above her hip told him his fantasy was beyond reach.

First, he had to knit her back together.

“The knife got you just below your body armor.” He handed her the flashlight and she pointed it at the wound while he put on fresh gloves and gently palpated the area around the wound.

“It isn’t as deep as I thought,” he said grudgingly. “But it’s still bleeding. I’m going to put a few stitches in, enough to keep it from getting worse if you have to move fast or fight again.”

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