by Gemma Hart
Hawk.
I remembered the way Cooper had seemingly come out of nowhere to push me and the little girl towards safety the other day. I remembered his calm and almost casual tone as he gave us a little push in the right direction. And I remembered the easy transition his body went through as he prepared for combat.
Yes, the name suited him perfectly.
But before any of us could say anything further on call signs, Bear came up from behind. “Hawk?” he called out. “We got some visitors.”
Cooper turned around in surprise. None of us were expecting visitors. Tammy, Margie, and I stood up to see who Bear had brought.
Standing nervously next to Bear were four children. Two girls, two boys. They were thin and obviously hungry but were a little better dressed than the refugee children we had been seeing.
“They’re from town!” I realized aloud. But town was nearly forty miles away! “How did they get here?”
Cooper studied the kids carefully with a narrowed gaze before his expression gentled and he said a word or two in Qunari.
He then looked back at me, a dry smile playing at his lips. “You gave one of the kids food the other day,” he explained. “That kind of news travels fast. They probably figured out that you were at this base and made their way here.”
Doc Jones came out of the tent, hearing the commotion over something other than hot bodies.
“What’s this?” he asked, looking down at the scruffy kids with gentle amusement. “Trick or treating, are we?”
One of the girls pulled on the pant leg of Bear, who obligingly knelt down, and whispered something to him.
Bear nodded then stood up a look of sardonic amusement on his face. “Well, looks like this is just the advanced arrival. Apparently all the kids in town heard about possible food here and have been making their way over.”
Cooper turned to me. He had an eyebrow raised in humor but his expression was serious. “Well, doctor?” he said. “What’s the plan?”
As team leader of the medical team, he was respecting my authority to plan. And by doing so, it was a clear sign to his men that when it came to the medical related issues, I was the one to lead the field. I felt touched at the gesture. Clearly the man was not one to fight and protect his ego.
I looked at the four kids staring up at me with large round eyes full of frightened hope.
“Okay,” I said in one big breath. “Then let’s start making a food station. And since they’re here, we might as well give them a quick check up. Doc, if you could start moving the—”
And before I knew it, we were off.
***
Within a few hours, we were surrounded by a ragtag group of two dozen kids. We had them separated into stations. Immediately we handed out the protein bars we had on hand. Calorically dense and nutritious, we gave them out to each kid so that they could at least feel full before we did a quick exam on them.
The men of Easy Team helped us keep the kids organized by working as our translators. And some of them did double duty as babysitters. For some of the younger kids that showed up, I watched as Tweety play fought with them, making exaggerated groans as he was punched by their little fists.
Dozer, who was nearly as big as Bear, crouched down next to two little girls who couldn’t have been more than six and played with their dirty rag dolls, making Margie and Tammy smile behind their hands.
And Cooper was everywhere in the tent, it felt like. Whenever someone struggled to lift a box, he was the first one there to help. When a kid started crying in fear from a cold stethoscope, Cooper was the first one to make a silly face or to admonish him with silly words to distract him.
And he was an extremely fast learner. I could tell immediately the man was familiar in basic first aid. But what he didn't know, he quickly learned. He picked up medical terminology and tools like a sponge and was there to help refill our supplies when necessary.
He didn’t hold back and command from on high, using his position as Captain as excuse. He worked twice as hard as his men, leading by example. It was impossible not to have my heart swell in admiration watching him.
“Doctor!” Tammy called out from the other side of the tent where she had a little boy sitting in front of her on one of the hospital beds. “Can you please come take a look at this?”
I crossed the tent and smiled at the nervous little boy who clutched his un-opened protein bar tightly in one fist. “Shallah,” I said softly, having picked up the Qunari word for ‘hello.’
Tammy had unbuttoned the boy’s grimy shirt half way down to his belly. And right in the center of his chest were a sprinkle of pink spots.
I swallowed, my throat tightening as I instantly recognized them for what they were.
“You don’t think….” Tammy started softly, also fearing the worst.
I immediately pulled out my penlight and tilted the boy’s head back, opening his mouth. Pointing the light towards the back of his throat, I saw the confirmation of my fears—little white spot. Koplik spots.
I clicked off my penlight.
I looked at Tammy, my mind already whirring into action as to how to best take action.
“He has it,” I said in a soft voice so as to not alarm the little boy. “It’s measles. We need to immediately check the other children and quarantine the ones who have it.”
Tammy nodded, her eyes wide with fear as she realized the scope of the situation.
Measles were highly contagious and could spread like wildfire. Without proper quarantining and medication, these kids could become incredibly ill. And in crowded, poor conditions like the city and the refugee camp, this was a medical disaster in the making.
“Do you know how much acetaminophen we have?” I asked, keeping my voice calm still. “How much of the immune serum globulin?”
Tammy flicked her eyes towards our medicinal storage area. “I can double check,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “Go. Quickly. We need to let everyone know what’s happening.”
I turned to the little boy and made a ‘stay’ gesture. “Just wait right here, sweetheart,” I said gently, smiling to reassure him. I opened the protein bar for him and quickly left in search of Cooper.
I found him outside bringing in four more kids who had managed to find their way to our camp. He had them walking in hand in hand with him in the middle like a ringmaster.
He smiled when he saw me approaching but almost instantly, his eyes swept across my face, reading my expression. He leaned down towards the kids and pointed at the tent, saying something. The kids nodded then rushed past me towards the medical tent.
Cooper quickly followed behind, taking my arm and pulling me aside.
“What is it?” he asked with no preamble. “How can I help?”
The best four words anyone could say in this situation.
I looked up at him. “One of the kids has been confirmed with measles,” I said. I saw the look of surprise cross his features. “I’m alerting the other doctors and nurses and I’m betting we’ll find a good number of them in the early stages. At least, I hope in the early stages.” I bit my lip. If we could head this off before it became an epidemic, we could potentially save hundreds of lives.
“With how many kids there are in the city and the refugee camp, it’s very possible that this could be spreading as we speak,” I said.
Cooper nodded, understanding the scope of the problem. “I can bring a team to the camp to do a check there for signs of measles,” he said. “And a team can go to the city as well for the kids that didn’t make it here. Could you spare one person for each team?”
I nodded. “Your men are all vaccinated right?” I asked as a last minute thought.
Cooper gave me a slight smile. “We’ve been vaccinated for everything from measles to purple Amazonian river pox. We’ll be okay.”
It was amazing how the man could make me huff a laugh even in the face of a medical emergency.
“Okay, let me go see who I can bring ou
t to go with your men,” I said, quickly leaving for the tent.
Within an hour, we had sent off Tammy and another nurse to accompany the men of Easy Team to check out the town and camp for other patients. I sent them off with their own supply of medicine to treat those they found and clear instructions on quarantining those people.
At the medical tent on base, Doc Jones, Margie, and I quickly set up three different workstations. Margie would check to see who had the virus or not. If the child was showing signs of the virus, I would immediately take them to give them a thorough examination to see how far along it had progressed. If it was in the early stages, I took them to one quarantined corner of the tent with some children’s Tylenol and made them comfortable with instructions to stay put. One of the men of Easy Team was there to make sure they understood my directions.
If the child showed more serious symptoms, he was sent to Doc Jones who quickly assessed the child’s fever and spots and gave a shot of immune serum globulin and acetaminophen and brought them to another corner where they were given an IV and a bed to rest in.
Five hours later, we had quarantined 22 children with measles. Ten were deemed clean and sent to rest and eat in the mess hall tent so as to avoid contact with the sick.
I twisted my neck, waiting for that crack of relief as Margie sent me the last patient of the day.
I smiled at the little girl. She looked to be about ten years old and was a striking beauty. With soft sandy skin and clear gray eyes, she looked like an exotic desert flower.
“Shallah,” I said. “Feeling sick, are we?”
She stared at me wordlessly. She stood silently as I checked her over. She showed the now familiar white spots in her throat—the early signs of measles.
Dozer stood nearby. I waved him over. “Can you tell her we’re going to give her some medicine to make her feel better and that she must stay here with us for a few days?”
Dozer nodded and translated what I had said to the little girl.
The little girl stared at me wordlessly with those fathomless gray eyes.
I cocked my head at her. There was something different about this girl from the rest of the kids. Of course all of them had seen a fair amount of trauma in their short lives now but this girl seemed to carry a heaviness that went beyond trauma. She seemed to carry darkness.
“Can you ask her her name?” I asked Dozer.
Dozer asked the little girl.
But the girl just continued to stare at me. I could feel something tingle in the pit of my stomach. It was that feeling when I knew something was wrong. Something was off.
I pasted on a smile and took her limp hand. “Well, that’s fine. We can get to know each other slowly. Now come along with me and I’ll get you some medicine so you can start to feel better.”
***
I blinked sleepily as I leaned my head against one of the tent posts. I sat in front of the tent entrance, the flaps pinned back, the night air gently blowing past my face.
The coolness soothed my aching body after running around after the children, feeding them, medicating them, examining them, and then keeping them quarantined and monitored.
Once the children saw that all we were doing was trying to make them feel better, most of them opened up to us, offering us toothy smiles and shy touches. I saw one of the kids touch Dozer’s bald head in utter fascination as the soldier bent over for the small hands.
The one child that said nothing was the little desert flower. The gray eyed girl who only stared at us solemnly as we moved around the tent. She seemed too wary to let her guard down, even for a moment. It had to be exhausting, being that vigilant, but she was stubborn. She’d said not one word since arriving and looked as if she would leave without saying one word.
Well, I thought stubbornly as well. I still had a few days with her before I could deem her healthy enough to leave. Maybe I could persuade her to exchange a word or two between now and then?
I jerked awake, nearly falling out of my seat. I looked around in confusion before realizing I had dozed off again.
I rested my head again against the post, blinking hard to stay awake. We were taking shifts in monitoring the kids, especially the ones in the later stages of the virus.
After seeing how tired my team was, especially Tammy and the nurse who had spent the whole day out in the city and camp, I had told them to hit the hay. I would take the first shift.
I sighed as the night breeze gently blew past me. My body relaxed again and I felt my body growing heavier and heavier.
Suddenly, something large and warm fell across my lap and my head jerked up.
I looked up in surprise, expecting a sick child, but instead saw Cooper standing over me, a large quilt draped over me.
He smiled and tucked the blanket up around my neck. “Guard duty, huh?” he said sympathetically.
I smiled back. “Something like that,” I replied. I was guarding the kids against the invasive virus. I was fighting with my sword of antibodies and my shield of medical know-how.
He looked down at me, as if studying me. His expression turned warm in admiration. He ran a large hand over my hair, brushing away some of the loose strands that had fallen in front of my eyes.
“You were great today, as always,” he said. “You know how to keep your head in tough situations.”
I yawned and smiled sleepily. “All comes with the job.”
Sleep was tugging on my eyelids like cement. I fought to stay awake, to feel his touch a little longer, to hear his voice a little longer, but it was a futile fight.
“When will you stop surprising me, Emilia Lyon?” I heard a deep voice murmur above me as I finally gave in to the restful darkness that waited for me.
Chapter Ten
Cooper
“You sure he was American?” Bear asked, lifting another box of resupplies to the back of the medical tent. A UN truck had finally come with some more supplies after we had repeatedly asked them for aid. As one of the smaller camps, we were not high on their list of priorities. But after notifying them of the measles outbreak we caught, that brought them around finally.
I nodded as I heaved another box over. “Definitely American,” I said, recounting the story of the gang from town to Bear. “It was odd. You could tell the American was in charge. But why hadn’t we heard any chatter about an American led gang? That would be huge intelligence.”
Bear wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. He had his hands on his hips, regarding the boxes thoughtfully. “Well, maybe the American isn’t in charge,” he said. “Maybe he’s a front for something or someone else,” he offered.
I thought about it but then shook my head. “No, that wouldn’t make sense. An American voice is so recognizable around here. Why draw that kind of attention to yourself? No, I think this guy is some kind of player around here. We need to keep an ear out for him.”
Bear nodded. “You got it, boss. I’ll let the boys know.”
I unloaded the last of the boxes when Emilia rounded the corner of the tent. Immediately, I smiled seeing her. I knew Bear was watching me with an amused look but fuck it, the woman just made me want to smile.
But I noticed the harried look on her face as she rushed towards me, clutching something in her hand.
“Oh god! I’m glad I found you!” she said, dashing towards me. I felt a ridiculous swell of pride knowing that she had searched me out specifically.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked. I noticed that the thing in her hand was a dirty red shoe. Too small for her. It must belong to one of the kids.
“The little girl!” Emilia started. “The gray eyed one. She’s gone! She left sometime this morning without letting anyone know. And no one saw her go.”
With as many kids as we had on base right now, that wasn’t surprising that a child had slipped away.
“But she’s still sick. She could still very well be contagious,” Emilia continued. She held out the shoe. “I found this down the road heading east. I think
if we go down that way in a truck, we might be able to overtake her.”
I nodded. “I’ll meet you by the trucks in ten minutes,” I said.
Emilia nodded, her eyes looking up at me with gratitude.
Damn. When would this woman stop making my body feel like I had been zapped by a thunderbolt whenever I came in contact with her?
***
As we drove down the bumpy road, I watched Emilia from the corner of my eye. Her long hair had been put up into a messy bun that fell at the nape of her neck. Her face leaned against the window as she watched the desolate scenery flash by us.
Her cheekbones were more pronounced and her face a little slimmer. She had lost some weight while in Qunar, I realized with concern.
“Did you get a chance to have some breakfast this morning?” I asked.
Emilia jumped a little in surprise at my sudden question. I’m sure it probably sounded pretty random to her. “Oh, err, well I had a granola bar,” she said.
“Have you learned to subsist solely off of granola bars?” I reprimanded. “That can’t be your entire diet.”
She smiled ruefully which only made her look more alluring. “Well, old habits die hard. In the hospital, it’s hard to always have a reliable mealtime so you fit in whatever you can when you can. And granola bars are easy to carry.”
I followed the sharp bend in the road, keeping an eye out for the missing child.
“Well, you’re out in the desert now,” I said firmly. “You’re already losing weight just by sweating in this heat. You don’t want to add to that by not eating right.”
Emilia bit her bottom lip, flicking me a look from below her lashes. Damn, that woman could charm a frozen snake if she wanted to.
“Yes, sir, Captain Hawk, sir,” she said with mock seriousness.
“That’s right,” I said in similar mock seriousness.
Emilia laughed, making me immediately smile again. It was almost becoming Pavlovian. Whenever Emilia was around, my body responded with something almost like giddiness. It was damn intoxicating.
But as we continued down the road, I noticed the dirt becoming more uneven. In fact, I realized that this road should’ve ended awhile back. The road should’ve just given way to hilly dunes of rock and sand.
