Barbara couldn't sit still. Being stuck in the security room was infuriating. She paced like a wild animal in a cage. Restlessly, she roamed down the aisles trying to get a better view of what was happening, but the smoke obstructed any clear view of the atrium. All she could go by was the shouts, the screams, and the sound of bullets that penetrated her sanctuary.

The noise seemed thunderous in its intensity, but when the door opened, the volume rose to an ear-splitting level. In the second before she made out the face of the man who entered, Barbara imagined Delgado—she imagined some assassin—she imagined a million different things. It was just one of The Major's soldiers.

When he spotted Barbara evaluating him, a strange self-consciousness slowed his rush. He seemed to feel it necessary to explain himself as he headed to the equipment lockers. "We've got wounded. I was sent to get a medkit."

"How's it going out there?"

He punched in a code on the only unopened door in the bank of lockers. "Not good. I hope the Air Force gets here soon. I don't know how much longer we can hold out."

It was that damn smoke filling the atrium like a malevolent entity. It wasn't just particles floating in air; it was the invaders' ally.

"What's that thing?" Barbara pointed to some grotesquely large rifle still clipped into the empty gun rack.

 The soldier had taken a white backpack and was checking its contents.  He had to lean back to see what she was talking about. "What? Oh. An RPG-rocket powered grenade launcher." After his explanation, he began to make haste to return to the battle.

"Take it," Barbara ordered him. "Use it to blow out the windows and clear away the gas."

He looked at her. He was a young man, so young it made Barbara feel her age. His features hinted at some Asian influence in his heritage, a generation or two ago. She realized she knew his name: Cpl. Hawes.

The man—the boy, hesitated only for a moment, then made a dash over to it. He hauled it up over his shoulder and grabbed a second bag, black, and from the way the strap strained, much heavier than the medical kit.

Too soon, Hawes was gone and Barbara was alone again. Everything was coming apart. There had been other times in her life she'd felt this way. She was experiencing that strange feeling of the ground disappearing beneath her. Her feet floundering in air like in some insipid cartoon.

The same sickening, unnerving feeling had overwhelmed her the day she got caught.

It was a winter evening after office hours, and Barbara was too spent from surgery to be suspicious of the invitation to see Carol Higgins. She had enough run-ins with the shriveled up, little administrator to think it was anything other than another slap on the wrist for failing to fill out paperwork properly.

"Dr. Gadaskinas. Sit down." Higgins spoke, half rising from her seat with that stick-up-the-ass look Barbara had seen many times. The woman was a heap of rules and numbers crammed into a K-Mart pantsuit. While the doctors were saving lives, she was pinching pennies. What she lacked in talent and skill, she made up for with an overbearing air of authority.

"It's late. What do you want? Unlike you, I have a life outside of this place."

"As charming as ever, I see." Higgins smoothed out her cornflower blue blazer as she settled back in her office chair. "I thought this meeting was going to be brutally unpleasant. Perhaps, I will get some grim pleasure out of this after all."

"Do you experience any other type of pleasure?"

"Yes, I think I might actually enjoy watching you squirm." Her face expressed no possibility of amusement.

"Sorry, but I don't swing that way." Barbara raised herself out of her chair. She'd wasted enough of her time with this miserable toad. "Maybe you should try Craig's List."

Carol Higgins ignored her. "I want to be very clear: the moment you walk out that door, I will be calling the police." The statement was spoken crisply and the venom in her voice was clear.

Barbara sat back down and tilted her head. She mimicked a look of curiosity she'd seen others make. What did this bitch know?

"Oh, don't pretend to be innocent. You are many things Barbara Gadaskinas, innocent has never been one of them." She leaned forward on her desk. Her lips puckered in thought. They looked like they had been smeared with candlewax instead of lipstick. "You're not as smart as you think you are. Once I knew what I was looking for, it was easy to dig it all up."

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about." Barbara cringed at the well-worn phrase coming out of her mouth. Wasn't that what people always said just before they got found out?

"Don't you? Well then, why don't we start with Ryan Cooper? How do you think his family is going to react when they learn he was murdered?"

So she had figured it out. Barbara briefly considered denying it, but playing dumb galled her. She wouldn't run from this woman or anything she threw at her. "Murder isn't the word I'd use. Besides, he had no family."

Higgins's look of shock was overly dramatic, more fitting on a vaudeville stage than the dull little office. "So in your mind, does that make it okay to kill him?"

"I don't expect you to understand."

"You're right, I don't." She took off her glasses and placed them with exaggerated care in front of her. "You are as cold as ever Dr. Gadaskinas. I had thought you might show some remorse, even if it was just some phony ploy to beg for mercy."

"Is that why you called me here? To see me grovel? Sorry to disappoint, but that will never happen."

"I called you here hoping I was wrong. Hoping you would explain all this evidence away." She slammed her palm down on a folder and stood up. Standing, she was barely taller than when she had been sitting. "Not that I give two shits what happens to you. But it's my job to protect this hospital. When this comes out, our reputation will be irreparably damaged. Do you have any idea the number of legal suits you've opened us up to? If this didn't involve murder, I would be tempted to find a solution to make you go away quietly." She flopped back down into the chair with a sigh. "The only bright spot in this whole debacle is seeing that stupid look on your face, as it dawns on you that your life and career are over. I really hope that the rest of your pointless existence will be filled with all the misery you deserve."

The sound of explosions expelled the memory and buried it back into the past where it belonged. Glass was crashing down. The grenades were taking out the ceiling. By the third one, the air began to clear and the fighters emerged, first as faint figures in the fog, then as clear solid bodies, as more of the pollutant got sucked up by the makeshift chimney.

The Major's forces were pinned down behind the long stone reception desk. The constant fire chipped away at their cover as the invaders crept further across the expanse of the atrium. It was clear who was winning the battle. Delgado's soldiers were dwindling. Barbara only counted eight still on their feet. Their ranks had been cut in half.

Hawes reloaded and swung the grenade launcher over the top of the desk. He staggered backward with an unnatural jerk. It was the only evidence the monitors revealed of the bullet that hit him. He dropped, his hands grasping at his neck. The deadly weapon clattered to the floor next to his corpse and just out of safe reach of the men who were still breathing.

She looked for Delgado. Even blind, I will find you. His words had stuck with her. Yes, she would find him no matter what.

He was crouched down, rallying the remaining troops. His hand gestured hinted at some plan to take advantage of the growing visibility. He clapped his palms against his thighs and two guards split from the huddle and made a dash for the columns on either side of the desk. The others rose up over the counter and created suppression fire to cover the others.

Five soldiers in a foxhole leaned out against overwhelming odds. The Major fought side by side with his men, who stuck by him out of duty and undying loyalty. The runners made it to their new cover safely. Barbara sighed with relief and realized her fists were clenched so tight that her nails were cutting into her palms.

The little red moon-like slivers in her skin distracted her. When she looked back to the screens, Delgado was gone.

It must have been some mistake. Barbara blinked trying to clear a wishful blur from her sight. She rushed to another camera to get a different angle. Only four soldiers were firing frantically at the approaching force.

A crawling coldness threatened to tear her skin from her bones. She hadn't looked away that long. If he had left the protection of the desk she would have seen. But then, where had he gone? Was he just one more body on the floor? Was he lying there in that mound of dead and dying, counting his breaths, knowing no one was coming.

Like hell.

Barbara ran for the cabinets and grabbed another medical bag. The canvas strap dug into her shoulder but she barely felt it. All of her thoughts were on getting to Delgado as quickly as she could. She didn't even pause at the door for a break in the gunfire. She burst through and sprinted for the reception desk.

She headed straight for the commandos. The only thing that was keeping her alive was that they couldn't see her in the gloom of the hallway. The lights were out and even though the smoke was nearly gone, it must have been enough to obscure her. For Barbara, there was only a slight haze, like she was wearing dirty sunglasses. But she could feel the residue of the chemical in the back of her throat, like a chalky burning.

At the moment she was clear of the hall's safety, she dove to her left and threw herself behind the protection of the monolithic desk.

Belly crawling through the carnage, she found him. He was on his back with his shoulders raised and his head tilted back against a column of drawers. His face was a sweaty pale gray. His mouth labored to get air in and out.

"What the hell are you doing here?" When he saw her, he forced the words out. Even with the battle raging around her, his words were the only sound that mattered.

"Saving your life, you stupid man." The heavy vest was punched through and the black of the Kevlar glistened with The Major's blood. She ran a hand over the damaged breastplate. "How?"

"Armor-piercing round."

"We need to get this off of you so I can work. I'm going to lean you up. It's going to hurt."

"No use. I've seen enough dead men to know my chances." He was staring at her as though looking backward in time at a childhood memory.

"Fuck what you know. I've fought death before and won. I'm the best trauma surgeon there is and I'm a terrible loser."

"I know, Barb. I know you'd do it if you could. But I've lost too much blood. It must have hit the brachial artery. See, I'm not so stupid." Satisfaction at his knowledge of anatomy traced his face and quickly vanished. He tilted his head up toward the ceiling and his throat bobbed in a convulsive gulp. 

She dropped her eyes to the ground and saw it. In the butchery of their refuge, it was easy to confuse his blood for someone else's, wish it was somebody else's. But once she cleared the blinders, it was pooling on the floor all around him. Without plasma, without life support, without a whole fucking surgery, he'd probably be dead by the time she made her first incision.

"Yes, you are stupid," she said, running her fingers through his hair and resting her hand on the back of his head. "I never told you could go get yourself shot."

"No, you didn't." He blanked for a moment. A glassiness coated his eyes and his breath wheezed in a slow exhale. The expression on his face changed to something frantic. "Barb, hold me."

She eased herself beside him and wrapped her arms around his body being careful of the wound. "Major, this isn't how it was supposed to end." Barbara caressed his face and stared into his eyes. "We were supposed to be happy." She might not deserve happiness, but it wasn't fair that he was the one suffering because of it.

"You never call me by my name. I wish you would. I love you so much."

Barbara kissed him. She closed her eyes and held on to him with her lips. When she parted from him, he was gone.

"Goodbye, Carlos."

***

Author's Note: Alright. I know that some readers hate Barbara and some love her. Did this scene change the way you thought of her? How do you think she will react to Delgado's death?