Chapter 903

Caroline looked at her, and for one brief, impossible second, the ice between them was gone.

“I’ll put it on my list.”

Brenna laughed through a sob, then carefully pressed her forehead against Caroline’s shoulder, avoiding the injured side with almost comic precision. Beatrix set one hand lightly on the back of Caroline’s chair. Not a hug. Not quite.

For Beatrix Hendon, it was practically a declaration of devotion.

Across the room, Melanie Thorne sat very still on her bunk, her ruined right hand pinned in its sling. Her face was blank, too blank, but her eyes gave her away. They flicked once to the chair, once to Caroline’s dry clothes, once to the sealed evidence tag clipped to the medic’s bag.

Caroline saw it.

So did K.C.

Jarrod did not enter the barracks. He remained just outside the threshold, a shadow of rank and restraint in the corridor.

To everyone else, it looked like military propriety.

Caroline knew better.

If he stepped inside, the room would become about him. His authority. His protection. His claim.

So he stayed out.

For her.

The medic helped Caroline from the chair to her bunk. The familiar thin mattress should have felt pathetic. Instead, it felt like solid ground after a night spent falling, swinging, drowning, and clawing her way back into her own body.

Dr. Reed’s orders had already arrived on a folded sheet tucked into the medic’s clipboard.

Four hours rest.

Return to infirmary at 0600.

No unsupervised physical training.

No rope, water, height, or load-bearing activity until cleared.

Caroline lay down slowly, the rough wool blanket pulled up over her chest. Brenna sat on the floor beside the bunk, refusing to leave. Beatrix returned to her own bed but remained upright, watchful, one ankle crossed over the other like a queen presiding over a war council in exile.

Caroline stared at the underside of the bunk above her.

She was back.

But back to what?

The bypass gate. The shifted marker. Melanie’s smile. Sloane’s perfect composure. Jarrod’s voice in the dark, saving her without touching her. The way he had stood outside the barracks door instead of crossing the threshold.

She had survived the fall.

But she had landed right back in the heart of the war. And now, at least, the war had left evidence behind.

Brenna sat on the edge of Caroline’s bunk, her voice a hushed, urgent whisper.

“It was insane, Caroline. The whole course froze. Floodlights came on over the ravine like daylight, and every instructor started yelling into radios at once. We saw the rescue line drop. We saw them pull you back onto the platform. Then medics took you out wrapped in silver, and nobody would tell us anything except that you were alive. Like that was supposed to be enough.”

Beatrix, perched on a nearby footlocker, nodded in agreement. “They locked down the training area, not the base. No one was listed MIA. No one thought you’d vanished. But watching them carry you out without letting anyone near you was almost worse.”