Page 39 of Hollow State

"That's weird." Kane crossed his ankles. "Alright. I want to know what everyone else in this bunker is dying to understand, and that's you and Wynn."

"I don't comprehend the question."

"Let's not play games." Kane slid off the table and planted both feet firmly on the floor. "Everybody knows the two of you have feelings for one another. But you're doing your best to avoid yours. Why? You're perfect for each other."

"Perfect is a strong word." Darwin pushed from the counter. "Are you gonna be okay until Shepherd gets here with your new cane?"

"Don't change the subject on me." Kane lowered his chin.

Darwin raised his hands in defeat. "My failed marriage taught me I suck at relationships, and we're all stuck in a bunker until we can take care of Finch and prove I'm not a criminal so everyone can have a life to go back to. It's not that I don't want to be with Wynn. I want that about as much as I've ever wanted anything. But imagine what life would be like down here if we didn't work out."

"That's what's stopping you?" Kane arched a brow.

"It's one of the things," Darwin said. "I don't want Finch hanging over us. If we're going to be together, I want it to be right."

"Prewit said you were something special." Kane shook his head. "You took a risk when you used AXS-1 on me. A calculated one, but it was still a risk. Being in a relationship is no different, regardless of the circumstances."

The door flew open, and Scout rushed into the room. "They're twenty minutes out," she said through ragged breath. "They ran into an enhanced team." She pushed her hair off her forehead with the heel of her hand. "There's an injury."

The generator hummed in the background. Darwin's pulse sat exactly where it had been all afternoon, seventy-something, steady as a metronome, the way it had stayed through the ambush and the explosion and every worst hour of his adult life. He'd spent twenty years grateful for it. Right now, he'd have traded it for the ability to be a normal frightened man.

"Who?"

"Wynn."

He turned and opened a cabinet. "How bad?"

"Thigh, and the bullet's still in there," Scout said. "What do you need me to do?"

"You can help get the OR ready. Let's go."

"I'll get out of your way." Kane strolled out the door and turned in the direction of the kitchen.

Darwin made a beeline for what passed as an operating room. It wasn't up to hospital standards, but it would do. It certainly had what he needed. "Lower the table." He went about getting out two liters of IV fluids from the warmer. He pulled the trauma tray and the tranexamic acid onto the Mayo stand. Ketamine. Fentanyl. The pressure infuser. Two eighteen gauge and a sixteen.

He took three steps toward the refrigerator in the back but paused before opening it. He knew what was inside. And he'd known what their presence meant since the day they were stored.

Bags of blood—typed to match everyone in the bunker.

Wynn was AB negative, and there were six units waiting for her.

"Hey." Scout came up behind him and pressed a hand between his shoulder blades. "She's fine. It's a flesh wound."

"You don't know that."

"She's a fighter, and we've been through worse."

"But no one was out there to patch…" he let the words trail off, doing his best to shut down his emotions, which were impacting his ability to be a doctor. He had to separate the woman he was falling in love with from the soldier who was his patient.

Those were two distinct things.

Scout shifted, pressing her back against the fridge and putting her face where he could see it. "If Zadie, or anyone else, even suspected Wynn was in critical condition, they’d be giving us more intel. Right now, it's blood loss due to a bullet in the leg."

"You're right." Darwin reached into the fridge and removed two blood component units, then hung them in the warmer. "I can't just stay down here and wait."

"I need to run some things in the war room for Coulter, but you go up to the vehicle bay and wait there." She squeezed his shoulder. "You take care of my girl, you hear me?"

"I will." He raced out of the medical wing and bolted down the corridor as fast as he could with a broken big toe while pushing a gurney.