We had her on the morphine weaning protocol, easing her down by tiny increments.

We had the lights dimmed to almost nothing over her isolette. We had swaddled her so snugly she looked like a small pale bud wrapped tight against the cold.

None of it was enough. Nothing reached the fire. She thrashed and shrieked and her monitors climbed, and there was a particular helplessness in standing over her, a woman with eleven years of training and a whole unit of technology, and being able to do nothing that mattered.

Sarge turned his head toward the sound. I watched a muscle work in his jaw.

“Is that the one?” His voice was low and rough, a gravel rumble that I felt more than heard. “The one they said needed somebody to sit with her?”

I stepped, without quite deciding to, between him and the isolette.