For the first time since leaving the service, the noise in Harper’s head—the phantom sounds of mortars, the screams in the Syrian desert, the crushing guilt of survival—went completely quiet.
She realized something profound. The war she had been fighting inside her own head didn’t require her to go back to the desert. It required her to find a new way to save people.
“I appreciate the offer, General,” Harper said softly, her voice filled with a peace she hadn’t felt in a decade. “I really do. It’s an honor.”
Halloway raised an eyebrow, already sensing the answer. “But?”
“But I think my mission is here,” Harper said.
“Here?” Halloway looked around the hospital lobby. “Scrubbing floors?”
“No,” Harper said, a small, genuine smile touching her lips. She watched a new ambulance pull into the exterior bay outside the glass windows, its lights flashing red and white against the night sky. “Saving lives. It turns out, the civilian world is a pretty dangerous place too.”
Besides, she gestured to the ER double doors where a gurney was being rushed inside. “Someone has to make sure the next Chief Surgeon doesn’t develop a god complex.”
Halloway looked at her for a long moment, then laughed—a deep, barking sound of approval.
“Fair enough, Major,” Halloway extended his hand. Harper shook it. It was a firm, equal grip. “You take care of them. Dismissed.”
Harper nodded.
She turned away from the general, away from the flashing cameras, and walked down the steps of the stage. The crowd parted for her once more, reaching out to pat her shoulders, to whisper words of thanks as she passed.
She walked straight toward the heavy double doors of the Emergency Room.
She didn’t walk with her head down anymore. She didn’t slouch to hide her frame.
She rolled up the sleeves of her janitor’s suit, completely exposing the jagged shrapnel scars on her left forearm and the winged dagger tattoo of the Night Stalkers on her right wrist.
She pushed through the ER doors, leaving the media circus behind, and stepped back into the controlled chaos of the trauma unit.
The smell of antiseptic, saline, and fresh blood hit her. And for the first time in a long time, it didn’t smell like war. It didn’t trigger her hyper-vigilance.
It smelled like home. It smelled like work.
“David!” Harper called out, her voice cutting through the noise of the monitors. She walked over to the supply wall and grabbed a fresh pair of blue nitrile gloves, snapping them onto her hands.
David looked up from the nurse’s station, a massive grin on his face. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Bay 4 is incoming,” Harper said, her eyes already scanning the monitor board. “Looks like a multi-vehicle collision. Let’s get a saline drip, a suture kit, and two units of O-negative ready. Let’s move.”
“Right away, Bennett!” David called back, moving with a speed and energy he hadn’t possessed in ten years.
The ghost was gone. Harper Bennett was back on duty.
