Joan moves quickly through the grain, sacrificing stealth for speed. Punchy is bleeding. And who knows if or when someone will track down his earpiece and follow their trail? Their best bet is to get back to the field hospital, and fast.

She feels it before she hears it, a sudden hot ripping pain in her gut, her breath torn from her, and as she stumbles and falls she hears the gunshot, impossibly loud, reverberating in her head, her lungs, her heart.

She tries to push herself back up, to make herself go on, but she can't. Her strength is flowing out with the bright red blood spilling over the fingers she's pressed to her abdomen.