Medics saw to their wounds with cold professionalism. Soldiers watched carefully. Any time Sam looked around, there were at least a dozen ringing her, another dozen around Feng, far enough back to take several strides to reach, their rifles in both hands, safeties off.

Further out, she saw sets of powered combat armor, occupied or being piloted remotely, in a loose perimeter around them.

The Indians were certainly taking this seriously.

She tried to ignore it, to focus on the kids.

She watched as they splinted the ankle of a girl named Arinya who’d twisted it in the chaos, as they dealt with minor cuts and abrasions and burns. Off to the side she saw a medic rig a proper sling for Feng’s arm, saw another dealing with Kade.

Kevin’s face swam in her mind again. Her bullets slammed into him. Shiva’s will controlled her. Controlled her through Kade’s back doors.

Goddammit! she told herself. Shiva did that. Not Kade.

She felt her fists clench. Sweat was beading on her forehead. Fight-or-flight. Adrenal response.

This wasn’t rational. It was physiological. Kade was just a proximate trigger.

She knew what it meant, knew all about this.

She had to nip it in the bud now.

“I need something,” she told a medic. “A beta-adrenaline blocker, a strong one. Or a serotonergic.”

Stop the near-permanent imprinting. Stop physiological response from amplifying the emotions, from heightening the stress response, from turning these last few hours into a trauma that would last for years.

The Buddhists and the shrinks agreed. The body was the seat of emotions. Quell the physiological response and you could dampen the psychic pain as well.

“Are you having a heart attack?” the woman medic said to her, an eyebrow raised.

“I’m post-traumatic,” Sam said, keeping her voice as level as she could. “It’s setting in. Standard protocol is to stop it now, before…”

The medic stared at her.

“Please,” Sam said.

“Physical trauma only,” the medic said, and closed up her kit.

Sam’s fists clenched tighter.

They sealed them up in a large-ish briefing room, with soldiers positioned outside, while Colonel Atwal awaited her orders on what to do with them. Only when Sam complained loudly did the soldiers bring any food and water, or allow bathroom trips, always under the guard of multiple armed soldiers.

Her heart kept pounding. They weren’t being treated as guests. They weren’t being embraced. They were prisoners here.

Kevin died again and again at her hands.

She pushed it away, focused again on the children, held Sarai, held Aroon, held Kit, held all the children to her, wishing she could touch their minds. And shuddering with the horrible memory of killing the man who’d raised her every time she even thought of taking Nexus again.

We’ve got a plan, she told herself. They want something. They want Kade.