As she took the turn into the B-huts, she remembered it was just about twenty-four hours since she’d been pulled out of bed for the run. Her ankle was sprained but not enough to need a crutch or a cane. The swelling was already going down. She was fine. She could feel the sleeping spreading out ahead of her, the huts contracted from the cold, plywood windows hammered shut. Everyone in those huts would call her lucky. Some would make her ashamed. They all had stories of legs blown from bodies by mortars, backs and chests shrapneled with ceramic crush, rock bits, and bone splinters from soldiers smithereened beside them. She’d seen them at Walter Reed.

Her day, this day, amounted to something else. They’d gone and got hurt sledding. It was pitiful. And more than a few would say it, not just behind her back.

She opened the door to the hut as fast as she could and closed it faster to conserve the little warmth inside. She stood still for a bit, to adjust to the pitchy interior. After a while, a spectral leavening gave out the hut’s contents, and she made it to the door of her room. By the time she got there, Purdue was at her room’s doorway, then Seri at hers. From another door over came the sound of Eve singing, something that might have been “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

“You okay?” Seri asked.

“Good God,” Purdue said.

Mary looked where Purdue looked but couldn’t see.

One of them turned on the light. Mary blinked hard and saw blood, but hardly any, on the sweater Rex had given her. She touched her face, and it seemed as if the thinnest dried skin were covering parts of her own. She scraped a touch off and looked at her fingernail. It was yellowish, not blood. Something else. She had no idea how it got there.

“Get some water,” Seri ordered Purdue, who just stood there.

“Now,” Seri said.

“No,” Mary said. “I’m good.”

Seri shook her head, disappeared into her room, and returned with baby wipes. She drew Mary in, sat her on the bed, and started cleaning her cheek. “How could they leave you like this at the hospital? It’s in your hair.”

“Not important,” Mary said. Adrenaline was still in effect. She was screaming-white awake. Her insides were one big overhead light.

“Take that off,” Seri said after she’d cleaned all of Mary’s face. Mary obediently unzipped and pulled, stepped out of her pants. She stood in her bra and panties, one powder blue, the other washed-out black.

Seri handed her a pair of sweats and a hoodie. Mary started putting them on while Seri laid a pair of socks on the bed.

“What the fuck happened to you guys?” Purdue was back, standing in the doorway to Mary’s bedroom.

There on the bed beside the socks was the press release.