Passion (6 page)

About a half mile away was a narrow dirt road with two ancient-looking trucks and two smal , squat ambulances parked at its side.

“I’l be right back,” Luce told the boy, pressing his hands more rmly against his stomach to control the bleeding. He whimpered when she pul ed away.

She ran toward the trucks, stumbling over her feet when another shel came down behind her, making the earth buck.

A cluster of women in white uniforms stood gathered around the back of one of the trucks. Nurses. They would know what to do, how to help. But when Luce got close enough to see their faces, her heart sank. They were girls. Some of them couldn’t have been older than fourteen. Their uniforms looked like costumes.

She scanned their faces, looking for herself in one of them. There must have been a reason why she’d stepped into this Hel . But no one looked familiar. It was hard to fathom the girls’ calm, clear expressions. Not one of them showed the terror that Luce knew was clear on her own face. Maybe they had already seen enough of the war to grow used to what it did.

“Water.” An older woman’s voice came from inside the truck. “Bandages. Gauze.” She was distributing supplies to the girls, who loaded up, then set to work put ing together a makeshift clinic on the side of the road. A row of injured men had already been moved behind the truck for treatment. More were on the way. Luce joined the line for supplies. It was dark and no one said a word to her. She could feel it now—the stress of the young nurses. They must have been trained to keep a poised, calm façade for the soldiers, but when the girl in front of Luce reached up to take her ration of supplies, her hands were shaking.

calm façade for the soldiers, but when the girl in front of Luce reached up to take her ration of supplies, her hands were shaking.

Around them, soldiers moved quickly in pairs, carrying the wounded under the arms and by the feet. Some of the men being carried mumbled questions about the bat le, asking how badly they’d been hit. Then there were the ones more seriously injured, whose lips could form no questions because they were too busy biting o screams, who had to be hoisted by the waist because one or both of their legs had been blown of by a land mine.

“Water.” A jug landed in Luce’s arms. “Bandages. Gauze.” The head nurse dumped the ration of supplies mechanical y, ready to move on to the next girl, but then she didn’t. She xed her gaze on Luce. Her eyes traveled downward, and Luce realized she was stil wearing the heavy wool coat from Luschka’s grandmother in Moscow. Which was a good thing, because underneath the coat were her jeans and but on-down shirt from her current life.

“Uniform,” the woman final y said in the same monotone, tossing down a white dress and a nurse’s cap like the other girls were wearing.

Luce nodded grateful y, then ducked behind a truck to change. It was a bil owing white gown that reached her ankles and smel ed strongly of bleach. She tried to wipe the soldier’s blood o her hands, using the wool coat, then tossed it behind a tree. But by the time she’d but oned the nurse’s uniform, rol ed up the sleeves, and tied the belt around her waist, it was completely covered with rusty red streaks.

She grabbed the supplies and ran back across the road. The scene before her was gruesome. The o cer hadn’t been lying. There were at least a hundred men who needed help. She looked at the bandages in her arms and wondered what it was she should be doing.

“Nurse!” a man cal ed out. He was sliding a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. “Nurse! This one needs a nurse.” Luce realized that he was talking to her. “Oh,” she said faintly. “Me?” She peered into the ambulance. It was cramped and dark inside. A space that looked like it had been made for two people now held six. The wounded soldiers were laid out on stretchers slid into three-tiered slings on either side. There was no place for Luce except on the floor.

Someone was shoving her to the side: a man, sliding another stretcher onto the smal empty space on the oor. The soldier laid out on it was unconscious, his black hair plastered across his face.

“Go on,” the soldier said to Luce. “It’s leaving now.”

When she didn’t move, he pointed to a wooden stool a xed to the inside of the ambulance’s back door with a crisscrossed rope. He bent down and made a stirrup with his hands to help Luce up onto the stool. Another shel shook the ground, and Luce couldn’t hold back the scream that escaped her lips.

She glanced apologetical y at the soldier, took a deep breath, and hopped up.

When she was seated on the tiny stool, he handed up the jug of water and the box of gauze and bandages. He started to shut the door.

“Wait,” Luce whispered. “What do I do?”

The man paused. “You know how long the ride to Milan is. Dress their wounds and keep them comfortable. Do the best you can.” The door slammed with Luce on it. She had to grip the stool to keep from fal ing o and landing on the soldier at her feet. The ambulance was sti ing hot. It smel ed terrible. The only light came from a smal lantern hanging from a nail in the corner. The only window was directly behind her head on the inside of the door. She didn’t know what had happened to Giovanni, the boy with the bul et in his stomach.

Whether she’d ever see him again. Whether he’d live through the night.

The engine started up. The ambulance shifted into gear and lurched forward. The soldier on one of the top slings began to moan.

After they’d reached a steady speed, Luce heard the pat ering sound of a leak. Something was dripping. She leaned forward on the stool, squinting in the dim lantern light.

It was the blood of the soldier on the top bunk dripping through the woven sling onto the soldier in the middle bunk. The middle soldier’s eyes were open. He was watching the blood fal on his chest, but he was injured so badly that he couldn’t move away. He didn’t make a sound. Not until the trickle of blood turned into a stream.

Luce whimpered along with the soldier. She started to rise from her stool, but there was no place for her to stand unless she straddled the soldier on the oor. Careful y, she wedged her feet around his chest. As the ambulance shuddered along the bumpy dirt road, she gripped the taut canvas of the top sling and held a fistful of gauze against its bot om. The blood soaked through onto her fingers within seconds.

“Help!” she cal ed to the ambulance driver. She didn’t know if he’d even be able to hear her.

“What is it?” The driver had a thick regional accent.

“This man back here—he’s hemorrhaging. I think he’s dying.”

“We’re al dying, gorgeous,” the driver said. Real y, he was irting with her now? A second later, he turned around, glancing at her through the opening behind the driver’s seat. “Look, I’m sorry. But there’s nothing to do. I’ve got a get the rest of these guys to the hospital.” He was right. It was already too late. When Luce took her hand away from under the stretcher, the blood began to gush again. So heavily it didn’t seem possible.

Luce had no words of comfort for the boy in the middle sling, whose eyes were wide and petri ed and whose lips whispered a furious Ave Maria. The stream of the other boy’s blood dripped down his sides, pooling in the space where his hips met the sling.

Luce wanted to close her eyes and disappear. She wanted to sift through the shadows cast by the lantern, to nd an Announcer that would take her somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Like the beach on the rocks below Shoreline’s campus. Where Daniel had taken her dancing on the ocean, under the stars. Or the pristine swimming hole she’d glimpsed the two of them diving into, when she’d worn the yel ow bathing suit. She would have taken Sword & Cross over this ambulance, even the roughest moments, like the night she’d gone to meet Cam at that bar. Like when she’d kissed him. She would even have taken Moscow. This was worse. She’d never faced anything like this before.

Except—

Of course she had. She must already have lived through something almost exactly like this. It was why she’d ended up here. Somewhere in this war-torn world was the girl who died and came back to life and went on to become her. She was certain of it. She must have dressed wounds and carried water and suppressed the urge to vomit. It gave Luce strength to think about the girl who’d lived through this before.

The stream of blood began to trickle, then became a very slow drip. The boy beneath had fainted, so Luce watched silently by herself for a long time. Until the dripping stopped completely.

Then she reached for a towel and the water and began to wash the soldier in the middle bunk. It had been a while since he’d had a bath.

Luce washed him gently and changed the bandage around his head. When he came to, she gave him sips of water. His breathing evened, and he stopped staring up at the sling above him in terror. He seemed to grow more comfortable.

Al of the soldiers seemed to nd some comfort as she tended to them, even the one in the middle of the oor, who never opened his eyes.

She cleaned the face of the boy in the top bunk who had died. She couldn’t explain why. She wanted him to be more at peace, too.

It was impossible to tel how much time had passed. Al Luce knew was that it was dark and rank and her back ached and her throat was parched and she was exhausted—and she was bet er of than any of the men surrounding her.

parched and she was exhausted—and she was bet er of than any of the men surrounding her.

She’d left the soldier on the bot om left-hand stretcher until last. He’d been hit badly in the neck, and Luce was worried that he would lose even more blood if she tried to re-dress the wound. She did the best she could, sit ing on the side of his sling and sponging down his grimy face, washing some of the blood out of his blond hair. He was handsome under al the mud. Very handsome. But she was distracted by his neck, which was stil bleeding through the gauze. Every time she even got near it, he cried out in pain.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “You’re going to make it.”

“I know.” His whisper came so quietly, and sounded so impossibly sad, that Luce wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. Until then, she’d thought he was unconscious, but something in her voice seemed to reach him.

His eyelids flut ered. Then, slowly, they opened.

They were violet.

The jug of water fel from her hands.

Daniel.

Her instinct was to crawl in next to him and cover his lips with kisses, to pretend he wasn’t as badly wounded as he was.

At the sight of her, Daniel’s eyes widened and he started to sit up. But then the blood began to ow from his neck again and his face drained of al its color. Luce had no choice but to restrain him.

“Shhh.” She pressed his shoulders back against the stretcher, trying to get him to relax.

He squirmed under her grip. Every time he did, bright new blood bloomed through the bandage.

“Daniel, you have to stop fighting,” she begged. “Please stop fighting. For me.” They locked eyes for a long, intense moment—and then the ambulance came to an abrupt stop. The back door swung open. A shocking breath of fresh air flowed in. The streets outside were quiet, but the place had the feel of a big city, even in the middle of the night.

Milan. That was where the soldier had said they were going when he assigned her to this ambulance. They must be at a hospital in Milan.

Two men in army uniforms appeared at the doors and began sliding the stretchers out with quick precision. Within minutes, the wounded were placed on rol ing carts and wheeled of . The men pushed Luce out of the way so they could ease out Daniel’s stretcher. His eyelids were ut ering again, and she thought he reached out his hand for her. She watched from the back of the ambulance until he disappeared from sight. Then she began to tremble.

“Are you al right?” A girl popped her head inside. She was fresh and pret y, with a smal red mouth and long dark hair pul ed into a low twist. Her nurse’s dress was more t ed than the one Luce was wearing and so white and clean it made Luce aware of how bloody and muddy she was.

Luce hopped to her feet. She felt like she’d been caught doing something embarrassing.

“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “I just—”

“You don’t have to explain,” the girl said. Her face fel as she looked around the inside of the ambulance. “I can tel , it was a bad one.” Luce stared as the girl heaved a bucket of water into the ambulance, then hoisted herself inside. She got to work immediately, scrubbing down the bloodied slings, mopping the oor, sending waves of red-tinged water out the back door. She replaced the soiled linens in the cabinet with clean ones and added more gas to the lantern. She couldn’t have been older than thirteen.

Luce stood up to help, but the girl waved her of . “Sit down. Rest. You just got transferred here, didn’t you?” Hesitantly, Luce nodded.

“Were you al alone coming from the front?” The girl stopped cleaning for a moment, and when she looked at Luce, her hazel eyes brimmed with compassion.

Luce started to reply, but her mouth was so dry she couldn’t speak. How had it taken her this long to recognize that she was looking at herself?

“I was,” she managed to whisper. “I was al alone.”

The girl smiled. “Wel , you’re not anymore. There’s a bunch of us here at the hospital. We’ve got al the nicest nurses. And the handsomest patients. You won’t mind it, I don’t think.” She started to extend her hand but then looked down and realized how dirty it was. She giggled and picked up her mop again. “I’m Lucia.”