The body lay on the steel table like a fucking accusation no one had voiced yet.
Raven stood two paces back. Weight shifted off the ankle that still screamed at any sudden turn. Palm stitches pulled tight every time she flexed her fingers around the cold edge of the table. Four days. Functional. Not forgiven. The dead soldier's face looked too young—barely out of his teens. De Luca ink tattooed on the inside of his left wrist. Then her eyes dropped to the arm. Mottled violet bruising bloomed right where a sleeve would brush skin during a handshake or a bump in a crowded stairwell. Faint yellow halo spread at the edges. She knew the compound before the medic even opened his mouth.
"Skin-absorbed paralytic," she said. Flat. "Eight-minute onset. Heart stops clean. No foam. No vomit. He didn't even fight it."
