Harper
Two days went into gear, maps, and Aton's quiet arrangements. The night before we shipped out, the suite stopped being quiet.
Priya got there first. She was barely through the door before the instructions started.
She shoved a folded square of paper into my hands, handwritten, both sides, water purification steps and emergency wound care and a list of edible plants she'd copied out of a field manual. Like paperwork could keep me breathing. Her eyes were too bright the whole time.
"Cover to cover, I promise," I lied, and hugged her, and felt her hang on a second too long.
Bex said almost nothing. She just pressed something heavy and cold into my palm, and when I looked it was a real fixed-blade knife, balanced, nothing like the regulation tin they issued. A compact trauma kit la
