The air smelled of jet fuel and burning flesh.

The helicopter lay split open like a gutted animal, its tail rotor still spinning weakly in the mud. Smoke rose in thick black columns, visible for miles against the grey Scottish sky. Half a mile out, two figures ran toward the wreckage, rifles up, boots splashing through bog water.

Soap slowed as they reached the perimeter, scanning the debris field. Twisted metal. Scattered ammunition. A severed rotor blade buried six inches into the earth. And something else—a figure, small, sitting among the flames.

She was. The black and rust-red field kit was unmistakable, even torn and soaked through as it was. The girl couldn't have been older than eighteen. Her face was pale, streaked with soot and blood, and her hands—her hands were shaking as they cradled the head of the man in her lap.

The man was dead. Half his chest was gone. His face was still turned toward her, frozen in something that looked like shock.

The girl didn't look up as they approached. Didn't reach for a weapon. Didn't move.

She didn't respond. The fire crackled. A piece of the tail section collapsed behind her with a shriek of tortured metal.

Her hands were empty. But the blood on them wasn't from the dead man alone. A gash ran from her hairline down to her jaw, and her left arm hung at an angle that didn't look right.

The sight stretched between them—two soldiers standing over a girl holding a corpse, smoke rolling overhead like a funeral curtain.