He surged upward, using pure willpower to force his legs to straighten.
He made it two steps before his left leg buckled. He didn’t hit the floor, though. Before the orderly could even react, Sarah had moved with a speed that belied her appearance.
She stepped into his falling weight, bracing her shoulder under his good arm, locking her stance wide. She caught a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound Marine deadweight without a grunt. “I’ve got you,” she whispered, her voice right at his ear.
It wasn’t the voice of a civilian nurse. It was the command voice of someone who had hauled bodies before. “Pivot on the right.
Lean on me. Do not fight me, Sterling.”
He was too shocked, and in too much pain, to argue. He leaned on her, and she guided him into the wheelchair the orderly shoved forward.
As he slumped into the seat, breathing heavily, he looked up at her. She wasn’t even out of breath. She smoothed her scrub top, her face returning to that benign, grandmotherly mask.
“Triage three,” she said to the orderly. “Stat.”
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