When she heard an odd sound in the room beside her, she wasn’t at all sure what she heard, but it stopped her from crashing properly and definitely from going under. She listened again. A woman crying. She thought about the women on the base and couldn’t even begin to picture who resided in that room, not with all the room reassignments going on and her stint in the kitchen. Yet the cries sounded female. Avalon hesitated and then got up and walked out of her room and knocked on the other door. All sounds stopped.

  She winced and then in a soft voice said, “Hey, look. I’m not trying to intrude, but, if there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know.”

  “I’m fine,” said the woman, in a muffled tone.

  Avalon winced because it was so obvious that fine wasn’t a word that went along with this. “Okay. I mean, I get that, and I’m sorry. I’m not trying to get in your face about anything, I just … If you need something, you can always knock on my door and say that you need help. I’m right beside you.”

  No answer came, but she’d already declined her help, so what was Avalon supposed to say now? Frowning, she went back to her room. At least the sobbing had stopped. Yet maybe that wasn’t a good thing. Maybe the poor woman needed some sort of a release from all the heavy emotions she was feeling, and now Avalon felt bad about ruining that for her.

  She lay in bed, tense, wondering if she could have done something else for her, when, out of the blue, came this horrific set of screams. She got out of her bed and stepped into the hallway to find a woman collapsed on the floor, holding her throat tight.

  Avalon raced over to her, screaming at the others, “Get Sydney. Hurry up. Get the doctor!”

  When she tried to lift the other woman, one of the men brushed her aside, picked up the woman in distress, and raced her to the medical center. Avalon followed along right behind him, not at all sure what was going on. The woman appeared to be choking, and yet nobody was offering first aid.

  As soon as they got to the center, Sydney jumped into action. It seemed that the woman’s throat was seizing up, so she needed oxygen and apparently adrenaline to reduce the swelling. With Sydney having the matter firmly in control, Avalon hesitated at the doorway.

  Sydney looked at her and asked, “Did you see her?”

  Avalon hesitated and then shook her head. “I didn’t see what happened. I was lying in my room, trying to catch five from work, when I heard the screams. First, someone was crying, I think, and then …”

  Magnus was almost behind her, when he asked, “Who was screaming?”

  “I thought it was the crying woman,” Avalon replied in confusion. “I’m not sure who else it would have been. I don’t know how many women there are on base.”

  “We have seven right now,” Magnus noted, “and three of you are right here.”

  “And the others?” she asked him, looking around.

  “Berry’s one. Cherry, her twin sister, is gone, and two more newbies are now on base.”

  “Here’s the problem,” Sydney noted, as she checked the distressed woman’s vitals. “This one is incapable of screaming, so it wasn’t her.”

  Magnus looked at Sydney sharply and quickly disappeared.

  “So obviously we have another person out there in trouble,” Avalon muttered.

  Sydney eyed Avalon. “Did you see her?”

  “No. I just talked to the crying woman through the door to her room.” Avalon frowned. “People were milling around.” Then she shook her head. “Honest to God, I don’t really know who I saw. I don’t know whether I saw just men or women. One of the guys brushed me aside, picked up this woman, and raced her here to you.”

  “Which is a good thing,” Sydney stated cheerfully. “She’s had an allergic reaction to something.”

  Avalon stared at the doc. “Please tell me it’s not food-related.” When Sydney studied Avalon curiously, she shrugged. “I’m in the kitchen all the time, and I would hate for anybody to think I was poisoning people, like Ralph said one day,” she noted bitterly.

  “Right,” Sydney murmured. “I don’t think that’s exactly what we’re looking at here, but I won’t know until I get a better handle on it. She is breathing comfortably now, so we’ll hang on to that.”

  “I’m grateful for that,” Avalon muttered, “but it’s pretty damn scary to think it could be something I did.”

  “If it was,” Sydney replied, “I presume it wasn’t something you did deliberately.”

  Avalon stared at her in horror and quickly shook her head. “No, no, of course not,” she declared, “but I’m in the kitchen all the time now—it’s just Chef and me. As long as it’s not food poisoning,” she muttered. At that, Sydney looked at her sharply, and she shrugged. “I just don’t want it to have anything to do with me.”

  “Interesting you would jump to that,” the doc acknowledged. “What’s going on here? A guilty conscience?”

  “I am new to the kitchen. And so much goes on back there. And I’ve been thrown into that job to fill a void. Human errors happen. And I would be the likely suspect. However, everything we put out is safely labeled as such,” Avalon noted. At Sydney’s frown, Avalon added, “The labels on certain dishes. We have to note which items have peanuts or soy or dairy or whatever that someone on base has noted as an allergic item in their file. … But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something else going on here.”

  “No, and, until I get a chance to talk to her,” Sydney stated, “I won’t know. So go back to work. You do whatever you need to do. I’ll follow up with you in a bit.”

  And, with that, dismissed, Avalon headed back to the kitchen.

  As she got in, Chef took one look at her and said, “You don’t look as if you rested much.”

  She shook her head. “No, not at all.” Then she quickly explained, first about the woman crying and then about the screams and finding a woman in the hallway, choking. He looked at her in astonishment. “Sydney said it was an allergic reaction?”

  Avalon nodded. “That’s what she thought, at least for the moment.”

  “Then we’ll do the same,” Chef acknowledged. “Let’s not borrow trouble.”

  He walked out, checked the foods that they had out and the respective labels, and he nodded. “Everything out here is properly labeled,” he murmured. “Still that doesn’t mean that somebody who’s trying to cause trouble couldn’t have done it another way.”

  She studied the labels. “You mean, by just switching the labels?”

  He nodded. “We do have some people with bad allergies, and Sydney’s patient is one of them.”

  “Well, Jesus, then surely she wouldn’t take something off a tray clearly marked as something she can’t have.”

  “Unless she thought for sure it was safe,” he pointed out.

  Avalon winced and nodded. “Unless she thought it was safe. God, I hope it had nothing to do with us.”

  “Even if it did,” Chef replied, “it wasn’t deliberate on our part.”

  “No, but there’s already been a couple comments about poisoning the food to poison the personnel,” she shared, looking over at him.

  He snapped, “I hadn’t heard anything about that. Who’s saying that?”

  She winced. “First it was Ralph. Then just a couple guys joking about it. … I told them how that kind of talk wasn’t welcome, and one of them got kind of stuffy about it.”

  “He can get stuffy all he wants,” Chef snapped again. “We don’t tolerate that kind of talk. Looking after as many people as we do, with as many special diets as we have, we put up all food with proper warnings,” he declared. “So anybody saying otherwise is just trying to cause trouble.”

  “Which is exactly what a lot people here are trying to do,” she agreed.

  “Right now, yes,” he confirmed, “I’ve never seen this many troublemakers in one group in my life.” He glared, looking around.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  He frowned at her. “Why the hell wouldn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I figured he was just being an asshole, and we didn’t need to pay him any attention.”

  “Yet it’s been bothering you.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe not bothering me as much as being very aware that we potentially have some ugly talk going around.”

  “Potential ugly talk is more ugly talk than I’m interested in having,” Chef stated, “so we’ll deal with that one too.”

  “Especially if this turns out to be food poisoning,” she muttered.

  He nodded. “Honestly, in this case, it wouldn’t be anything to blame us about. She has quite the list of allergies. She warned me at the time and told me that she carried an emergency kit for it.”

  “Which is also something Sydney would have known.”

  “Exactly, so why didn’t the woman use her EpiPen or whatever? Regardless it’s not your fault. It’s not my fault, no matter what triggered it. And you tell me immediately the next time some asshole makes jokes about the food.”

  Avalon nodded. And, with that, she headed back to the kitchen, where they continued to work on food prep.

  When Magnus stepped into the kitchen a little later, he announced, “It was food poisoning, … of a sort anyway. She had a cookie labeled as nut free.”

  At that, Chef looked at him and shook his head. “For one, we don’t ever label anything that way. For two, she should have known better, and, for three, … I’m already very aware about her food allergies and sensitivities. She gets a special diet all the time, so what the hell is she doing eating a cookie off a tray like that?”

  “She told me that it had been given to her with a special note, saying that it was made just for her.”

  Chef sucked in his breath, shook his head, and asked, “And she believed it?”

  At that, Magnus nodded slowly. “So, the question is, why would she, and why would somebody do that in the first place?”

  “To cause trouble,” Avalon stated. “As we well know, an awful lot of troublemakers are at work around here.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Magnus noted, “but was this some sick joke? Was it somebody who didn’t really understand just how sick she could become? Or was it something more sinister? Any ideas?”

  “No, no ideas,” Avalon said. “Believe me. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that somebody might have done that to deliberately hurt her.”

  “They did it deliberately all right,” Magnus confirmed. “No doubt about that. The question is whether she’ll be okay enough to stay here.”

  “Can she really get out that way? If she can, then that’s another reason for her to have eaten that cookie.”

  “Are you saying she would have eaten it just so she could leave?” Magnus asked in astonishment.

  “I don’t know her personally, but you have no idea what the mood is around this place,” she explained. “I’m just saying it’s another possibility, and, yes, it’s an ugly one. I know that.”

  He nodded. “It absolutely is an ugly one, but I hear you, and it’s something I’ll keep in mind.”

  She nodded, then turned but stopped. She faced Magnus and added, “Unless it was directed at the two of us here in the kitchen.”

  Magnus quickly nodded. “That’s another possibility we’re keeping on our radar too. Just stay safe, both of you, will you?”

  “They’ll just try using us as scapegoats, you know, for reasons or methods to get them out of this training session and off this base or to expel me and Chef,” she snapped.

  “Still won’t work,” Magnus replied cheerfully. “Chef’s here for the long term, and you might be too.”

  “Not if anybody else gets sick while I’m still doing kitchen duty,” she pointed out. And, with that, she turned and walked away.

  *

  Barret, who had been standing behind Magnus the whole time, studied Avalon carefully. She was worried, nervous, angry, and yet at the bottom of it all was fear.

  As soon as Magnus stepped back, Barret asked him, “Did you see that?”

  “Sure, she’s afraid, but I don’t know why.”

  “Could be a lot of reasons at this point, and one of the biggest is the fact that she feels targeted—that somebody will blame her,” he pointed out. “Not so much that she’s targeted, just that whatever this is, it’s directed at them.”

  “I don’t even know that it’s directed at them,” Magnus corrected, “or if it’s directed at anybody. You know that it could be just causing trouble for the sake of causing trouble.”

  “With very serious consequences. Not sure anybody would have known how serious though, especially someone without such life-threatening responses,” Barret added. “Plus, just because she’s got food allergies doesn’t mean that it’s the life-threatening kind. And most people who have life-threatening food allergies don’t work in a place like this.”

  “I’ll check in with Sydney, as I need to talk to her patient as soon as I can,” Magnus noted, “to find out who gave her the cookie and why she would believe it was okay to eat it.”

  “The part that surprises me is, if she has that many severe allergies, why would she trust somebody outside of close friends and family?”

  “That would suggest that it was somebody she trusted, and, if so, who was that person?”

  And, with that, they both headed to the medical clinic, where a weary Sydney smiled at them. “She’ll be fine, but her throat’s pretty raw. I did end up making her vomit to clear it out of her system quickly, and her body’s still in reactive mode at the moment, but she’ll be okay.”

  “Good,” Magnus replied. “We need to talk to her.”

  At that, Sydney cast a glance back at her patient. Barret stepped closer and smiled at the young woman and asked, “Hey, how’re you feeling?”

  “Pretty crappy at the moment,” she said, talking slowly and wincing with pain, “but better than I was before. At least I know I’ll survive.” She shook her head. “I haven’t had a reaction like that in a very long time.”

  “Which brings us around to why you had this one.”

  She shrugged. “A cookie was sent my way, and I absolutely adore cookies. I was told that it was fine for me, by somebody I trusted.”

  “And that is who we need to talk to.”

  She shook her head. “They wouldn’t have known the difference,” she stated too quickly for Barret’s liking. “They went to the kitchen and brought it back, saying they had spoken to somebody who told them that special cookies were being made and that I would be allowed to have some. Obviously some ingredients were in there that either they didn’t know about or …”

  “Or they assumed that you were okay to have, which is also a little bit dubious or downright …”

  The patient shook her head. “I don’t care to hear about how many others were affected or could possibly be this time. I’ve never had a problem here before.”

  “I know,” Barret confirmed, “and that’s the good news because we don’t want you to have any problems like this ever again.”

  “No, God no,” she whispered.

  “But I do need to know who gave you the cookie.”

  “I thought it was from Chester.” She pulled a note from her pocket. “This was under the cookie.” She looked at the note, shook her head, and added, “I don’t know for sure that Chester wrote it.”

  “We’ll go talk to him.”

  “No need. I’m right here,” stated the burly young staff sergeant at the doorway. He smiled at her. “Hey, Helen. How you doing?”

  “I would have been a whole lot better if I hadn’t eaten that cookie.”

  He frowned. “I can’t imagine that you ate a cookie up here, when you’re on such a restricted diet.”

  “I wasn’t even going to come here because of all my allergies,” she explained, “but I really wanted the experience.”

  “Like a lot of people.” Chester nodded. “And the base kitchen accommodated your special diet, so you’re all good.”

  She smiled. “I mean, I just stick to basic food. I don’t get any special diet, but I do get my own meals prepared just for me,” she shared. “In this case the cookie was with a note from you, by the way, saying that it was perfectly safe.”

  Chester stared at her in shock. “From me? What?” She held out the note, so that he saw it. He turned and looked back at Magnus, shaking his head. “I didn’t write this. Oh, no, no, no, I did not write this.”

  He was too loud, too vehement, in Barret’s opinion.

  “I know that she’s deathly allergic to so many foods, so I would never have done this,” he cried out. “Who would write this?” he asked, his shock quickly turning to fury. “This was deliberate, wasn’t it?” He spun around, looking at the two men, now glaring when they didn’t respond fast enough. “Wasn’t it?” he cried out.

  Helen tried to calm him down. “Chester, look it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  He stared at her, shaking his head. “Yeah, but you almost weren’t. Do you have any idea what it did to me to see you in the hallway like that?”

  When she gave him a wan smile, he walked over and gave her a hug, leaving no doubt about the relationship between the two of them. “My God,” he whispered.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” Helen murmured.

  “What are you sorry for?” he cried out, his temper once again flaring.

  She groaned. “Easy, just take it easy.”

  He took a deep breath, then turned and faced the two men. “You’ll find out who did this, right? Because if you don’t, I will.”

  “Best that you not do anything,” Magnus suggested, but with absolute authority in his tone that Barret wholeheartedly approved of.

  Barret stepped forward and added, “We will find out who did this.”

  The young man looked at him and slowly nodded. “And fast, right?”

  “As fast as we can,” Barret stated cheerfully. “Which is why we were just here talking to her, and she mentioned that you wrote the note and left the cookie for her.”

  “Which I didn’t do and would never have done, as somebody who knows perfectly well what she goes through when she eats the wrong food. No way I would ever put her through that.”