The return to the main base camp was a blur of rotor wash, shouting medics, and the biting smell of antiseptic. The "Black Alert" had been downgraded, but the atmosphere remained heavy. Vedika sat on the edge of her cot in the infirmary, her arm re-bandaged and her body wrapped in three layers of wool. For the first time in days, she wasn't shivering from the cold; she was trembling from the memory of Abhimanyu’s hand against her jaw in the dark tunnel.

“I don’t want to be alone in the dark,” he had whispered.