Afterglow. The Justification of Chaos - стр. 41

The sound of breaking glass echoed, and I flinched and turned around. The Gorgons also turned.

A bloodied man – Christopher, as I understood – smashed the glass with his elbow and shook his hand.

“I think it’s better to wait there,” he said, glancing around at everyone. For a moment, his eyes settled on Sam, then on me. The man raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, that would be better,” Robert nodded, “check out the apartment. We’ll take a break. It’s been two days without sleep. We need rest. We can’t get through outside anyway – it’s cold,” the commander added, glancing down once more.

We began to climb inside in the order given by Sbort.

I approached the window, leaned on the frame, and carefully made my way inside the stuffy and dark apartment, trying not to cut myself on the shards of glass. It was damp. Chilly. A thick layer of dust covered all the surfaces; no one had been here for a long time. A lonely lightbulb hung from a wire from the whitewashed ceiling. The gray wallpaper rippled, and in the corners, it had peeled off and hung down.

"Clear," Michael's voice came. "Clear," Norman echoed him. I climbed onto the bed in the corner of the room, hugged my knees, trying to calm the shaking and stay out of the way. The tension in the air grew, palpable on a physical level. Something was brewing, evident in the looks and the sharp movements of everyone present.

Christopher returned from the other room, throwing three Gorgon backpacks onto the floor. The other soldiers turned to look at him as he cast a look toward Robert from beneath his brows; Chris’s arms were literally covered in blood up to his elbows. His entire face, neck, and clothing were caked in dried and cracked blood and dirt. His eyes were swollen and red. He breathed heavily, licked his upper lip as if to say something, but then Stan, throwing a backpack with force, turned directly toward Chris.

“You went back for the others, didn't you?” Stan spat through clenched teeth. “And Charles went with you. So why did you come back alone?” The muscles in his face twitched with tension. Christopher met his hard gaze but remained silent. “You couldn't get them out, could you?” Taren’s voice broke into a rasp; Chris's silence was driving him mad. “Where’s my brother? Where's Charles?! What happened?! Answer me, Lewis, this damn second!”

I glanced anxiously at the Gorgons, at Robert, expecting someone to step in any moment. But everyone remained still. Sbort tiredly covered the upper half of his face, pressing his fingers to his eyes.

“Pretty much what happened, I suppose, with Amanda,” Christopher finally retorted bitterly. “That was her uniform, right?” He nodded in my direction, and my breath caught with anxiety as the image of the girl’s lifeless body reappeared in my mind, her limp arm dripping with thick, crimson blood… Her clothes were still warm. “Fantastic, our plan to get out of the city quickly! So, sacrificing our own people is acceptable, but saving civilians is our sacred duty!” The words were no longer directed at Stan. Christopher, whose neck veins were bulging, turned to Robert. “So you gave me the order to return and leave the others behind. Not to take the wounded. Not to save the surrounded. You told us to leave,” Chris almost growled, enunciating each word. “You sacrificed us, your own people,” he punched his chest with force, “but goddamn it, you brought civilians with you?!