"Is everyone alright?" he asked.
"I'm ok," answered Duke.
"Jenny?"
"Fine," came the reply. Kyle looked at the dark haired beauty and noted that, aside from some smudges on her face and clothing, she did indeed seem fine.
"Erica?"
"Yeah but FLAG owes me a new shirt. This one's my favourite and it's ruined."
Kyle rolled his eyes and waited for the youngest member of his team to make some witty comeback. Instead there was only silence.
Kyle frowned.
"Trek?"
There was no answer. Kyle turned to face the door of the room they had come from. Where the door used to be there was now a gaping hole, the scorch marks on the brickwork mute testament to the force of the blast. He spotted Trek lying at the bottom of the pillar nearest the door and ran over to him with the rest of the team closely following.
The kid was lying in an almost foetal position with his brown hair covering his face. Absently Kyle knelt down and brushed Trek's hair back with one hand. The young man was deathly pale and his breathing seemed shallow and slow. Blood ran from a nasty looking head injury down the side of his face. What worried Kyle more was the trickle of blood that seemed to be coming from the corner of Trek's mouth. Quickly he tapped his communicator.
"Dante. Contact FLAG and tel them we need an emergency medical team here now."
Looking up at his team he could see the worry etched in all their faces. Trek was like a little brother to them all.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Erica West looked down at her hands. They seemed to have been sitting in this corridor for hours waiting for the doctor to tell them something. Anything would do. Part of Erica expected Trek to come bouncing out of the room with a joke and a flick of his brown hair. To tell her that this wasn't real and that he'd only been playing a trick on her. Then she would make a sarcastic comment and everything would be back to normal. But the sinking feeling in her stomach told her that that wasn't true. Erica relied on her instincts a lot and right now they were telling her that something was very, very wrong.
She stood up, stretched and walked to the door, trying to work the kinks out of her neck. Kyle sat staring at the floor and Jenny was gazing into space. Both seemed to be lost in worlds of their own. Erica stopped at the door and pretended to look through the glass panel in it, although she couldn't focus on what was on the other side. Suddenly she felt a pair of strong hands massaging her shoulders. She turned and saw Duke behind her. The large African-American man looked sad although he tried to smile.
"He'll be ok," he rumbled, but Erica couldn't tell if he was trying to reassure her or himself.
"Yeah," she answered. "I can't believe I ripped my favourite shirt," she added, hoping to hide how worried she really was from everyone.
Before Duke could respond a door in the corridor opened and a grim faced doctor stepped out the team turned to face him.
"Is he going to be alright?" Kyle asked, his face tight.
The doctor sighed and ran his hand through his hair. This was the part of the job that he hated.
"I don't know," he answered slowly. "It's touch and go at the moment. We've managed to stop the internal bleeding but he's lost an awful lot of blood. What's concerning us most at the moment is the head injury. I'm sorry to have to tell you but your team-mate slipped into a coma."
