Reprimanding Harper

"Gah—!"

Then she coughed, a hard wet hack that folded her forward over her knees, and the whole corridor breathed again.

Her face was black with soot and her dirty-blonde hair stood up in wild singed tufts. 

Red friction burns streaked her right forearm where hot gas had vented across the skin, and she was holding a bruised wrist against her ribs.

Beside her, the secondary test sled was a smoking ruin of twisted steel with its ceramic containment sleeve shattered into hundreds of pieces across the floor.

"Harper!" Camila shrieked, dropping to her knees with tears already welling and her hands scrabbling for her medical pouch. "Are you hurt?! What happened?!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine..." Harper wheezed, waving a sooty hand through the smoke. "Just knocked the wind out of me..."

Leo stood over her with his chest heaving and his fists clenched so hard at his sides that his knuckles had gone white.