"I'm okay." Verity says, more to Ratchet than anything.

Breathing still ragged with shallow breaths as though she speaking through a lungful of boiling water, she still needed more than the emergency care that brought her out of the woods. Stable and intelligible was good enough for the time being.

"I'm okay, Ratchet." Hand over his thumb she can almost feel the heavy beating of her heart through that thick layer of metal against the palm of her hand.

"I just got into a fight." Puncturing that sentence mid-thought hocking up a wad of red flecked spit on the floor. "It's what I do, right? Get into trouble."