Chapter 9 #2
“I heard you,” she told him, then turned to her medical bag, unzipping it and reaching for a vial of ketamine.
The very powerful sedative and painkiller was more effective being administered by an IV, but they didn’t have the time for that.
Vandine had to be in an inordinate amount of pain, and she needed to take the edge off so they could get moving.
Somehow, the three of them had to get out of that alley and to safety before they became “guests” of the Taliban.
She picked up her K-BAR and slit through Vandine’s shirt, exposing his arm and vein.
“You should’ve gone with them,” Vandine told her in a weak voice.
Aspen took a deep breath and concentrated on drawing just the right amount of ketamine into a syringe.
Then she turned back to her platoon sergeant.
She stretched his arm out and, as she was inserting the needle into his vein, said, “I recited the Ranger creed just like you did, Sergeant. And part of that was, ‘I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy.’” She looked into his eyes as she pushed the sedative into his vein.
“I might not be a real Ranger in your eyes, or the eyes of the rest of our team, but I take my oaths seriously.”
For a second, she thought he’d lost too much blood to really understand what she was saying. Then he nodded once. “Sit rep?” he asked, his voice way too weak.
“Holman is at that end of the alley,” she said, motioning behind her with her head. “Holding off the unfriendlies. We’re gonna have to go out the other side.”
Vandine tilted his head to look behind him at the other end of the alley.
And as he did, Aspen saw the two men from earlier once again peer around the corner.
She lifted the rifle and blasted off a few shots.
Heading in the direction of those men wasn’t ideal, but facing off against two was better than trying to fend off the six or more men who’d been shooting at them from the other side.
Knowing they were in deep shit, she kept the weapon trained on the end of the alley. The ketamine needed three minutes to take effect, then they would have to move.
She’d done her job, stabilized her patient and made him as comfortable as the situation would allow. If the team was there, they could’ve easily helped her carry Vandine and get them all out of there, but at the moment they were on their own.
At the sound of shouts and more gunfire at the end of the alley where she’d left Holman, Vandine said, “Go. I might be hurt, but I can still get off some shots if those two assholes show their faces.”
Aspen nodded and hurried toward Holman.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Holman didn’t look good. He was still sitting on the ground, but his upper body was weaving back and forth. Shit.
“Don’t know. There were a bunch of guys who looked as if they were about to make their way down the street toward us, but then they turned around and ran back the way they came. Sergeant Spence might’ve been right, and they all followed the others when they left.”
More shouts sounded from what seemed like the next street over, and Aspen thought this might very well be their one shot to get the fuck out of there.
“Time to go,” she told Holman. “Wait here.”
She ran back to her pack and shoved in the few materials she’d taken out to help Vandine.
Taking precious seconds to grab a roll of gauze, a second vial of ketamine, and a new syringe, and putting them aside, she slung the pack over her shoulders again.
Then she went back to Holman. “Give me your arm.”
He didn’t ask any questions, just held out his left arm.
His mangled right hand was cradled against his stomach.
Glancing at it, Aspen saw that he was missing at least three fingers, and the other two seemed to be hanging on by only tendons and muscles.
He was going to lose it for sure. One of the Taliban fighters had definitely landed a lucky shot.
Feeling as if she were trying to run through syrup, Aspen went through the motions to inject her teammate with a dose of the painkiller.
She didn’t need to tell him what the side effects of the drug would be, they were all well aware of what could happen.
They’d learned all about it in the many classes they’d had on battlefield medicine.
She also took fifteen seconds to wrap his mangled hand. He couldn’t exactly run around with his fingers dangling the way they were. Her wrap wouldn’t help him much, but it wouldn’t hurt either.
“I’ll be right back with Vandine, and then we can get the hell out of here,” she told Holman when she was done. He nodded.
Hoping like hell Holman wasn’t going to suffer hallucinations, as some people did after being given ketamine, Aspen ran back to her platoon sergeant.
By the time she got to him, he was unconscious.
She figured that was probably a blessing.
She was also very glad the men who’d been shooting at them from the other end of the alley had seemed to vanish into thin air.
She didn’t know what was going on, but took two precious seconds to appreciate whatever had caught their attention.
It gave them a small reprieve, and maybe, just maybe, they’d all get out of this clusterfuck alive.
Taking a deep breath, Aspen turned Vandine on his side and positioned him so she could pick him up. This was the hardest thing she’d had to accomplish in training. Picking up a two-hundred-pound man when he was dead weight was almost impossible.
Just as she leaned over, she heard gunfire erupt from the other end of the alley, and it gave her the adrenaline dump she needed.
She hefted her platoon sergeant over her shoulder in a fireman carry, knocking her radio off kilter in the process. The earbuds were ripped out of her ears; she’d lost her ability to communicate with both her team and the other Rangers.
Knowing if she put Vandine down now, she might never be able to pick him up again, she staggered back to where she’d left Holman. He’d managed to stand, even if it looked like the wall was the only thing holding him up.
“Time to go,” she said.
“Where to?” Holman asked.
Surprised that the man was deferring to her when he’d never given her the time of day before, Aspen peered out from around the alley. She didn’t see anyone. The civilians were probably hiding in their homes, and the men who’d shown up out of nowhere seemed to have disappeared as well.
She motioned to their right with her head. “That way. Away from where the men were shooting at us. We’ll circle back around toward the base once we’re out of this neighborhood.”
Holman nodded and stepped away from the wall. His strides were unsteady and he walked as if he’d been out drinking for hours, but he held the rifle firmly with his good hand.
Staggering under Vandine’s weight, Aspen followed. The three of them made their way out of the alley without getting shot, which she figured was a good sign. They walked to the end of the street, and she leaned against the side of a house while Holman peered around a corner.
When he signaled that the coast was clear, they turned south.
They’d gone just over a block when the hair on the back of Aspen’s neck rose once more. Swearing, she said, “Hold up, Holman.”
The other man stopped immediately, and they both scanned the area.
Aspen wasn’t sure what had caught her attention at first—and then she heard it. Men speaking in low tones, as if they were trying to sneak up on someone.
That someone being Aspen and her two wounded charges.
“Fuck,” she swore. “Tangos coming up behind us,” she told Holman. They had nowhere to go. There weren’t any alleyways in the immediate vicinity and they were sitting ducks on the open road. “Go, go, go!” she told him, and they both took off at a run.
If they could make it to the end of the next block and around the corner, they might have a shot at evading capture.
Shots rang out, and Aspen winced as she felt something hot and extremely painful lodge itself into her calf. But she didn’t stop running. They turned the corner—
And for a split second, Aspen’s life flashed before her eyes.
Holman bounced off the chest of a soldier standing there and almost went down. But the man grabbed hold of him and prevented them both from falling.
One second, Aspen was ready to fight to the death, and the next, she felt a sense of relief so great, she almost passed out.
They’d literally run right into Kane and his team.
The seven Delta Force operatives were dressed entirely in black, looked extremely pissed off and dangerous—and she’d never been so glad to see anyone in all her life.
Without a word, Trigger, Lefty, and Oz slid around her and began firing back at the men who’d been trailing them. Grover grabbed ahold of Holman’s arm and helped keep him upright, just as Kane took her elbow in his grip.
“The others will hold them off,” Lucky said as he and Doc turned and led the way in the opposite direction from where the firefight was happening.
“We can’t leave your team,” Aspen said a little frantically as she tried to walk and look behind her at the Deltas who were taking care of the tangos.
“We aren’t,” Kane told her calmly. “They’ll join up with us the next block over.”
“Swear?” Aspen couldn’t help but ask.
“Yes,” Kane said.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, Aspen believed him. Kane had one hand on her, helping her walk without falling, and held a pistol in the other, ready to take out anyone who might surprise them.
He hadn’t offered to take Vandine. Hadn’t taken over.
She respected Kane and his team more in that moment than she could even put into words.
They didn’t go far, only two more blocks, but Aspen knew if they had to walk any farther, she wouldn’t have been able to. Vandine was getting heavier with every step, and she was aware of the fact that Kane was using more and more strength to help her.