Chapter 22 Bleeding Out #2
When she thought about it that way, the men they’d left on the ground hadn’t deserved such swift deaths. They had deserved to hurt, to suffer, to know fear and the sour taste of desperation. But it was an unfair world, and so, they had to settle for the bad men being unable to do more harm.
Jon, Jenna, and Alex met them somewhere between where Lynnette had been rescued and where she’d left Jenna to hide. Jenna was clinging to Jon’s arm and limping again, but only a little, and that was going to have to be a positive. All things considered.
“Lynnette!” Concern filled Jenna’s voice, but she didn’t pull away from Jon.
Jon’s gaze flicked over the group. “Are you all good?”
Lance looped an arm around Lynnette’s shoulders, keeping her at his side. “Yeah. Four down.” He paused. “Well, three and one in the process.”
Alex arched a brow. “You left one alive?”
“Fucker should be drowning in his blood about now. Best I was willing to offer.”
Jenna’s gaze slid back to Lynnette, and in lieu of being able to shrug, Lynnette offered a smile.
She didn’t want to think too hard about having walked away from a man with two holes in him, audibly gasping for breath and clearly in distress.
It went against her nature. Though it helped to remember the gun he’d held in her face. And the vile threats he’d made.
Threats she had no doubt he’d made to others.
“Any sign of Pretty Bird?” Lance asked as the two groups merged into one and adjusted direction. As far as Lynnette could tell, it seemed like they were aiming to exit the forest.
Jon gave a singular shake of his head. “Not yet.”
Lance’s fingers pressed into Lynnette’s shoulder as if in a subconscious grip. “For what it’s worth, I think he was watchin’ us when I caught up to Lynn. Through a damn osprey.”
Alex muttered something Lynnette couldn’t catch.
Lynnette thought back to the bird Lance mentioned, only half-listening to Jon’s response. She was the one who’d pointed it out to him, though she suspected Lance had already been working on a theory about their foe’s ability. Not that they yet knew what it was.
That reflection reminded her of another issue and she nearly wrenched herself from her boyfriend’s rather possessive grip in order to reach for Jenna. “Hey, Jen, as soon as we get the chance, you need to let me look at that wound on your shoulder.”
Jenna made a self-conscious sound and tipped closer to Jon. “It’s really not so bad.”
“We’d appreciate that, if you’re up for it,” Jon said almost before she finished. He turned his head partially over his shoulder in Lynnette’s direction. “I got the bleeding to stop, but there’s nothing I can do for the rest.”
Lynnette nodded reflexively, though Jon was already looking forward again. “No problem.”
It wasn’t until Jon came to a stop and raised his free arm, fist clenched, that Lynnette consciously realized they had fallen into a semblance of a formation.
She and Lance were close behind him, with Lance on the outer edge—which she assumed was not coincidental—and her lack of knowledge on formal marching or general military formations made it impossible for her to picture their exact overall structure.
But they were absolutely not walking in an unorganized cluster.
As was evidenced by the synchronized way each man’s steps promptly halted.
Lynnette wasn’t entirely sure they even breathed as Jon’s fist held in view.
Jon’s head didn’t turn side-to-side like she might have expected. He didn’t start speaking to address someone up ahead. He merely held still, and silent.
The subtle sound of fabric rustling and bodies shifting was all she could hear as their friends, the men around them, adjusted their stances and their grips.
Lynnette held perfectly still and focused on her breathing.
She took strength from the continued weight and warmth of Lance’s arm across her shoulders, his hand holding her close.
In her periphery, she noticed he’d also adjusted his stance a bit, so more of his back was exposed to the wilderness—between it and her.
His other hand was free, fingers loosely curled.
“Another half-dozen coming in on our left flank,” Jon said, speaking quietly. “One guy standing back, probably thinks he’s out of range. I’d bet my inheritance that’s our target.”
Lance chuckled.
“Cabrón,” Herb whispered. “You got an inheritance?”
Jon lifted his middle finger in response, then let his arm fall to his side. “Lance, I need you on offense, brother.”
Lynnette swore she heard Lance’s teeth grind. So, since she already had a hand over his back, she let it drop enough to swat him in the butt. “It’s fine. Just remember, I prefer you in full working order, understood?”
He grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he tilted his head toward Jon and the grin disappeared. “Stay close to Johnson for me, will you? That’ll be the safest place right now.”
She had kind of expected that she and Jenna would be ordered to drop low, maybe crawl to a tree or something, so she had no real idea why he was sure about that. But he understood these types of scenarios better than she did, so she nodded. “Okay.”
“Weapons ready,” Jon said even as Lance released his grip, nudging her forward.
Lynnette crossed the two feet between her and Jon at the same time as Jon tugged Jenn behind him, effectively positioning the women at his back.
Which was somewhere between aggravating and reassuring.
She didn’t have time to linger in that torn feeling, however, before the first bullets started firing.
“Shit! What the hell?” Foxe exclaimed.
“Range shooters,” Jon said. “Looks like two, different locations. Lance—”
“Point me at ‘em, J,” Lance replied, cracking his knuckles and dropping to a crouch. He looked as if he were preparing for a sprint.
Jon began barking orders Lynnette might have been able to follow if not for the added cacophony of the gunfire, which grew worse when their side started shooting back.
She quickly came to understand hers and Jenna’s placement, though, when she watched a bullet glide right by her face as if glancing off a wall of otherwise-invisible water.
The slight splash from the impact, mere inches from her chin, both slowed and redirected the projectile.
It was jarring. Terrifying in a sense. Beautiful and breathtaking in another.
Later, when her adrenaline had calmed and her brain could think about less critical things, Lynnette hoped she remembered to ask about that.
Because when Lance had said Jon controlled water, she had not imagined he’d meant every molecule of hydrogen in his vicinity. That idea was terrifying.
Jon did not move from in front of them, and most of the time kept his arms curved slightly backward, as if shielding them.
Jenna was turned inward, ducking against his back and doing her best not to see the violence and danger. She’d been told to stay where she was and she was clearly using that opportunity to not have to traumatize herself more than necessary.
Lynnette couldn’t fault her friend for the self-preservation.
If it were Lance shielding them, she might even have been tempted.
Maybe. But Lance had disappeared from sight almost as soon as their side had opened fire, and all she could do was stare ahead, eyes sweeping the portion of forest she could see for any trace of him.
For the faintest crackle of a misplaced electrical current until the man himself finally returned to her.
He had to return.
She hadn’t even realized she was clutching his identification tags, still around her neck, until one of the others cried out. It was the clear and unmistakable sound of a man taking injury, made further identifiable by the call of his name from one of their compatriots.
Billy.
Lynnette’s gaze snapped over to the scene in an instant, and everything she’d been told—everything she’d learned—about the man flashed through her mind as she watched him hit the ground.
He didn’t panic or scream or sob, but his movements were nonetheless understandably shaky and limited, his chest already heaving for breath.
He’d been discharged from the Marines after eight years of service, due to taking injury in his final tour that cost him the proper function of one leg.
For that, he’d received a Purple Heart, which was apparently displayed in his living room.
He had a son and was recently divorced, his ex-wife having not been able to handle living with a man struggling to overcome both physical and psychological trauma.
The divorce was final, but from what she’d heard, the custody battle was not.
He had a young boy, six years old, whose life was going to be hard enough with divorced parents and a father with PTSD. To have to grow up completely without that father, even if his mother was miraculous, would be worse.
She would know. She’d lost her mother not very long after her father had returned to them.
It wasn’t the same thing, and she’d been older, but the comparison slammed into her heart nonetheless.
As did the sight of the blood spreading across Billy’s side, seeping into the fabric and disappearing beneath the hunting gear-grade tactical armor.
Lynnette moved without asking permission or offering warning.
Her instincts took hold and she cut through the small cluster of men her mind half-registered as allies, torso twisting to avoid an unpleasant collision along the way.
She thought she heard Jenna call to her.
Then she was dropping to her knees at Billy’s side, impolitely shoving into Herb’s space as the man had been attempting to simultaneously return fire and provide a semblance of aide.
Herb shouted something, probably at her, but his elevated emotional state had him defaulting to Spanish.
Lynnette reached for Billy’s bag, which someone had managed to rip off him, and tore open the zipper as she sought the medical kit she knew he carried.
“Listen to me, Billy,” she said as she pulled it free, “we both know this isn’t the worst pain you’ve ever felt in your life, and it’s damn sure not going to be what takes you out of it, right?
” She might have killed for some proper hand sanitizer, at least, but she’d work with what she had.
Billy pried his lips up in a pained grin. “You’re way … too good for that … moron, you know?” He offered a strained laugh at his own joke that ended in a groan.
Lynnette released the side clasp on his vest and shoved it aside. “Maybe no laughing right now.” As soon as she could, she tugged up his shirt to get eyes on the wound itself.
And she tried telling herself to be grateful it hadn’t gone all the way in. But the gash the bullet had torn out of him was better described as a chunk, and Lance had used arguably far too much product on her own injury already. She wasn’t sure they had enough left.
So, improvise. You’re sending this patient home to see his son and it won’t be on his goddamn death bed.