27. Silas
Silas
The air in the basement tastes like old blood, damp stone, and the metallic tang of discharged gunpowder, but I can’t bring myself to care.
My hands are still shaking as I kneel beside the narrow cot.
The feel of Jack’s skin against my palm was the only anchor keeping me from completely unraveling.
Every shallow, rattling breath he draws feels like a physical blow to my own chest.
Before we even start to attempt to move him out of the cellar, I hear heavy footsteps and someone hurrying down the stairs.
Looking over, I see Reid hauling a heavy trauma kit, and behind him a young man follows looking like he’s just been ripped out of bed.
Reid drops the bag next to me and motions to the young man while looking at me.
“This is Luca. Luca Hayes. He’s an ER doc and a friend.”
I look past Reid, taking the young man in as he hurries into the cage. His eyes fall to Jack, taking him in, in an instant, and he runs over and drops to his knees beside me.
“Move,” he says quietly. His voice is soft and gentle, a complete dichotomy to the situation.
I move back slightly, but keep my hold on Jack, as I cannot bear to release what I have just found again. I watch him touch Jack, and I see him flinch when Luca prods gently on area near his chest.
“Careful,” I growl, my hand gripping Jack’s tighter.
Luca ignores me while he continues checking him over. His fingers work with a frantic pace, but I can see he is efficient as he checks him. Luca checks his vitals, working around me. Then he sighs, looking at me.
“I really need you to move. Now.”
I look at Jack, and he gives me a small smile and the slightest nod. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says.
I reluctantly move to the end of the bed, laying my hand on my boy’s ankle as Luca spends the next ten minutes in silence as he works on Jack, setting up an IV line, wrapping the ribs tight. Once he has finished, he sits back on his heels and looks at me.
“I believe he’s got a partially ruptured spleen and internal bleeding, a fractured and a broken ribs,” Luca says quietly. There’s sweat beading on his forehead as he flashes a penlight into Jack’s sluggish pupils. “I can stabilize him for transit, but he needs to go to a hospital now.”
“We can’t go to a local hospital,” I snarl, my voice dropping into a lethal, unyielding register as I lean into his space, towering over him. “Our entry into the States was entirely off-the-books. State lines, federal databases—we trigger any of it, we’re all locked up or dead.”
“He could die,” Luca says, standing to glare at me without a flicker of fear. “I’m an ER doctor, not a miracle worker! I can’t fix a failing spleen in the back of a truck!”
“You’ll fly with us,” Reid cuts in smoothly, stepping between us with a cold, absolute authority that allowed no argument.
“You keep him alive across the border, till we get back to Campbell River. You owe me, Luca. Big. You know it, and I know it. Once this is done, you’re clear of me. Those are your only terms.”
Luca swallows hard and looks down at Jack, who lets out another shallow, agonized wheeze.
“I can get him stable enough to fly. That doesn’t mean he’s stable, he could still die. I won’t accept responsibility for that.”
“Fine. But we need to move now.” I say, making the decision for all of us.
He kneels down again, his jaw tight, and rips open a fresh bag of saline, nodding sharply. “Fine. Let’s move him before his pressure bottoms out entirely.”
* * *
“Careful,” I mutter, my voice cracking, fracturing around the raw panic bleeding through my teeth as Mack and Callan step into the cage carrying a body sling.
“Watch his ribs. If his weight shifts even an inch too fast, we’ll puncture a lung. Move like he’s made of glass.” Luca said quietly as he stands next to Jack’s cot.
We move with agonising, surgical precision. The tight, confined space around the cot makes every move a calculated risk.
When Mack slid the straps beneath my dove’s blood-soaked frame, Jack winces, a low, wretched sound tears past his cracked lips, his pale face tightening into an expression of unconscious agony even through the heavy, drug-like haze of exhaustion.
I watch as they lift him off that wretched mattress felt less like a rescue and more like pulling a shattered soul away from the very jaws of hell.
As we carry him out of the cage, up the narrow wooden stairs, and out into the biting night air, his hand tight in mine, my eyes track his every breath.
I watched the agonising, shallow rise and fall of his bruised, caved-in chest, counting the seconds between each inhalation like a man dying of thirst.
I feel a squeeze around my fingers, and I look down at Jack, tears blurring my vision as I take my broken boy in.
He’s watching me as the sling wraps around him, holding his body tight, like a hammock does on a sunny day.
I smile at him, and he gives me a small one back, and relief washes over me in dizzying waves.
“Sol,” his voice is a whisper in the silence of the night.
“I’ve got you, baby. I’m taking you home.”
“I love you, Sol.”
A sob rips from my throat, and I have to lock my knees before I fall at his words.
“I love you too, dove,” I say around tears that are now falling freely.
Looking at him, bruised across his skin, black eyes, cuts on his perfect skin, I am instantly swallowed by a dark, toxic surge of pure, unadulterated rage.
Dale and Ray were already dead; CJ had killed Dale in the hallway before he could even pull the trigger, and Callan had put down Sale out in the frozen dirt of the yard, but looking at the sheer, calculated extent of the damage they had inflicted on Jack, I felt a violent, hollow fury that they had died too quickly.
And Ray, my fingers itch at wanting to wrap my hand around his throat again, forcing the life out of him, and watching it fade from his eyes.
They each got a clean bullet.
They each got a mercy they didn’t deserve.
I wanted to drag them back from the dead just to tear them apart piece by piece myself, to make them feel a fraction of the slow torture they had subjected my dove to for three long, agonising months.
We load Jack gently into the back of the truck, covering the floor and him with blankets. Luca and I climb in right beside him, and I lay on my side, as I keep one hand locked firmly around his uninjured wrist.
He turns his head to me, and I lay my forehead against his as I look at him. His eyes are swollen, but I can just see his chocolate coloured eyes.
“Hey, baby.” I whisper against the cool night air.
He smiles, “Hi.” He winces at as the truck hits a bump in the road.
I press a kiss to his forehead as he closes his eyes. “I love you, Jack. Love you so much.” kissing his lips, and I hear him hum against my lips.
CJ navigates the dark, winding back roads and once we reached the helicopter, we transferred him with equal care into the cabin of the waiting Huey. During the entire flight across the freezing, starless night sky, I don’t let go of his hand for a single second.
Luca checks Jack constantly, but I can see he’s nervous. I throw him a headset and I wait for him to put them on. CJ and Deck sit silently like sentries over Jack as they watch Luca as I speak.
“Update Doc? How is he?”
I see Luca sigh. “His blood pressure is dropping, and his pain has increased in his abdomen.” He rips off his glove, and runs a hand over his tired face. “We need to get him to the hospital. Now.”
Reid’s voice comes over the comms, “I’m going as fast as I can. I’m heading straight to Nanaimo, it’s already cleared. CJ, you’ll be happy to know I have permission this time to land on the hospital roof. It would have been more dramatic if I could have landed in the car park. Just saying, Yoda.”
I look at CJ and he has a small smile on his face, “That’s good news, cowboy. Pleased you are following the rules this time. Maybe another day for the drama, yes?”
I shake my head, turning my attention back to my boy. I watch as Luca pulls on another glove and checks Jack again. “Good. Flyboy, can you patch me through to them? I’ll fully update them so they’re prepared.”
Flyboy? Well, that’s interesting. I wonder what Reid did that caused Luca to owe him so heavily. I might pry into that, find out what his story is, and make damn sure to follow it up with Reid later.
Jack is asleep, the drugs doing their job as I look out of the helicopter windows.
I pray for the first time in years.
Please let us make it in time.