One side of his mouth kicked up. “First time is always a little startling.”
Cocking my head at him, I smiled. “Why do I get the feeling you don’t startle at anything?”
I wasn’t sure I’d seen any sign of emotion in him. Well, laughter. He laughed a lot with his brothers. And he had a nice, easy smile. He knew how to make a person feel comfortable around him. But he didn’t panic. None of them did.
That made me remember the night that OD had shown up to help me and I’d revealed a knocked out Rhino. There’d barely been surprise on his face, let alone any other emotion regular people would’ve been feeling. If anything there was the curiosityof something new to do tonight. Like coming home with a board game instead of a puzzle. A pleasant change, but not entirely unexpected.
There was more gunfire.
“Guys found what they were looking for,” Merc commented, looking around the shelving unit for anyone running our way.
We waited, me tense, him loose and controlled, listening to everything happening deeper into the warehouse. All I could do was hope that they were okay. Eventually, the noise died down. I swallowed hard as I heard footsteps heading our way amongst the ringing in my ears.
I tightened my grip, ready to fight my way back to our guys with Merc if we needed to. Once more a strong hand clasped the top of my gun. I recognized the tattoos on the back of it before my eyes even lifted to OD’s face. There was blood spattered across one of his cheeks.
My gun was in my holster before I even knew what I was doing and he was dragging me into his strong arms. I rested my cheek against his shoulder and sighed. “You’re okay.”
“Some of us are still fucking bleeding here.”
Gasping, I looked over as Relay collapsed on the ground in front of the shelves, leaning back against them.
Drifter had helped him hobble back and was now crouched down in front of him. “It’s bleeding pretty good,” he told OD. “I need something to stop it. If it hit an artery he’s going to bleed out before we can get him stitched up.”
Relay looked around, then reached up above his head and grabbed something, thrusting it in Drifter’s face. “That’ll do.”
I pulled away from OD, going straight into EMT mode, and blinked at the super glue Relay was holding. “He’s right,” I said. “Thatwillwork if it’s just a flesh wound.”
“It’s going to fucking heat up as it cures,” Drifter said, looking over at me. “Could end up damaging the surrounding tissue.”
“True, but I don’t have medical-grade cyanoacrylate on me, do you?” I asked. That was what us medical professionals usually used to close wounds.Dammit.Why hadn’t I thought to bring that in my small kit with me? I was so focused on what I wanted and proving myself that I’d forgotten the obvious. Armed men doing something dangerous usually ended with bloodshed. Well, I could improvise my way through this.
“No,” Drifter admitted.
“Guess we both have something new to add to our go bags,” I told him, rifling around in my emergency kit. I had damn near everything but that. “I have some sterile strips if it's not too bad of a wound.”
“How about we fucking get in there and check before I bleed to death?” Relay snapped.
Drifter and I looked up from where we’d been triaging him and I gave him a weak smile. “Right.”
“Ungrateful bastard. You want to do the work yourself?” Drifter asked. “I could just hand you my bag, I have better shit to do.”
“Just get it done,” Relay conceded.
The others were standing back, letting us do our jobs, and watching our backs. I had no idea if Carrick’s men were still out there, but if they were OD, Merc, Hype, and Code weren’t going to let them surprise us.
“You seem to know a lot about this,” I said to Relay as I handed over a pair of trauma shears so that Drifter could cut away Relay’s jeans. I knew Drifter had been a field medic, so I wasn’t at all surprised about his knowledge.
“I was a PJ.”
Looking up from where Drifter was cutting away the blood soaked material, I frowned. “A…”
“A Pararescueman Jumper,” Hype told me.
As if that made any more sense to me than PJ. I needed to start looking up these military terms.
“Their primary mission is to rescue and provide medical treatment to personnel in combat or isolated areas,” OD told me, squatting down next to me and staring at the wound Drifter was uncovering.
“Fuckers enter some of the most dangerous situations to save the lives of other military operatives,” Merc said, his voice was low and he was facing away from us, eyes trained on the darkness beyond the meager lights in the warehouse.
