Buck pursed his lips into a thin line. “Tachy. Breathing’s labored. He needs a damn medic.”
“Do your best, brother.”
Rowan scooted over. “Buck’s not a medic?”
“Ordinance, and the best tracker you’ll ever find. Ironically, Wade’s our trained wilderness medic. He’s why we have some advanced supplies in our kit. Why?”
“With the wound care, I just thought…” She offered him her rifle. “If you think you can handle her, I’ll see if I can help Wade.”
“Is that your way of saying you’re also a medic?”
“Don’t go getting all starry-eyed. It’s a holdover from my uniform days, and I stay current, just in case, though, it’s been a while.” She held it out. “You good?”
Bodie took the weapon. “Stay low.”
She shook her head as if she thought he was nuts, when a thump slapped the air. Low. Heavy. As if the earth had heaved beneath them. Bodie lunged at her, shoved her beneath him on the ground as a hushed whoosh soared overhead, hitting the ridge high and wide. Shooting rocks and moss into the air in a rain of stinging shrapnel.
He glanced over his shoulder, gauging the next attack when Dalton’s rifle cracked beside him.
“Launcher down.” Dalton’s voice rasped through the air, deep, flat, a hint of what sounded like regret laced in the words.
Rowan stared up at Bodie as he eased back, eyes wide, clearly assessing him before she scrambled over to Wade, grabbed supplies out of their combined med kit. Two minutes flat and she’d decompressed a pneumo thorax, had an IV going for fluids.
Buck shifted in beside him, looking back at Rowan over his shoulder. “She’s impressive.”
“She’s something.”
“She should look at your leg before you bleed out.”
“I’m fine.”
“Tell that to your face because if you keep grimacing, it’ll get stuck that way.”
Bodie waved it off, shoved the pain into the box he’d labeled later, then took up Rowan’s scope. He scanned the line, cursing when a string of men charged up from every direction. No fancy strategies, just muscle and bullets.
Dirt exploded across his face, a few of the rounds whizzing past his shoulder before he returned fire — clipped the forerunner twice in his ballistic vest. Not fatal, but it scattered the remaining men. Had them folding back into the greenery, leaving only misty breath and drifting grit.
Another time check.
Three minutes.
He looked up at Rowan. Hands compressed around Wade’s thigh, she barely noticed the last few pops of gunfire blazing far too close to her shoulder, her attention divided between his buddy and the horizon.
That’s when he heard it. A faint thunder that grew louder until the steady beat echoed clear to his bones.
Chopper.
Rowan reached into her pocket, drew another canister. She cracked it open, then tossed it across the plateau. It skipped along the rock, pouring out blue smoke that tore sideways as the wind sliced through — carried it off.
The helicopter’s searchlight speared through the fog and the smoke, lighting up patches of rock as it bore down on them, the side doors sliding open. Either Kash Sinclair or Zain Everett appeared in the space, silhouette backlit by the last vestiges of light. Muzzle flashes sparked to life, the rounds eating up the dirt below the ridge.
The attack increased, the mercs throwing all their resources at the chopper and the ridge until the rotor wash caught the smoke — whipped it sideways. The cold air sliced through their clothing, the strum vibrating clear through the rock.
Beckett toed the bird onto the cliff, the skids grinding against the stone — flattening the scrubby grass and smoke — just as all three men exited the chopper, racing over to them in perfect sync. Their medic, Chase Remington, former pararescue and the guy married to Bodie’s boss, Sheriff Greer Hudson, dropped down beside Wade, head bent low as he talked to Rowan. Kash Sinclair and his furry sidekick, Nyx slipped in beside Dalton, Zain Everett, resident sniper and straight-up badass, took a knee beside Bodie.
Zain shook his head. “Thought this was a routine scouting mission? Some geologists or something?”
Bodie fired off the last of his rounds. “So did I, but…”
