Fallon stared at Trent. “Please tell me you don’t actually have a date with Dove?”
“Of course he does,” Harley said. “He’s gone through all the locals.”
“You haven’t dated me.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“That’s because I’m smarter than everyone else in this town.” Harley held one hand on his gut, the other on his back.
“Not true. You’ve just got the hots for Cullen Delaney,” Fallon said.
Harley didn’t confirm or deny, and that spoke volumes.
Keaton came in hot, bumping his hull alongside hers. “Chopper’s inbound—fourteen minutes out and docks are twenty, so we hold here.”
Fallon cut Trent’s shirt, pressed gauze and wrapped. Harley kept pressure. Blood-soaked fast, dark and too much.
Trent wheezed. “Hey, Reeves…”
“Yeah?”
“Tell Buddy he owes me a beer.”
“You’ll tell him yourself.”
The air throbbed with heat and the rot of churned water. The Everglades were too quiet. No birds, no gators close enough to break the surface. Just the low, distant hum of an approaching helicopter.
Fallon looked east, into the sun, until the glare turned white.
She wasn’t religious, but she found herself praying anyway—half to the swamp, half to whatever gods watched over fools who threw snakes at gunmen.
The blades hit first, chopping through the air, the sound growing louder, closer. Fallon’s hair whipped against her face.
“Hold on, Trent,” she said, voice barely audible over the wind. “Hold on.”
The medevac chopper crested the cypress line, sunlight flashing off its rotors. Keaton signaled with a flare. The wind beat down, scattering sawgrass and spray.
Fallon stayed low beside Trent, hand pressed to his shoulder, the swamp wind hammering every inch of her skin.
The world narrowed to noise, blood, and the smell of jet fuel.
The helicopter dipped low, wind beating the swamp into submission. Keaton braced against the gust, shouting over the roar as the medics lowered themselves onto the boat—two of them, lean and efficient, gear bags slung across their chests.
“Male, late thirties,” Keaton said. “Gunshot wound—entry right lower abdomen, exit right flank. Conscious but fading.”
One medic nodded and dropped beside Trent, assessing fast. The other passed Fallon a roll of gauze without looking, already unwrapping saline.
Fallon took it. Her fingers were slick with blood. It felt tacky, too warm. She didn’t realize she was shaking until she tried to press again and Keaton’s hand steadied hers.
“Hey,” he said, softer now, voice pitched for her alone. “You did good.”
She swallowed hard. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Sure you did. You lived, and so will he.”
Trent groaned as they lifted him onto the basket dangling from the chopper. His eyes cracked open. “That… snake’s gonna need a raise.”
Harley let out a strangled laugh that sounded more like relief. “You can argue with him about it when you’re not bleeding on my boots.”
Trent’s mouth twitched. “Deal.”
