Fifteen seconds.
Xavier’s respiration was ragged, irregular. I watched his chest, ready to start rescue breathing the second the seizure broke if he didn’t resume normal patterns.
Twenty seconds.
Come on. Come on, you stubborn bastard.
Twenty-five.
The convulsions began to slow. The violent jerking smoothed into tremors, then shudders, then...
Xavier went limp.
Complete collapse. His body melted into the surface like someone had cut his strings.
“Got it.” My grip moved automatically, checking his pulse at his neck. Rapid but strong. Good. “Havoc, pulse ox. I need his oxygen saturation.”
Havoc clipped the device onto Xavier’s finger while I tilted Xavier’s skull, checking his airway was clear. He was breathing, shallow but present. His chest rose and fell with a jerky, uncertain rhythm.
Post-ictal state. The aftermath. He’d be unconscious for a while, his brain rebooting after the electrical overload.
I grabbed a penlight from the kit, thumbed open his eyelids. His pupils contracted sluggishly when I hit them with light, but they reacted. Both of them.
“Responsive.” I cataloged the good signs like rosary beads. “Respiration adequate. Pulse strong.”
The tremor in my own grip started now that the crisis had passed. I pressed my palms flat against the wood, forcing them still.
I did it.
I looked at Xavier’s chest rising and falling, steady despite everything.
“Will he wake up?” Hellhound’s question cut through my thoughts. He was still supporting Xavier’s skull, gentle despite the violence we’d all just witnessed.
“I don’t know.” Honesty felt important. “The seizure was massive.” I rechecked Xavier’s pupils. Still reactive. Still good. “But he’s stable. That’s what matters right now. We’ll know more when he wakes up. However, if another seizure of that intensity starts...”
Hellhound’s palm was still on Xavier’s brow, touch gentle despite the size of his grip. “I’ve seen him survive worse. But not like this. Not from the inside.”
The words hung in the air, a reminder that these men had a history I couldn’t begin to understand. Battles fought, missions survived, brothers forged in violence.
Havoc moved to the surface, slamming something down with a metallic crack that made me jump.
The drive.
Small, black, innocuous. The thing they’d risked everything for.
“We got it.” Adrenaline still flooded his system, making his tone shake. “The codes. But there’s a problem.”
I barely looked up from monitoring Xavier’s respiration. “There’s always a problem.”
“The encryption is military-grade.” Havoc was already pulling out his laptop, fingers flying before the screen even finished booting. “I need time to crack it. I started in the car, but between a sketchy signal and Xavier, I didn’t finish.”
“How much time?”
“Best case? Four hours.” Havoc’s jaw tightened. “Worst case? Eight.”
My skull snapped up. “He doesn’t have eight hours.”
The words came out flat, clinical. But underneath, terror clawed at my throat.
