Bravo loaded the students onto the plane with Mace and Bear to provide first-aid stabilization. They left their K9s on the plane.
No Rylee. No Tank.
Dakota tumbled back to the ground with the other Bravo team members. They turned to race back to McLeod as the steps were pulled up.
The door slammed shut, the plane already taxiing.
With a roar, the jet took off almost vertically.
Dakota had never seen a passenger jet being flown tactically before, but the pilot got the airport and tower between it and the insurgents, then kept the plane low while it moved over the horizon.
Dakota raced toward the tower.
There, his breath stopped as he found Rylee on a knee with Tank at her side.
Somehow, she’d pried a rifle loose from the insurgents and had them in her sights as the men leapt onto the back of a pickup, pounded the cab roof, and the truck took off.
The light from his headlamp caught on a pool of blood around Rylee’s knee, and Dakota’s heart left his body.
“Rylee, it’s Dakota,” he called.
She was in combat mode, hard-focused on the task at hand.
He didn’t want to startle her when she had her finger on the trigger.
His hands were out, and his muscle memory had him sink into a low profile.
“Rylee, it’s Dakota,” he raised his voice.
Her eyes didn’t waver from her target until the truck was out of range, then she looked down at Tank, over to the puddle, and up to him.
Dakota wanted to race forward and scoop her into his arms. He wanted to check every square inch of her to figure out why there was so much blood.
He held steady. “Rylee, you have your finger on the trigger of a rifle. Put the rifle down.”
She looked down at the rifle and seemed to unwind from the intensity of whatever had taken place.
Laying the rifle down, she tried to stand and fell to the side, shooting a hand out to catch her weight.
Dakota was beside her in a flash.
He stretched her out and was patting over her, looking for the source of the blood.
“No, no,” Rylee protested, “not my blood.”
A young woman was on the ground sobbing an elderly woman had her hands on the woman’s shoulder.
Dakota saw no blood in that direction.
He’d heard no shots fired.
“Tank took down one of the comrades. That’s his gun. This is his blood. Tank’s tooth must have severed an artery in his arm.”
“Okay, but what?” Something was obviously wrong.
“My legs went numb. I can’t feel my feet.”
Dakota scooped Rylee up in his arms and carried her toward the ruins. He hadn’t had an update about the others in the area. Though the direction of the motors told him the insurgents had taken what they wanted.
