“Ford. Oh God, Ford, open your eyes. Look at me.” Framing his face with my hands, I lean close, touching my forehead to his. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. Just…keep breathing.”
His lips brush against mine, and though his words are hoarse and barely audible, I hear him.
“As…you…wish…”
22
Ford
My throat hurts like a motherfucker, and the bruises Joey gave me doing CPR throb with each breath. But I’m alive. And so is she.
The EMTs load Nomar onto the first gurney. The asshole opened up half his stitches running after me, but his shot took down the sniper and the bearded son-of-a-bitch who choked me to death.
Death. The word never used to frighten me. Not truly. I’ve faced it before. Six times in my life—four of them in Iraq. Once on a case. Today. And all I can think is that if Joey had been a minute later, if she hadn’t been able to escape the guy trying to steal her away, I’d be dead, and she’d be alone.
Blood from her temple seeps into my shirt. She’s curled against my side on the dirty concrete floor, her hand over my heart when the guys in blue scrubs rush over and start to triage our various injuries.
“Get them up and onto gurneys,” one of them says, but Joey tightens her hold on me.
“No. I’m…a doctor. I can walk. And I’m not leaving him.”
“You have a head wound,” the EMT replies. “Procedure.”
“Fuck procedure.” Gingerly pushing myself up on an elbow, I keep my other arm around Joey. My voice is hoarse and weak, but whatever the guy sees in my eyes convinces him to back away with his hands in the air, then wave over another guy with a wheelchair.
I feel like I got hit by a truck, and walking…probably not a smart idea. So I let them help me into the contraption, then pull Joey into my lap. “Not…letting go…of you.”
She nods, and though my vision wavers a little, I think I see relief welling in her eyes. Along with a contusion the size of a grapefruit on the side of her head. Shit. We both could have—
“Don’t,” she whispers in my ear. “Don’t even think it. You’re mine, Ford Lawton. You’re not allowed to die on me, and I’m certainly not going to die on you. Nothing comes between us. Ever again.”
Two hours later, we’re sharing a narrow hospital bed, our flight to the states delayed until Trevor gives us the all clear that the trip to the airport won’t be a suicide mission.
“How did he find us?” Joey asks, then winces as she wriggles up to sitting and drops the cold pack she had pressed to her cheek on the little side table. “We were careful. Nomar got the tracker out of Lisette’s clothing. Mateen didn’t have one. And you said…Wren hacked the hospital records in Kandahar to make it look like they were patients there…not here.”
“Don’t know.” Talking hurts, but I’d read her War and Peace if I thought it would somehow allay her fears. Problem is…I don’t have any answers.
A brisk knock makes her flinch, and I push myself up with a groan so I can wrap my arms around her as the door opens and Trevor pokes his head in. “This an okay time?”
Yelling at him? Completely worth the pain. “Where the fuck were you? Faruk’s men invade the hospital and Nomar’s the one who shoots the last of them?”
“I was arranging the goddamn plane. And the security to get us there. And security back in Boston when we landed. Paying off the airport officials so no one would report the flight… Shit. You want me to go back and undo all that shit so Faruk can track us all the way home?”
“Ford,” Joey says quietly, “it’s all right. We…made it. There’s no guarantee Trevor wouldn’t have gotten himself killed if he’d been here.”
The logical part of my brain knows this. The part that almost died and watched the woman I love be beaten? It’s not so sure. With a sigh, I gesture to the chair by the bed. “Sorry, man.”
“No need. I get it. And I’m sorry.” For several minutes, no one speaks, but then Trevor lets out a heavy breath. “I’ve watched nine of my friends die,” he admits as he drops a duffel bag on the floor and then sinks into the hard plastic seat. “One of them right in front of me. Another…I shot myself. Point-blank range. Didn’t matter that he was a killer and a traitor. He was my best fucking friend, and I couldn’t let anyone else take the shot.”
This is more than Trev’s talked about himself…ever.
“I’m so sorry,” Joey says as she settles against me.
He shrugs. “Part of the life. I should have been here. And if things had turned out differently…I’d never have been able to forgive myself. But…” Meeting my gaze with a half-smile, he holds up Mateen’s little gaming device, “I figured out how Faruk tracked us.”
“Mateen loves that game. He taught me to play.” Joey rubs her swollen eye, then hisses out a breath. “You disabled the tracker, right?”
“Better than that. It’s on its way back to Afghanistan on a vegetable truck. He’ll probably suspect something’s wrong before long when he can’t reach his men, but I figure that will buy us enough time to get the fuck out of here.”
