one
. . .
SUTTON
The scream ravaged my throat.
Heedless of the danger I was putting myself in, I moved, quite literally throwing myself into the line of fire to run toward the man who’d taken a bullet to the chest. Distantly, I registered more shots as they rang out, but I only had attention to spare for the man on the ground. On the gaping hole in the bulletproof vest that had done absolutely nothing to protect him.
Lane.
Oh, god. Lane was shot.
Dropping to my knees at his side, my medical kit tipping and spilling its contents across the ground next to me, I placed my hands over the wound, sealing it as best as I could. Blood instantly coated my palms, attempting to squeeze free.
Someone knelt at Lane’s other side, and I looked up at Crew.
“Bag him,” I said, attempting to keep my voice as steady as possible, though my shaking hands gave my distress away.
Crew nodded, reaching across his brother’s chest for the supplies. He located the intubation kit, tearing the fresh tube open and grasping it in one hand before taking the laryngoscope in the other. Positioning himself on his stomach above Lane’shead, Crew unhinged his brother’s jaw and inserted the scope into his mouth, using it as a guide to get the tube down his trachea and into his lungs.
Next, he attached the bag to the end of the tube sticking out of Lane’s mouth and pumped it a few times. He grabbed my stethoscope from around my neck, settled the earpieces in, and placed the chest piece over his sternum. A moment later, he said, “I’m in.”
With my hands still against Lane’s chest, I uselessly watched Crew work on his brother, afraid to move, feeling far too much like I was holding his life inside of him. Once an IV had been inserted into the back of Lane’s hand, Crew looked at me for guidance.
“We need to move him.Now.”
The rest of the Lawless boys and several of his deputies rallied around Lane; a backboard appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I remained in position as the men collared and loaded him, strapping him in around my hands, and we raced for where Finn had landed the rescue chopper.
Everyone but Finn, Crew, and I fell back once we got Lane secured inside, and we were in the air moments later.
“Boise!” I shouted at Finn, who merely jerked his head in the approximation of a nod as his hands worked at the controls.
Still refusing to take my hands off Lane’s chest, I let Crew work around me, pulling stacks of gauze squares out of the medical kit to pack the wound.
I tried like hell to marshal my emotions, to tap into my training. Tried to remind myself that Lane’s life didn’t matter any more than the countless I’d already saved in my career.
But I’d be damned if I could make myself believe it.
The monitor we’d hooked him up, the monitor began beeping incessantly, and my eyes flicked to it in horror.
His stats were dropping—fast.
“We’re losing him!” Crew shouted as the rapid signal of Lane’s vitals flatlined with one long, mournfulbeeeeeeeeeeep.
“No!” I screamed, immediately shifting from the steady pressure on his chest to CPR compressions while Crew stuffed the wound full of gauze. “C’mon, Lane. Stay with me.”
All concept of time, of the world around me, faded away as I continued to perform CPR, timing my compressions by mentally chanting “breathe breathe breathe” over and over again.
Crew hooked him up to the defibrillator, and I lifted my hands. He shouted, “Clear!” and shocked him. Lane’s body bowed upward, dropping back with athunk.
No movement on his stats.
“Again,” I demanded. We needed to shock him back into rhythm.
After another shock, Lane’s body obeyed at last, the numbers on the monitor steadily returning to normal—or as normal as possible considering he had a gaping hole in his chest.
Crew sagged against the side of the helicopter in relief while I removed the soaked gauze from Lane’s wound, repacked it, and taped it down.
