Page 71 of Duty Preserved

I stood at the edge of the runway and waited for the vehicles to come back.

I knew everything already. Zayn had radioed it in from the field. Alyson was mauled. Cole’s leg was broken.

Sarah was fine.

That was the fact I’d been holding for forty-five minutes. Zayn had told me, and I could trust him. She was uninjured and she was working on Alyson.

The dust came first, rising above the far tree line before the vehicles cleared it. The two trucks were moving just about as fast as they could be safely driven, and they whipped onto the camp road that fed straight to the airstrip.

The first truck nearly skidded to a stop. Zayn got out of the driver’s side, and Baraka swung down from the back before dropping the tailgate. I approached, and that was when I saw Sarah in the back of the truck bed.

She was kneeling over Alyson, still keeping pressure on her wounds. Her arms were red to the elbows. Her shirt was soaked through across the front and down her thighs where she’d been kneeling in Alyson’s blood.

Sarah is fine.

My body didn’t care what the radio had said. Every part of me locked up at the sight of her, and the fact that I’d known for forty-five minutes that none of the blood was hers did nothing at all to stop the gut-wrenching feeling of seeing her like that.

I started toward the truck. Two of the AMREF crew were already there, wheeling the first gurney to the back of the truck. One of them climbed up into the bed beside Sarah and leaned in over Alyson.

The dressings covered most of the damage. Sarah had packed the wounds and wrapped what she could. Forty-five minutes of pressure over rough roads, though, had left all sorts of bloodied gear and bandages scattered all over the back.

Hopefully it just looked worse than it was.

Then the AMREF medic shifted, and I caught enough of Alyson’s face. One side. The dressings didn’t cover all of it, and what was visible told me everything I needed to know about what was underneath.

I’d seen wounds. I had a frame of reference for this. One look and my attention moved, because that’s what you did. I couldn’t get fixated on the wounds right now. That was the medics’ job.

The AMREF paramedic was talking to Sarah. Calmly telling her what they were about to do. Sarah’s hands hadn’t moved. She just stayed holding pressure. She wasn’t letting go.

I climbed up onto the tailgate. The truck bed was slick under my boots. Sarah’s eyes came up to mine for the first time. She was running on adrenaline and autopilot. She appeared to be potentially borderline going into shock.

“Sarah.” I kept my voice low and steady. “They’ve got her. You can let go.”

She shook her head. A small, tight movement. Her fingers pressed harder into the bandage.

“They need to take over now,” I said. “The sooner they can take over, the sooner she can get to a surgical center.”

Her jaw was clenched so hard the muscles in her neck were taut. She was looking at me, but I wasn’t sure she was hearing me.

I put my hand over hers. On top of the blood, on top of the gauze, on top of everything that was keeping Alyson alive. That was the first time I’d touched her today, and it was to make her stop.

“I’m right here,” I said. “Let go.”

Her fingers released one at a time. The paramedic slid in and took her position, and Sarah sat back on her heels with her hands in front of her. She had her crimson-stained palms facing her, and I could see the tremors of her muscles trying to adapt to not applying the pressure she had been holding.

I helped her off the tailgate. Her boots hit the dirt, and she turned immediately back toward the truck, toward Alyson. The AMREF crew transferred her to the stretcher. Sarah stayed right there. Close enough to touch. Her hand found Alyson’s arm and held it as they moved toward the plane.

I stood and watched Sarah walk away from me toward the plane, still covered in her best friend’s blood, and there was nothing for me to do.

I should worry about Cole. Sarah was okay for now.

He was in the passenger seat of the same truck, his left leg extended carefully across the footwell. He hadn’t tried to get out. A broken leg had lower priority than Alyson’s situation. Cole knew that without anyone telling him.

I went around to his side. He looked up when I reached him, and his face told me a lot before he opened his mouth. Pain, yes. His skin was gray under the dust, and his hand gripped the doorframe hard enough that his knuckles were white.

“Tell me what happened.”

“We darted him.” Cole’s voice was tight. “Everything went right. The dart hit true. We waited the full required fifteen minutes, and the lion gave all signs the sedative was working. Alyson then went in for a closer inspection.”