Page 56 of Rescued

Like he didn’t want to face her? Or because he didn’t want her to be here?

It didn’t matter right now. Only the wounded mattered. But some were so badly hurt…

She’d seen Dobe examining Cisco. Sanchez sat next to him, gripping his hand and talking in a low voice.

“Shit,” Dobe had muttered. “Why the fuck don’t we have a real surgeon?”

“Gregor used to do it,” Matéo said. That was the old alpha. “We never got a replacement.” He was standing by Cisco’s bed, shifting from foot to foot.

Breanna’s heart went out to them. Big, goofy Cisco, who was strong and brave and loved the World Axe-Throwing Championships. The three of them were so close. If anything happened to him…

She looked up to see Mikey coming in like an avenging angel, streaks of blood on her face, holding a golden sphere the size of a tennis ball. Somehow, she was using it to make a video call. There was a woman’s face showing in the side of it.

“Yeah, surgical teams, as soon as you can,” she was saying to the ball. “Like, ten minutes ago. Bring Mina, if you can find her. Some of these guys are starting to heal up already.”

Breanna suctioned some blood out of a wound so Dealer could stitch it up. She asked him, “Isn’t that good, that they heal fast?”

He shook his head. “It’s a problem if the bones are out of alignment, or shattered, and they can’t get surgery. It heals wrong and stays wrong. They might not ever be able to use the limbs again.”

Chapter 24

Oh, god. She’d never thought about that. She looked back at Cisco, and couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if he couldn’t use one of his legs. A soldier who lived for the mission, being unable to go on another one.

She took a deep breath. She couldn’t help him—she didn’t have the skills. But she could help other people.

She focused on Dealer, who looked like he might pass out. “Are you okay?” She knew he wasn’t wounded—he hadn’t been on the mission.

“I hate blood,” he muttered. His face was white, but his hands were steady. “Hate it, hate it, hate it.”

He finished the suture, tied it off, and then went off in the corner and threw up in a basin. He wiped his face, rinsed out his mouth, and went to stitch up another wound.

Breanna watched him go, awed.

Dealer was always joking around, pretending nothing mattered to him. But there he was, pushing himself to the point of barfing so he could help.

That was another kind of bravery.

All around her, she saw men who had risked everything to help people they didn’t even know. And she saw others, holding their hands or gripping their shoulders, talking to them, trickling water into their mouths if they couldn’t do it themselves.

Setting bones and stitching wounds. Making jokes, soothing pain.

She saw Gunn moving through the room, could actually feel his presence. He went from one injured man to the next, touching each one, however briefly, and touching the ones who sat with them and lent their strength. She saw Mikey in a corner, her hands on someone’s bloody forehead, eyes closed, somehow willing him to stay with them.

Boomer joking with one of the wounded, who smiled weakly—and hung on to life.

Boomer’s brother holding someone down who needed his leg set, and couldn’t have drugs because of a head injury.

Sanchez sitting next to Cisco, telling him not to be a wussy, it was only a scratch, while wiping his forehead gently with a cold cloth.

Bleeding himself, from a wound on his arm.

For the first time, she could feel the pack bond, even with her human senses. Caring, commitment, the strong shoring up the weak. It stretched through the room like a giant spiderweb, with Gunn at the center, a calming presence.

Holding each other together.

The surgical teams Mikey had called in arrived—Breanna didn’t know how or from where, because she’d called them hardly any time ago, but suddenly they were there. Led by a fortyish-looking woman with long blond hair named Trish, another one the same age named Mina, and a short woman with black hair and the greenest eyes Breanna had ever seen, who looked like she was only about twenty-five, but had an aura of power around her.

They had brought assistants and supplies, and went immediately to work on the worst of the wounded.