Without hesitation, he dove off the bank into the raging river, praying with all his might that Chry was alive.
Chry jerked awake immersed in water and immediately started to struggle. The impact of the RPG had sent a percussion through the water, stunning her. Her limbs felt like liquid. She was being dragged downriver, the rolling rapids making it impossible for her to keep her head above the surface. She barely felt the cold of the forty-seven-degree water, her struggle to live all-encompassing.
Her side hurt like hell, a burning, excruciating pain that wouldn’t go away. Numerous other cuts and gashes stung and throbbed, but that pain was breathtaking. Chry didn’t know which end was up. The river carried her swiftly, the speed turning her upside down. Her waterlogged clothes and pack dragged her down. But she couldn’t do anything about it. Air was more important.
She worked at controlling her tumbling, focused on the surface and headed for the night sky. She broke through, getting her head enough above the water to catch her breath just before the current smacked her into a rock, then twisted her under again. She couldn’t grab anything, felt weightless. She really didn’t want to die today. Not after all she’d endured. After finding Neo again.
Her lungs screaming for air, she kicked hard and shot to the surface, spitting water and sucking in air as she struggled toward the rocks. Her fingers grazed a boulder and slipped. But the force of the water took her away before she could try again. The swirling water pushed her under again and she was starting to feel the fatigue, then the cold. Her fingers were numb, but that unrelenting pain in her side refused to abate.
She was failing, and even as she realized that, she started to kick harder, stronger. She had to reach the bank, or she was going to die. With everything she had in her, she focused on how Neo had looked this morning, sexy and enticing. She kept his face firmly in her mind as she kicked furiously.
Her flailing hand hit rock, sending a reverberation up through her fingertips to her wrist. With a desperate lunge, she grabbed onto a rocky fissure and pulled as hard as she could. Her body propelled by the swirling waves landed her partially onto the shore. Gasping for breath, her heart hammering, she crawled, clawing for purchase in the wet mud, shoving herself up onto drier land. The rain hadn’t stopped. It poured down.
Chry was feeling weaker, more so than a struggle in the river would account for. She started to shiver as the rain pelted her. She reached down to touch her side, and when she brought her hand back up, it was red with her blood.
Falling into a dazed, stunned state, she closed her eyes.
She was bleeding.
She’d been shot.
Saint watched 2-Stroke go into the river after Chry. The five of them had left the horses and run toward the gunfire, coming at Darko’s thugs from behind. They watched as the RPG knocked Chry into the water and 2-Stroke went berserk. Saint couldn’t even imagine what his brother had already gone through. He looked like he’d broken, simply let go of his humanity and gone to a basic primal level.
The whine and metallic crash had them all turning toward the helicopter as the pilot wrestled the controls to keep it level. The skids hit the ground, the rotors pushing it over, and it crashed with a grating roar.
Saint went to move forward, but gunfire erupted. There was no way they could get to the river as a second chopper buzzed in and landed next to the downed one. Men boiled out of it.
“Time to go,” Striker said, his voice rough with frustration and anger. “They’re heading for Banja Luka. We need to find a place to hole up and try to rendezvous with them.” They retreated from the river and ran toward the dense forest to lose themselves inside.
The five of them had gotten there in the nick of time. If 2-Stroke had opened up on those guys without their backup, he would have died.
Saint didn’t want to have to explain to his LT how they had failed his brother in arms. Determined that wasn’t a conversation he was ever going to have with Fast Lane, they slipped away, gathered Alek from his hiding spot and headed for Banja Luka.
2-Stroke swam hard as the current dragged him down the river. He heard nothing but the rush of the water all around him and the sound of his own labored breathing. The water held him in a tight grip, but he was a SEAL, and he knew how to deal with water. When his head bobbed to the surface, he took a huge gulp of air. The churning, twisting current pulled him under again, jerking him around like socks in a washing machine.
Frigid water wasn’t anything he hadn’t endured and beat before, and he ignored the numbing cold. His feverish brain could only hold two thoughts. Stay alive. Find Chry.
With strong strokes he boosted himself closer and closer to the bank. When he got close enough, he dug his fingers into the earth, pulling himself out of the water, then looked for Chry. He shouted her name, but the rush of the river drowned him out. Unaccustomed panic plowed through him as he climbed to his feet and rushed the bank, searching for her body. She was nowhere in sight.
Please no, he thought. She’s strong. She’d have made it. Yet his search gave him nothing. He kept looking. He still had his pack and the handgun strapped to his thigh. He called out as he watched the current but kept moving downriver, searching, his heart breaking little by little when he didn’t find a trace of her.
He refused to give up or lose hope. He continued to move downriver, calling out. Finally, he thought he heard his name. He took off at a run and skidded to a stop when he saw her body.
“Chry!” he shouted, and she turned her head, and the dark weight that had been crushing the life out of him lifted. Relief washed through him with such power, his knees almost buckled.
He rushed toward her, a huge smile on his face, but it faded as he neared. He knelt down, touched her face, her skin cold and clammy. He pushed her wet matted hair aside, and with his thumb rubbed at her cheekbone. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
She looked down, moved her hand from her side, and blood trickled out. He swore softly and immediately pulled off his jacket, the sopping flannel shirt, then the thermal top. He wadded up the thermal and pressed it against her side.
“Hold that there.” He checked her pulse, and it was rapid. Her lips were bloodless, and she was showing signs of blood loss. “Hang on, babe,” he whispered. He dressed again in the flannel and his coat.
He slipped his arms under her, cradling her body against his. She curled her arm around his neck and whispered, “My hero.” Turning toward the lights of the city, he broke into a run, his legs pumping, his blood running hot.
9
The pounding rain eased off to a constant drizzle, and his boots squished in the mud as he headed closer to the lights. Chry had slipped into unconsciousness. He had to find the safe house and get her medical attention ASAP. He could see the outskirts of the town. It wasn’t small or quaint but filled with color and movement, settled on the banks of the river. The next rolling hill, the next rise beyond the river, and the mountains rose to white peaks. They were too far away for anyone to notice their bedraggled state.
2-Stroke had an innate sense of direction as he took them through a winding path, and he glanced to the mountains. Still at the same altitude.
He carried her around the circumference of the city. They passed behind homes and shops, and between the buildings, past signs for river raft rides. Their path curved before the land widened under the cover of trees, the ground grassless and muddy from the rain. His gaze swept their surroundings, the path, the vehicles, and their occupants.