Clean as possible? That’s a laugh. I have to wade through water, and jungles aren’t exactly the cleanest place on earth. Doc Summers better have some super potent antibiotics ready to inject into my ass. How long does it take for infection to set in? It’s a serious question because it limits my operability.
Already, I’m thinking of several options to get out of this mess.
Once Eve and Knox have the way clear, I gingerly wade into the stream and duck under the wire fence. It’s electrified, but none of the fence touches the water. I hold a hand out for Eve, loving the way her hand fits in mine, but what I enjoy most is how she doesn’t let go once she’s with me on the other side.
Knox does what he can to replace the fallen limbs on the other side of the fence, then he, too, ducks under the small gap and joins us. Maybe that’ll buy us some time. Maybe not.
“How’s your signal?” I turn to Knox, giving him a hand up the slippery bank, which is more mud than anything else.
We’re all soaked from our knees down, which includes our feet. Obviously, it includes our feet. I only think about that because in the heat and humidity of the jungle, trench foot will become a serious consideration if we’re here for much more than a day or two.
We’ve been outside for a good five minutes. Not long enough for the data to upload from his watch to the team. He glances at his watch and gives a shake of his head.
“No signal.”
“We need to put distance between us and this mess. Find higher ground and an extraction point.” I glance at Eve and look at her shoes. The uneven jungle ground with its raised roots loves to twist ankles. In her running shoes, she has no ankle support. I’ll need to keep a close eye on her.
“Your leg?” Knox asks about how incapacitated I am.
“No exit wound. Bleeding’s stopped. Hurts like a mother, but I can manage.”
It’s the truth. Not a comfortable truth, but one nonetheless. I will slow us down. All that means is we need to keep moving.
“Let’s move out.” My goal is to put as much distance between us and any pursuit. Then, I plan on finding a place where I can watch for Benefield’s men while sending Knox and Eve on without me. This seems the wisest plan. Eve’s safety is paramount.
He can get her out. I’m better suited to stay behind with my bum leg. My arm throbs, but the bullet only grazed the skin. It’s a deeper wound than I’d like, down to muscle, but nothing like my leg.
We trudge through the dense underbrush for an hour. Eve keeps up without much difficulty. As suspected, the roots trip her, but she’s a fast learner. Eve looks where she steps and lifts her feet high.
That’s a challenge for me. Although after stopping to patch together a makeshift crutch, I gimp along fairly well.
The constant throbbing in my leg is tolerable. I check every fifteen minutes when I force us to take a break. The bleeding is manageable. I’m more worried about infection setting in; not that it matters now. In a day, or two, that might be an issue. Right now, I monitor blood loss. I’m not going to think about what was in the water at the fence line.
During our rest breaks, Knox tries to get a signal. The dense vegetation, along with the deep valley we travel through, make that complicated.
“You need to go ahead.” I give Knox one of my looks. He reads me like an open book and his lips press hard together.
“Bad idea.”
“You get that signal through and we get out of here.”
“I leave you, and…” No need to finish that thought.
Knox and I are tight. Tighter than tight. We’ve been through the worst of times. More than either of us wants to admit. It started in BUDS and continued from there.
He and I served together overseas. A shit assignment in a poor country overrun by militant men eager to die in their fight against the enemies of Islam. We’ve been to hell and back again.
Knox was with me when we pulled what remained of our squad out of a burning vehicle. Together, we dragged our men to safety under active gunfire to a berm where we then did the unthinkable; the unconscionable.
Knox and I took stock of our meager supplies. We looked at our teammates—men we trained with, friends we knew for years. Together, we decided who would live and who would die.
That kind of thing leaves a mark on your soul. Knox and I shoulder that burden as one. Our meager supplies stretched only so far. We couldn’t save them all.
Those are the tough decisions that come with the job, and we faced them together.
We did our best. We saved who we could. We prayed for the rest. Knox and I looked at one another, and between us, we made that choice.
He looks at me now, and I can read every thought in his head. He’s thinking the same thing as me. I reach out to reassure him.
“You’re not leaving me behind.”
“Then why does this feel like all kinds of a bad idea?” Pain rolls across his features. Determination and grit collide with the inevitable. There is only one decision to be made. Knox knows it.
As do I.
“If you don’t get that signal through, we’re all dead.” I glance at Eve as she leans against a tree gasping for breath. “Take her.”
We’ve been moving hard. Hard for her, hell for me, but this is what I’ve trained for my entire life. I’m a warrior. A Guardian. I train to endure. To survive. To complete the mission no matter the cost.
Eve isn’t trained for this kind of shit. She’s at the end of her rope, barely holding on, and I’ve yet to push her through the pain.
“She’ll only slow me down.” And there is the Knox I know. The stoic warrior who does what needs to be done.
“This isn’t a good place.” I glance around the thick canopy. It’s dark and we don’t have anything to light our way. Not that we would if we did. Light would only draw the enemy toward us.
“Then we find a better place.” His gaze cuts to my leg. “You’ve got twenty-four hours before infection sets in.” Yeah, he’s been thinking the same thing as me.
“Then we find a place I can defend. Send you on. Eve and I wait.”
We’ll wait for rescue, or the unthinkable. Knox won’t say it, but I read it in his expression. I feel the truth of it. He’s faster on his own.
I’m a liability, but then Eve is as well.
“We find a place.” I give a sharp shake of my head. “You head up. Find a ridge…”
Knox clasps my arm. “It’s a shit plan.”
“I know.”
We look at each other, communicating a lifetime of words in a single breath, but Knox knows this is the only way. He glances over at Eve.
“I can take her, but…”
I know. Eve will only slow him down.
“She stays with me.” It’s the best plan.
We need him to get clear, contact the team, and bring reinforcements to get us out of this place.
“I’ve been watching the trees. I have an idea.”
Knox looks up. “It boxes you in.”
“I know.” He and I noticed the same thing.
In the jungle, the most dangerous place to sit still is on the ground. Once night falls, the creepy crawlies make the ground the worst place to be. I’m glad we don’t have light. Eve would freak out if she knew what crawled on this ground.