Or maybe it was Hatch and Oz who were both over me and Dirk over them. It took a moment for them to let me sit up.
The burning wreckage of the helicopter sat not twenty meters away. Then Dirk was hauling me up and pain radiated from my arm, but I bit back any complaints. I still couldn’t hear anything past the ringing.
Where was…
Andreas stumbled toward us, smudged and filthy. He gesticulated wildly, and then Oz scooped me up and I wrapped my arms around his neck as I bit my lip to hold back any cries, as every step he took jarred something in my shoulder. It was white-hot pain radiating around the joint.
I’d probably jarred it.
We moved as a group to another set of vehicles. These didn’t look nearly as bad as ours. Even as Oz hustled me into the back of one, I glanced back to our overturned vehicle down the hill. It was riddled with holes, torn and abraded metal, one wheel was off, and it was on fire.
Hands urged me forward, and I stopped staring to climb deeper into the backseat. Andreas was right behind me, then Oz, bringing Hatch and Dirk last. Dirk picked me up off the seat and settled me in his lap, and I must have let out a sound because Hatch leaned forward, and then he was scowling at Oz.
The vehicle jolted us into motion, but Oz had his hands on my face and his eyes were caring as he began probing my head, then down to my shoulders. I winced when he got to the right one. His mouth moved, but the words still weren’t registering.
“Just do it,” I said, hoping I wasn’t shouting. “Ears still ringing.”
His mouth compressed, and then Dirk’s arms tightened around my middle as Oz gripped my forearm. Then with a pull-yank, there was a thwock of sensation, and my vision whited out from the sudden influx of pain that passed to nearly far more intense relief.
I must have passed out for a minute, because when I looked again, I was sitting sideways in Dirk’s lap, my head against his shoulder, as Oz held something to the back of my head. The pressure was firm, but not painful. Andreas had a hand on my leg and spoke with some urgency. There was equal worry on all of their faces.
What had happened now?
“For someone who wants me so bad, why are they trying to kill me?” It didn’t matter if I couldn’t hear their response. Someone had to ask the question. A part of me trusted that they had already, but Dirk just kissed my forehead, and I scowled at his gash. The minute I began to squirm in his lap though, he gave me an inflexible look, and I glared right back at him.
Oz tapped my left hand and then lifted it to the gauze—gauze he had on my head. I took over holding it, and he moved to working on Dirk’s face. Rebellion filled Dirk’s dark eyes, but I elbowed him with my bad arm, a mistake that earned me several glares, but he finally submitted.
We were both covered in blood now, and I cared less about that than I did making sure he was all right. Hatch snagged me out of Dirk’s lap and deposited me in Andreas’. He retrieved his weapons and went back to watching.
I had no idea who was driving, but the headache throbbing behind my eyes began to beat in time with my pulse, and my stomach gave a vague wrench to the side. I would not vomit.
I would not pass out.
They didn’t have time to carry me around while we were fighting for our lives.
The sudden application of brakes had us all jostling, and Hatch and Dirk were both pushing out of the car at the same time. More pops filtered through my hearing, and I managed to twist to see that the driver was shooting out his window while the other passenger was out and firing as well.
It really was a war. Oz tugged me back and down with Andreas, and I stared around at all of them.
They were going to die to get me out of here, all because a man I didn’t know wanted me back in a machine they’d created for a reason we didn’t understand.
I couldn’t let them die.
I couldn’t.
Licking the blood off my lips, I grimaced as the driver slumped. Oz’s expression grew fierce, and he moved to help him. That put him in the line of fire. Andreas pulled out a weapon and motioned for me to stay down before he went to join Hatch.
Andreas, my man of peace, was going to war.
No, this was enough. I wiggled over the seat and out of the back. A hand brushed my leg, but I kept moving forward. The latch gave, and I tumbled out. The world spun, but I made it to my feet and got a look at it. There were vehicles everywhere.
Men fought. Men bled.
They died.
For what?
Why?
“Stop!” I yelled as loud as I could, and the minute I stepped out, it was like the firing ceased. I raised my hands and kept moving. “Just stop…”
Chapter 11
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” - Leo Tolstoy
The whole point of raising my hands and drawing their attention had been to keep them from killing any more people. Our men. Their men. No more deaths. But my surrender seemed to fall on deaf ears. It must have because I barely got the words out before a radiant burst blinded me and Hatch managed to tackle me as a concussive force hit us.
Those were my last couple of thoughts.
They surfaced along with awareness as the first whiff of an institutional smell hit me. Sanitizer. Alcohol. Industrial cleaner. The faint touch of ozone from ionizers cleaning the air. The dark blue light emitted by the ultraviolet lamps placed around the room, that was otherwise in shadow, offered me little detail of the hospital ward.
It had to be some kind of medical facility. My head pounded as I sat up, and I gripped the IV tubing that had been inserted into a port in my arm and yanked it out. I couldn’t even see what they had dripping into me, but I was entirely certain I didn’t want it.
My shoulder throbbed. More, I felt every abrasion along my arms, and the bruise across my chest seemed to constrict my breathing. Possibly fractured or at least bruised ribs. That fit with the tumble the vehicle had taken and the safety strap that had dug into me. With careful fingers, I searched my scalp.
A lump with two small stitches lay above my occipital bone. The skin around the area was tender. I grimaced as I finished my inventory, then I shoved the blanket off my legs. I was in a hospital gown. I hated these things. The draft at my back told me it wasn’t closed. There were compression socks on my legs, and I shifted to sit sideways and then froze.
We’d been on the side of the road under heavy assault when I’d tried to surrender to at least prevent any more bloodshed.
I couldn’t afford to lose the guys.
I didn’t want to lose any of them. I didn’t think I could bear it.
But now I was here…
I studied the layout of the room.
The only thing that registered with me was how impersonal it all was.
A single hospital bed. A call pad on the wall. The IV hanging from a stand. There wasn’t even any equipment for monitoring.
Monitoring.
I patted a hand over my chest, and then pulled the gown down and ripped off the two sensor pads placed just above my breasts. A third one was on my thigh. A fourth on the back of my shoulder.
Gown in one hand and devices in the other, I walked into the single bathroom with no door and twisted to look at myself in the mirror. There was another one just on my lower back, so I ripped it off and threw them all in the toilet, then pressed the plunger to flush it. The lights in here didn’t work either, just the blue ultraviolet ones used to help eradicate bacteria and viruses.