by Jen Doyle
“Excellent. I’m glad we understand each other,” she said, slowly backing away. “Now I’m just going to go check on my friends and make sure they’re okay.” The trees weren’t that far away. Once she made it there, she’d be fine—enough places to duck and cover if necessary. She was in no mood to fight this thing. A demon, maybe; a vampire, certainly. Winnie the Pooh, however? Not after the morning she’d just had. So not in the mood.
“Tell you what—keep the soap and shampoo. And um, the deodorant is tough enough for a man, but made for a woman. They don’t say anything about bears, though…” She glanced behind her to see she had only a few feet more to go. “…so consider this a warn—”
You wouldn’t think something that big could move so fast, but the claws were suddenly digging into her, and then she was picked up and slammed into the ground. She struggled to get on her feet, but there was bear everywhere. With a roar it picked her up and slammed her down again.
The pain was incidental. It was such a part of her usual day-to-day that she’d actually almost missed it this past week. With a grunt she tried to kick the bear’s feet out from under it but to no avail. This time when it picked her up, it slammed her into a tree.
No fair—unauthorized use of props. If she could only get free enough to…
Another slam and she was starting to see double.
Well good. More things to aim at. And something to concentrate on, a distraction from that unfortunately familiar feeling of broken ribs.
She thrust the heel of her hand in the direction of the bear’s face, smiling when she connected with something soft and the bear dropped her to the ground. Take that. Scrambling to get out of its reach, she was nearly on her feet when the bear grabbed her ankle and pulled her back, dragging her face down along the cold, hard granite. Didn’t really need the skin on that side of my face, thanks very much.
With her free foot, she kicked at the animal, forcing it to release her.
“You really want to fight?” She leapt to her feet, mentally disassociating herself from her broken bones and shredded skin. They were irrelevant at the moment. “Fine. Let’s do it.”
She planted one foot on the ground and aimed the other at the bear’s gut, sending it flying backwards.
Well, maybe not flying exactly, given it was the size of a small car. Stumbling, though; definitely caught off guard. And if there was one thing she’d learned in all these years, it was to never squander the element of surprise.
She ran at the bear, dodging its flailing arms and landing some punches of her own.
“You didn’t think I had it in me, did you?” She blocked the bear’s swing with one arm while using the other for a spot-on right hook. Oops. Made it mad.
Madder.
Lyndsey ducked the claw that was suddenly in her face. Not before it slashed her forehead, though. Ear, too. No problem—she had another.
Raising her arm to her face, she used it to stem the flow of blood, something that wouldn’t ordinarily be of much concern to her, except that this time it was going in her eyes, making it somewhat difficult to see.
The bear took advantage and lunged, its claw raking her neck and chest. Before Lyndsey had a chance to react, it pounced, pushing her to the ground and landing on top of her, hitting her with its full weight. Talk about getting the wind knocked out of you. As if that weren’t enough, its sharp set of teeth had taken hold of her shoulder.
Why don’t you just make a meal of it, she thought, wincing as the bear pulled its head back, taking along some of Lyndsey’s skin and muscle as a souvenir.
Damn. That one hurt.
A lot.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Piece of cake, Lyndsey. Just get out from under the big, lumbering hunk o’ bear and you’re home free.
The bear, of course, had other ideas, such as swiping at her, its claws catching at skin and drawing even more blood. Great.
She reached one hand out blindly, hoping to find something to use as a weapon; with the other hand, she tried to push the bear off of her, tried not to focus on how much everything hurt. Tried not to be too concerned it was even an issue.
Pain usually worked for her, doing all the things a trusted old friend was supposed to do—motivate, inspire, offer the best kind of encouragement to keep going when it seemed like things just weren’t getting any better. It was part of the birthright. Lemonade out of lemons and all that.
Rarely did it work against her, as was the case at the moment. That wasn’t a good sign. Nor was the blurry vision. Or the whole general light-headedness thing.
Normally, she’d take this opportunity to remove herself from the situation. Fall back and recharge. Lose the battle, but build up the strength needed to win the war. Having a thousand plus pounds of bear pinning her to the ground made that a bit difficult.
The bear seemed to sense it was getting the upper hand, going at her with frenzied abandon. Like her blood and bones fueled it. Lyndsey shielded herself, giving back as much as she could. Which wasn’t much at the moment.
That was a bit distressing. As was the fact that she was starting to get cold—very cold, the way you felt when your blood began to seep away, a feeling she’d felt often enough to be able to identify. And that general light-headedness? Not so general anymore.
Damn it. This was not about to happen. Not because of a bear.
A vampire? Sure. A werewolf? Go for it. But there was no way in hell a bear would be the thing to bring her down.
With renewed energy, she reached her hand out, ignoring the fact that it seemed to be disconnected from her arm. No, it was still connected. Otherwise that hot, fiery bolt wouldn’t have just shot up to her shoulder—the one that was still intact—bringing tears to her eyes. Yay.
Ignoring the blinding pain, she closed her hand around a rock and mustered enough force to smash it into the bear’s nose. Thank God for super strength. And survival instincts. Coming through big at the moment.
The animal keened and its paws went to its face. Giving no mercy, Lyndsey raised her hand again, harder this time as her adrenaline kicked in and took over. Again and again she struck, not able to get the animal off her, but knowing this was her only chance.
The bear finally stopped struggling and Lyndsey stopped hitting. Panting as she lay beneath the animal, she waited a few minutes before trying to disentangle herself from the dead weight. The immediate threat over, she tried to catch her breath. It was a struggle, though, and there was an overwhelming desire to just go to sleep.
Not good. So not good.
With the fight over, she was beginning to get a sense of how much damage there was. Everything was on fire—every scratch, every tear, every bruise. That was to be expected, though. That was normal. After twenty years of doing this, she could write the book on how a body reacted to being torn apart. Well, her body at least. Other bodies didn’t put themselves back together again.
So, yes—normal. Uncomfortable for a day or two, but normal.
What wasn’t normal was that despite the inferno raging inside, she was still cold. Shuddering, shivering cold. There’d only been a couple of times she’d felt that way. And those had been the times in her life that she had almost died.
She’d gotten to the hospital those times—or, make that, someone had gotten her to the hospital—before it got too bad. ‘Too bad’ being defined as ‘dead.’ Blood transfusions were a wonderful thing. They gave her body the kick it needed to get the whole healing thing going.
The fact that the nearest hospital was at least sixty miles away—through completely untamed wilderness, by the way—wasn’t a huge worry. Before the team had left Boston, Ian and Zachary had had an incredibly long, incredibly tense—in a sub textual kind of way—discussion about the medical supplies that would be along for the ride. There were things like saline and plasma and IVs and some cool, gel-type thing they used instead of stitches.
They even carried some massively powerful antibiotics that had been used time and again in the field for
everything from getting slashed with rusty knives to having your guts halfway ripped out by some demon. Field-tested and approved. Open, gaping wounds courtesy of a fight with a bear? Easily taken care of.
Zachary, of course, hadn’t been satisfied with an inventory—he’d quizzed Ian and Matt for hours about who actually knew how to use all the stuff that they were carrying. After listening to that conversation go on for way too long, Lyndsey had no doubt some of the guys on the team had enough medical expertise to staff a small hospital. And the whole point of Matt putting Brooks on Ian’s team was that he was one of those guys—the best of those guys if Matt was to be believed.
So, no, Lyndsey wasn’t really concerned with whether or not there were the right kind of supplies or the right amount of know-how to fix her up. It was all there at the campsite. She shifted, attempting to get out from underneath the bear. Yep—right there. Right there on the other side of those trees. Time to get this thing off of her and get moving again. Get moving to the other side of the trees that she couldn’t see at the moment because the bear was completely on top of her, obscuring her view. She pushed against the bear with her arm.
Okay. She’d just ignore that the thing hadn’t budged, that she’d pretty much used all the strength she had left and it hadn’t done a damn thing.
Yes. She’d just ignore that for the moment. And while she was at it, she’d just ignore how much it had hurt to even make that attempt. In fact, she’d just ignore how much everything hurt and how appealing a nap seemed. She would most definitely ignore how cold it seemed and how tempting it would be to just stay warm, lying here underneath Ian’s body.
No. That wasn’t right.
Ian was not the one on top of her. The bear had made her bleed like this. The bear was the one on top of her. Focus.
Grimacing, she tried to push herself off the ground, tried to heave the animal’s body off of her.
No good. It was just too damn big. And she couldn’t reach anything to use to pull herself out from under. Lovely. Not with a bang, but a whimper. What good was winning the fight if you couldn’t walk away from it? If you couldn’t actually get out from under the animal before bleeding to death?
Stop. Focus. On the bear. On getting the bear off of her. On shifting its body an inch, maybe—
Oh, thank God, she thought as the bear actually moved. The split second of gratitude was replaced by an unusual feeling of panic. She didn’t panic—she attacked. Except the thought of the bear actually still being alive…
She gave out a sharp cry of pain as a strong set of hands took hold under her arms. Big, strong hands pulling at her, not nearly gently enough, seeing as they were tugging at what was left of her shoulder. Strong, though, being the key word since the hands—or rather the person attached—had just managed to roll the bear enough off of her that she could move again.
Pain is good. Pain means you’re still alive. Pain means that you may actually make it to the other side of the trees.
She steeled herself for the next pull and did everything possible to help by bracing her legs against the bear’s solid surface and pushing as hard as she could. Things didn’t hurt quite as much from her waist down. She wasn’t sure if that was good or not.
What was good, though, was that she was able to breathe again now that she was finally out from under the bear. In fact, if it weren’t for that searing pain she got every time she inhaled, she’d be doing more of it. Breathing, that was. In shallow breaths. Those were much easier. Didn’t help much with the dizziness, unfortunately. Nor did opening her eyes. Not when everything was blurry. And in threes.
Eyes would stay closed then.
No big. Zachary was here to take care of her. Thank you, Zachary. Thank you, super strength; thank you little birds in the trees who were singing the sweetest song. She offered a faint smile.
Her eyes flitted open again. No. That wasn’t Zachary, it was Joe. Same broad shoulders and nice, ripply arms. Big, brown eyes. Such nice, dreamy eyes. That’s why she’d been confused. Joe’s hair was darker though. Longer, too. Nice tan. Zachary didn’t get tan. He couldn’t.
She fought the urge to giggle. This wasn’t a laughing matter. Not when Zachary had blood all over him.
No. Joe had blood on him.
Joe.
Wait. Blood. That was important for some reason.
Right. Because Ian needed to give her some.
Mmm, Ian. Dreamy eyes. Dreamy…
No, Lyndsey. Get to Ian, get to Brooks. Tell Joe to… “Ia…”
Hmm. It probably shouldn’t take quite so much concentration to say that.
Didn’t matter. Joe got the idea. He was scooping her up into his arms and cradling her head so it wouldn’t hurt when he ran. That was nice of him. Made up for not being gentle earlier. Besides, things didn’t hurt that much anymore.
20
This was not how Ian had expected the morning to go. Of course, he should have remembered: beware of the good times in life because, more often than not, the bad times were right behind.
The past week had definitely been good. Correction. The past week had been great. The past few days? Phenomenal. He hadn’t felt this way in, well, a long time. He felt just…happy. So Goddamn happy.
After leaving Lyndsey to her bath, he’d come back to where he’d left his pack on the beach, grabbed the comm—as he’d originally meant to do, back before he’d spotted her doing yoga on the beach—and checked in with Command. He’d endured Matt’s good-natured teasing—the man was Ian’s best friend; it didn’t take too much speculation to figure out why Ian was over two hours late checking in—then put the comm aside, laid back on the beach, and, with his hands behind his head and the sun warming his face, had fallen asleep, thinking about her.
That’s why it had taken longer than usual to process what he was seeing as he woke up, Joe’s voice cutting through the layers of consciousness. Make that Joe’s panicked voice, shouting for help as he ran out from the trees, carrying Lyndsey’s broken, bloody body in his arms.
No.
There was no fucking way.
It wasn’t going to end this way. Not today.
Ian was up and running before he even realized it, half of his mind responding to what he saw in front of him, the other half stuck on the image of Lyndsey from an hour before—sun glistening off her bare shoulders as she came up out of the water; eyes sparkling as she teasingly asked him for a good-bye kiss. A kiss he had refused. In a good-natured kind of way but refused nonetheless. Couldn’t get much dumber than that. Especially since he’d spent the better part of a decade regretting that the last exchange he’d had with Abby was a terse set of words instead of one last kiss, instead of that one last chance to hold her in his arms.
Stop it. Don’t think that way. Do not even begin to think that way.
If Lyndsey were dead, Joe wouldn’t be running. Even if there were some tribal custom that prohibited him from leaving her body where he found it, he wouldn’t be running and shouting for help.
Not dead. And Ian wasn’t even going to consider the possibility of losing her.
He wasn’t going to think about how much blood there was or how limp her body was or not ever feeling her touch again. He wasn’t going to think at all, in fact. He was going to let twenty years of training and procedure and instinct take over.
For example, procedure: State clearly and calmly, “Medic. Stat.”
Yep, instinct had definitely taken over, because he had somehow put the comm on and managed to do just that while at the same time remembering to grab his pack as he ran towards Joe.
He ignored Matt’s muttered, “Fuck,” as the image being broadcast sank in, and he focused instead on the commands Matt was now issuing: “… and radio silence except for Alpha Team. Unless we’ve got any questions?”
Ian didn’t expect any questions, nor, he was sure, did Matt. ComTac was advanced enough to recognize the words “medic” and “stat” as a high priority command that would automatically be broadcast
to everyone on this channel, superseding every other conversation taking place. By now, every member of every team would already be on standby, awaiting instructions from Ian or Matt in case any assistance was needed. At the same time, the members of the immediate squad would be jumping into action, grabbing whatever they could and getting to where they were needed.
Training, procedure, and instinct.
Ian skidded to a halt in front of Joe and Lyndsey, dropping to the ground as he grabbed the sterile mat out of his pack, thankful for the procedures that dictated every soldier carry a basic set of supplies—enough to get done what needed to get done in case the full packs weren’t available. He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, tore the plastic wrapping off the mat and laid it on the ground.
Procedure: The first man on the scene performs triage, doing whatever is deemed necessary until the designated Field Medical Technician arrives.
“Put her down!” he yelled at Joe.
So much for clear and calm.
Ian glanced behind him at the campsite, reassured to see Brooks and Malek in the distance running towards him, emergency medical packs slung over their shoulders, just like they’d done hundreds of times before. Brooks would be here in two minutes. Ian just needed to keep her alive until then. Two minutes. No big deal.
Right.
In a much more deliberate, composed tone, Ian instructed Joe to get another pair of gloves out of the pack. It was obvious where the worst bleeding was and, as soon as Joe had the gloves on, Ian grabbed the guide’s hand and thrust it into what used to be Lyndsey’s shoulder, applying the right amount of pressure. “Don’t let go until I tell you.”
This was doable.
Sure. They’d seen worse.
Not that Ian could personally remember seeing anything this bad that had had an acceptable outcome, but he was sure it had happened.
It had to have happened.