Page 65 of Shielding Instinct

Still, it took a long time.

As soon as Hawkeye got eyes on Petra, his stomach dropped.

She was covered in dried blood.

Her blood.

She was crouched over a rock performing first aid. Finishing up by tucking Mylar blankets and beach towels over the prone man.

A woman was wailing to the side, but she looked like a family member and not part of the rescue.

The second Hawkeye got down to her, he swept Petra into his arms and buried his face at her neck. “I can see you're fine. But shit, woman, did you go in the blow hole to pull the guy out?”

She didn’t answer. He didn’t need her to.

She was the only one in wet, ripped clothes.

Even the victim, neatly tucked under a blanket with a jacket supporting his head, looked in better shape. But Hawkeye couldn’t see what was going on for him beyond purple lips and full-body shivering.

Levi was commanding Voodoo and Cooper into place on either side of the guy to offer body heat and keep him from going into shock.

Hawkeye turned back to Petra.

“I’m okay, just a little banged up. Terry’s got broken bones.” She pointed at the man. “Do you have an ETA on the ambulance?” Petra asked, looking past him to the cliff.

Leaving his hands on her shoulders, Hawkeye held her out from him. Her eye was less wonky but still not great. She had cuts and bruises all over her body—she hadn’t sliced herself near her arteries. And the blood seemed to have coagulated. “We’re on our own. Crises are unfolding all over the island.”

The vein in her neck was throbbing, but that was the only sign that she might be stressed.

Safe enough for now.

Hawkeye leaned in to kiss her, then said, “Everyone is pressing the pedal to the floor. That’s why it took me a while to get to you. I’m sorry it took so long.”

“I have no idea how long it took—adrenaline tells me that we were working on saving Terry for five minutes, but also ten hours.”

“That’s about how it works,” Levi said.

Levi moved over to the pile of equipment amassed on a flat rock. It looked like the kinds of things someone might dig out of their hatch—ropes, first aid kits, blankets.

Levi pulled out two Tae Kwon Do long sticks from a black bag. “We’re in business.”

Levi efficiently constructed a stretcher by folding a sheet of plastic around either stick.

When he looked up, he caught Hawkeye’s gaze, silently asking how Petra was doing.

“Good to go. Let’s figure out the path before we load Terry up.” His gaze scanned the bystanders. “Who calls this beach home? Who knows this exact area?”

A teen stepped forward. “Me. Beans.” He put a hand on his chest, then pointed to the guy standing next to him. “Me and Lucky grew up just down the beach about a half mile.”

“Getting Terry up that cliff is going to be a trick,” Hawkeye said. “But that’s where we have our vehicle parked. What’s the safest way to get the litter from here to there?”

After Beans and Hawkeye conferred, the two Cerberus men moved the stretcher next to Terry. All four of his limbs were splinted. The one on the left leg was a traction splint made of walking sticks. That kind of splint was used to ease the pain of a femoral break and help keep bone fragments from cutting inside the leg. It could help prevent the femoral artery from being punctured. That was some advanced wilderness first aid.

He looked up to offer Petra kudos, but she looked too wiped out to care.

Levi and Hawkeye were feeling it, too.

With the boys leading the way and help from the bystanders on the stretcher, they got to the SUV. With the split seats down, Terry could lie fairly flat.

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