Page 10 of Green Ravens

The sound of war got farther and farther away, but Oakley stayed in survival mode. He wouldn’t surrender. He wasn’t giving up.

He struggled out of his loadout gear, did the same for Sawyer, and let it sink to the bottom of the river.

He needed to lose all the excess weight he could. It felt as if he’d been swimming forever. His limbs were cramping, and he was struggling treading water.

Oakley wanted to weep when his boots grazed the earth, telling him he was only feet from the jungle’s edge.

The steep sides of the river were an even bigger challenge. Oakley pulled on every ounce of strength he had to hoist Sawyer’s dead weight out of the water.

Once he was on a flat area, he dropped backward, his chest heaving so hard he thought he’d never catch his breath again.

Oakley thanked the heavens when Sawyer began to jerk in his arms as he coughed up blood and dirty water because Oakley didn’t think he had oxygen to spare to give him resuscitation.

He kept them crouched in the muddy trench, the tang of copper mingling with the dampened soil.

From a couple of miles, he watched the remnants of his boat and crew drift ominously downstream as the disastrous fight they’d lost came to a morbid end.

It formed a memory that would haunt and terrorize him for the rest of his life.

Chief Styles Sawyer

Sawyer’s mind was suspended between reality and unconsciousness.

His head throbbed a deep, pulsating ache matching the rhythm of his heart.

He tried to move, but every muscle in him protested, constricting as if he were being wrung in a torture device. He wondered if he’d been captured. Was he in the hands of the terrorist clan?

Is that who was grasping and pulling at his limbs?

He tried to yell, “Stop, get away from me,” at the person touching him, but the words came out as a long groan.

“I got you. Hang on, chief,” the strong voice told him. “I gotta get us away from this bank. We ain’t out of the fuckin’ woods yet. Literally.”

He knew that voice. Even through the madness and panic surging through him, that rough timbre brought him a minuscule bit of comfort.

Short-lived comfort.

Sawyer just managed to open his eyes while he was being dragged over some kind of terrain with bulges of rough roots and soaked leaves beneath him.

Fuck, stop, Oakley! Stop!

His mind was screaming to end the torture, but again, the pain was so intense he could only cry out garbled nonsense.

He scanned the area around him, half expecting to find some of his crew, but he was met with the faraway sounds of sporadic gunfire, the sulfurous scent of smoke, and nitro fumes. Sawyer had been subjected to the stench of explosives during most of his years as a boat chief. There was no mistaking the rank stink of rotten eggs and overripened bananas that was detonated TNT.

Panic began to creep in, but he forced himself to focus on breathing.

Soon, the distant echoes of the war were replaced by the chirping and croaking of unseen birds and insects. The harsh chemicals of explosives morphed into a pungent smell of decaying vegetation, wet soil, and tree bark.

There was barely any light peeking through the dense canopy of leaves overhead, and the darkness of night caved in on him as he was being dragged through hell.

“Dammit, you’re fuckin’ heavy.” He heard it before he was suddenly released, and his body came to an abrupt stop. “This should be far enough.”

Instead of hollering, he clamped his teeth down hard enough to taste blood filling his mouth.

“I gotta check you out, Chief.”

Then those strong, unforgiving hands were back on him.

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