Page 36 of Hunted
Kingsley walks beside us, looking down at me with a frown on his face. He reaches over and pushes a few strands of hair behind my ear. “Stay with us, okay, sweetheart?”
I nod my head as my eyes start to drift shut, feeling extremely tired all of a sudden.
“Open your eyes, Zee.”
“Mmm…” I mumble, trying to answer, but it’s like all my energy has been sucked out of me.
“Darla!” I try to open my eyes, I really do, but it’s impossible, and before I know it, everything goes dark.
Chapter eleven
Weston
Grabbing the first aid kit from Slade, I set it on the edge of the chopper and open it. It doesn’t have a lot, but some clean gauze will help for now. I grab what I need as Bower and Reece hold her between them.
I toss King the cleaning wipes as I give out instructions. “King, wipe away as much blood from the area as you can, then I’ll bandage it. We’ll do the front first, then the back. Ready?”
Everyone nods as we get in place. “Okay, Reece, move your hand,” I instruct, and when he does, my heart thumps loudly in my chest. There’s so much blood, I can’t even tell where the injury is. Luckily, he seems to know, as he uses the small bit of shirt that was still its original color to wipe the surrounding area.
King jumps in and starts helping, and when I see where the blood is pumping out of, I slap the gauze on it and thank God she’s unconscious for this. I use some tape to stick it down, then we turn her body to the side and repeat the same on the back.
She’s lost a lot of blood, and we still have to get her to the hospital. “How far away is it to Madagascar?” I ask, wrapping a bandage tightly around her waist to help hold pressure on both wounds.
“Sixty minutes,” Reece says with a pinched face. He turns to Slade. “Every minute you can shave off of that, I’ll give you a thousand dollars.”
“Deal!” Slade says, jumping into the pilot's seat. “I suggest you guys get in and buckle up. The sooner we take off, the sooner we get there.”
We climb in and start to argue where to place Darla. In the end, I hold her in my lap, wrapping the seatbelt around both of us as the others take seats where they can see her, with Arnold in the passenger seat.
The sound of the chopper blades starting makes my pulse rise for a different reason.
We’re finally going home.
After months of being stuck on this island, we’re getting out of here. Glancing down at the unconscious woman I love in my lap, I can’t help but wonder,but at what cost?
Looking out the side of the chopper to the beach below, I see the dead mercenary’s body. I can’t believe he’d been on the island hiding for the past few days. I believe the only reason he didn’t try to kill us sooner was his injured arm. It looked pretty bad. Whether he got shot during their initial attack, or got hit with debris from the exploding helicopters, we’ll never know.
“Reece,” I call loudly, to be heard over the roaring chopper blades as we rise into the air. When he looks up at me, I gesture to the beach with my head. “What about the body?” He glances out the side with a pinched expression before he turns around and says something to Slade. I can’t hear him, but when he turns around, he gives me a nod.
“Slade’s in charge of the Alpha team that I had searching for you guys. He’ll come back and take care of it.”
I release a deep breath. As unlikely as it was for anybody else to find this island in the past, when we get home, it will be impossible to keep it a secret, what with these three being famous in the business world. I wouldn’t be surprised if people come out here to see it for themselves, out of curiosity or for news coverage. Especially when they find out about Darla.
I hold her a little tighter as I watch her face. She seems peaceful, like she’s just sleeping. I try to convince myself that’s what’s happening, and she hasn’t passed out from blood loss. If I wasn’t holding my finger over her pulse, making sure her heart was still pumping, I might’ve lost my shit by now.
My eyes trail down to her necklace, remembering how happy she was when I gave it to her. I hope I can see her smile like that again soon.
“West?” King says from beside me.
“What?”
“You might want to get rid of that.” He gestures to where the mercenary’s pistol is sticking out the side of my pants.
My first instinct is to keep it; we need a weapon to keep ourselves safe. But he’s right, we’re landing in a foreign country and don’t want to risk them finding me with what’s likely an unregistered gun. Besides, for all I know, it’s connected to other murders. It’s also the gun that caused Darla’s current injury.
Shifting Darla slightly, I grab the pistol and toss it out the side of the chopper, watching it drop out of sight into the ocean below. I sit back, readjusting Darla so I can feel her pulse again as we all wait anxiously to land.
I close my eyes, and the past hour plays on repeat in my head. I should have grabbed her quicker, not let her run off like that. How is she so fast? I should have been able to catch up to her, but she runs like the fucking Flash.
