Page 4 of Raven's Curse
Chase breathed through the next stabbing jolt. “You’ll keep my ass in this bed?”
“Guaranteed.” Zain tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “We ordered pizza. We’ll go grab it and camp out for the night. Prevent one of the staff from putting a hit on you.”
“Fine.” Chase snagged Rhett’s hand as his buddies darted from the room. “I meant what I said.”
Rhett shrugged it off. “Yeah, yeah, you owe me, like you haven’t saved all of us at some point. Rest, we’ve got your back.”
Rhett stepped aside when the nurse came in carrying a syringe. She gave Chase an evil eye, waiting until he begrudgingly nodded before injecting it into the IV tube.
Chase eased back in the bed. He’d give himself a few days to kick the pain to the curb, then he’d be back. Looking for the next win. Something to dull the voice in his head still screaming at him.
Some form of redemption he wasn’t sure he’d ever find.
Chapter One
Raven’s View Lodge
Present day
“C’mon, Rhett, enough screwing around. Just open your eyes.”
Chase leaned across the bed, looking for any hint Rhett was improving. Some small sign. A tremble in his fingers. A twitch of his mouth. Anything other than the same blank expression he’d had for the past year.
Instead, all he got was a telling silence broken only by an incessant beeping in the background. Proof Rhett hadn’t slipped away just yet. A glimmer of hope that slowly leached the life out of them.
Kash braced his hip against the end of the bed, shaking his head. “Anyone else wanna toss that damn heart monitor out the window? I swear that beeping lives on in my head for hours after we leave.”
Foster nodded. “Every time I walk through those doors, I expect to see him hooked up to a ventilator. How the hell are they sure he’s not just going to stop breathing?”
Chase sighed. “His brain stem wasn’t affected and so far, he can still regulate his breathing. That could change, though.”
He didn’t voice the obvious. That every day Rhett remained lost reduced his chances of ever making it back. Breaking through that veil. Not when they already knew.
Zain shook his head. “I thought he was responding to vocal commands? Isn’t that what the doctor said?”
“There’s been a bit of brain activity, and one of the nurses thought she saw him blink, but they haven’t been able to replicate it.” Chase squeezed Rhett’s shoulder. “I know you’re faking, Oliver. The jig’s up so open your damn eyes before I get Nyx up here to lick your ugly-ass face.”
Chase collapsed into the chair beside the bed, guilt clawing at his chest. He should have shielded the guy when Stein and Adams had opened fire. Should have given him more blood. Something that would have kept Rhett in the game long enough he would have still been conscious when Foster had landed back at base.
Kash booted Chase’s foot. “Stop. It wasn’t your fault.”
Chase huffed. “You don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Yeah, I do, because it hasn’t changed in the past year. You think you should have somehow pulled a miraculous save out of your ass, when you were hurting as much as everyone else and spread so damn thin, I’m surprised you didn’t end up in a coma, too.”
“That’s not the point. I still owe him.”
Zain scoffed. “For what?”
“That time in Eastern Europe, when he dragged my ass back to the chopper.”
“You paid him back, brother. A few times over.”
Chase crossed his arms. “Not nearly enough.”
Foster coughed. “What about that time in Kandahar? Or that screwed up mission outside Caracas? Hell, that dive bar in Tennessee.” He whistled. “Now that was above and beyond.”
“They don’t count when I let him down the one time he really needed me.”
