Page 93 of Holiday Hostage
“I’ll rest when I’m dead. And I’m not dead yet.” He grinned. “It’ll take more than Jack fucking Wilson to take me out.”
“Amen, brother.” I made sure he’d regained his balance and let go to follow Maverick’s tracks. I spotted him three steps later. “Fuck.”
Mav lay sprawled face-first on the ground. His arms were stretched out above his head, his legs splayed at odd angles.
Tarron ran ahead of me. “Don’t move him. Let me take a look first.”
The force of the blast had lifted him off the ground too.
His tracks stopped several feet away from where he’d landed.
Unlike me and Tarron, he’d been spared from the debris. But he hadn’t been spared Jack’s wrath.
Blood soaked his gray shirt and puddled beneath him, turning the snow crimson. “That’s a lot of blood.”
Tarron shot me a look. “Might not be as much as you think. The blood mixed with snow. Makes it look worse than it is.”
“You’re talking out of your ass. We both know that’s a shitload of blood.” It felt good to curse and rant.
Tarron lifted Mav’s shirt. “Shot from behind. Close range.”
I scanned the area. “Jack.” I pointed at the tracks leading up to Mav. “I recognize his steps. He snuck up and shot Mav in the back while he was unconscious. Fucking, backstabbing coward.” I kicked the snow and dropped into a crouch. “Is he alive?”
“Give me a minute.” Tarron ran his hands up and down Mav’s legs. “I need him rolled over, but I want to make sure he doesn’t have any paralyzing injuries.”
“We have to roll him over anyway. We’re out here by ourselves.” I pointed out the sat phone crushed beside Mav’s shoulders. “With no way to contact anyone. Whatever we do, it’s just the three of us.”
“I hear you.” Tarron continued his assessment, then nodded. “Okay. Careful.”
We worked together, each of us using one arm, and rolled Mav onto his back.
Eyes closed, snow covering his face, and blood leaking from one side of his mouth, he looked deader than the time we’d hauled him from the water.
My heart withered when Tarron sucked air through his teeth and shook his head. He pressed his fingers to Mav’s neck and closed his eyes.
“Don’t be dead.” I poked Mav in the chest. “Don’t youdaredie on us now. I won’t have it, you hear me? You’re not kicking the bucket when we’ve finally found happiness.”
“Reed,” Tarron whispered my name in that admonishing way of his. “I need to concentrate.”
“Want me to slap him a couple times? CPR? You brought him back once. You can do it again.” I couldn’t imagine a life without these two men in it. We were a unit, brothers in arms and a family.
Mav’s pale face rivaled Tarron’s. The wound on his back had torn through his body but not emerged through his front.
“What if he shot him with a hollow point?” I’d seen the damage those bullets did. We used them sometimes, but not often.
“He didn’t.” Tarron’s head snapped up.
But he wouldn’t know unless he got in there and fished out the bullet.
If it were a hollow point, Mav’s insides would be shredded.
He rested on the brink of death.
From the way Tarron searched frantically for a pulse, he might be dead already.
27
PAYTON
