Rescuing Baylee (Nightshade #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

PREQUEL

2nd Lt. Baylee Mitchell, Afghanistan, July 2012

Baylee hated the fear that flooded her system every time she heard something outside Forward Operating Base Nightshade. There was steady gunfire and the occasional explosion, and her response system was so overwrought. It had been going on for hours. Days. She’d lost track of exactly how long it had been. She just went from surgery to surgery, doing her best to save lives.

After a while, you became numb to the danger you were in the middle of. Afghanistan was rife with angry men with guns, and there were conflicts almost daily right now. But in the past week, US forces, the Marines on their base, had been losing ground. The fighting was getting closer to the base, and her anxiety had ratcheted up until it was at a fever pitch. She tried to present a strong face, especially to the patients, but it was getting harder.

It was especially hard because she knew people came to her in the hopes that she could cheer them up. She had that kind of friendly, welcoming personality. She just didn’t have a lot more cheer in her. This place was hell.

Olivia passed through her line of sight, headed for the scrub station. Baylee followed her, bumping playfully into her hip when she stopped at the sink. Olivia gave her a tired smile, and she realized they were all on edge. Baylee scrounged a smile up for her, but it faded when she saw the tears in her friend’s eyes. “Oh, honey,” she said, drawing Olivia in for a hug. She must have lost another one.

They were both feeling the effects of being on-duty twenty hours a day and feeling like they were losing. It was demoralizing to work so hard for so little reward. The only comfort she took was that she was with her friends. Yes, Olivia was technically her boss, but Baylee knew they were more to each other than that. They were sounding boards and therapists to each other, and they’d promised to never sugar-coat things. “I think we’re in trouble, Liv,” she whispered.

Baylee saw the agreement in Liv’s expression.

The explosion of sound suddenly got louder, and Baylee somehow knew that this one had hit inside the Hesco Bastions. Inside their hospital. She ran toward the east, waving dust away from her face. The alarm blared overhead, confirming her fears. She bolted to the recovery tent, the direction of the sound, and stared in horror.

Men, her patients, were burning. The heavy-duty tent was burning around and over them. Moving fast, she ran to the nearest gurney, unlocked the wheels and started pulling it out of the tent, away from the fire. Olivia was right behind her.

“Turn off the oxygen,” Olivia screamed.

Oh, God. They could blow themselves up with all the compressed gasses in here.

Baylee slammed the gurney into the hall, pushing it toward one of the orderlies, then she turned and ran back into the recovery tent. Rex, another nurse, and Olivia were trying to smother the flames on one of the patients. Baylee grabbed another gurney and shoved it through the door, her legs straining.

She’d been so tired before, but now adrenaline was coursing through her veins. They had to save these men.

Olivia was pushing a gurney toward her, but Rex grabbed her arm. “I need help,” he cried, and Liv turned toward him. Oh, shit. One of the Marines were rousing and trying to pull his ventilator tube out. “I’ll take this one,” Baylee told Liv. “You help Rex.”

They got all the men out of the tent and into the hallway and the surgery, but it was packed. Colonel Trent came through and started directing, easing the overflow, but Baylee could see the worry in the man’s eyes. Why was he even here? It was usually the major in here directing the troops. She motioned for Olivia to look at him, and she nodded, her hazel eyes just as worried. “I know,” she murmured.

For two more hours, the assault continued. Baylee cared for her patients as best she could, considering the circumstances. There were no surgeries going on right this minute, but plenty of first aid. They were taking turns breathing for one man, because the ventilators had been damaged in the tent. The Marines were trying to clean one up to get it usable again, but Baylee didn’t have a lot of hope for it.

Then, suddenly, the attack stopped. She looked at Liv, who seemed just as stunned. Rex was pushing a guy in a wheelchair down the hallway, and he stopped, head cocked, as he listened.

This had been a long attack, more than twenty-four hours, and the sudden loss of sound was as off-putting as the attack. But, as the minutes stretched on, she dared to hope that they would have a chance to catch their breath. Or maybe the Taliban had decided to stop. “Do you think we beat them and they’re giving up?” she asked her friend.

Olivia shook her head. “Doubtful. I have a feeling they’re resupplying troops and reloading.”

Damn. Baylee had hoped for more encouraging words, but Olivia stood by their no sugar-coating rule. She always would. It was one of the many reasons Baylee admired her so much. The tiny woman was a workhorse, and one of the best nurses she’d ever seen work. And she had personal ethics like no one else. Baylee really looked up to and admired her.

It was Liv and one of the surgeon’s turns for a break. Baylee watched them leave the ward, aching with her own tiredness. A few more hours and it would be her turn.

“You doing okay?” Rex asked, hunkering down beside her. She was organizing a mess of instruments that had been scattered in the melee. Once she had them sorted, she would see if she would find a working autoclave to sterilize them. They would need them.

“I’m okay,” she said, pushing some hair behind her ear. It was coming down from the knot. Taking a few seconds, she redid the messy bun. At least it was out of her face now.

Rex must have seen the lie, because he wrapped a thick arm around her shoulders, and they just sat there, sharing touch for a few minutes. It did Baylee’s heart good that he was concerned for her.

Rex was their only male nurse, and the third part of their friend group, and he kicked ass. They called him a lot if the patient was being difficult, or they needed to move one. He was always ready to help.

Baylee had seen his personality shrinking, though. The constant barrage was hard on them all, but it really seemed to affect Rex.

They were all going to need therapy when they got out of this fucking country.

The cease-fire held for a few hours, long enough that Baylee could take a bit of a break from caring for patients. She sank against a wall and tilted her head back, falling into a weird, alert doze.

Then the bombing started again, even closer this time, and she knew they were in trouble. Rex ran into the room. “They’ve broken through.”

Baylee was stunned, and she didn’t know what to do. When Olivia ran into the surgery, her eyes wild, Baylee grabbed onto her. They hunkered against the wall, arms clasped around each other and over their heads as the bombing intensified.

Then the Taliban broke into the hospital, and all hell broke loose.

Baylee screamed and knew, absolutely knew, she was going to die, but there was nothing they could do. They were medical personnel. They didn’t generally carry guns in the hospital, though they’d all been through the same training. The Marines were their protection on the base.

She squinted her eyes open as gunfire ripped through the surgical ward. “No,” she screamed, but it didn’t matter. The Taliban fired wildly, shooting the men on the gurneys. Men they’d worked on for hours, sometimes days, died within seconds at the hands of the terrorists. Baylee waited for bullets to tear through her own body, but they didn’t. For some reason, they left the medical personnel alone.

Then the weapons fire slowed. Her ears rang from hearing it in the enclosed ward, and she wondered if it would ever come back.

Baylee lifted her head and wanted to scream at the carnage. She was a nurse. She was used to blood. But not like this. It sprayed the walls and pooled across the floor. She and Liv were going to be sitting in a puddle soon, as a pool of crimson rolled toward her.

Then two men were jerking them up. “Are you medical,” one demanded, his English almost perfect. She nodded, blinking, her eyes flooding with tears as they shoved her into a room. Liv was right behind her, and they clutched at each other.

Baylee was in shock. Her ears were still ringing, and she felt light-headed. The fear that beat at her was debilitating. She’d never been as in fear for her life as she was at that moment. Two masked Taliban stood at the door of their room, guns toward them, just waiting for a reason to shoot them. Her gaze flicked to the dead Marines in the corner.

“Why do you cry?” one of the armed men asked. “They were dying anyway.”

Baylee couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “You bastards,” she hissed. “These men were all injured, and you slaughtered them. I suppose you think that makes you big men.”

The English speaker grinned at her and in a flash, he struck out, slamming her in the mouth with the butt of his gun. Baylee felt her nose break and blood gush, and she went down in blinding pain. For several long seconds she couldn’t make heads or tails of her world, it was so topsy turvy. She gagged on the blood in her throat and spit on the floor, something she never, ever would have done in her life. Olivia found a cloth to blot at her lips.

“You’re okay,” she whispered.

The men forced them against the wall, and that was where they stayed, for hours. Baylee’s lip was split so badly it probably needed stitches. It felt like it was the size of a tennis ball, and the one time she touched it, she almost screamed in renewed pain. Liv blotted it clean, but that was all she could do while the Taliban were in charge.

Outside their surgery room, there was still the occasional spate of gunfire. Baylee had a feeling they were killing off the dying men. She wanted to sob and scream at the injustice of it all, the sheer audacity, but she couldn’t.

Olivia was quivering against her. Or maybe that was her quivering. It didn’t matter. They were both so scared.

Then she realized the men were torturing the remaining Marines. There was no mistaking the sound of flesh striking flesh. And when they were done, there was usually a single gunshot that seemed to echo through her heart. Every time there was a shot, Baylee assumed they had killed another serviceman.

Then they started bringing Marines in to be patched up. She and Olivia fell into their rhythm, bandaging and repairing what they could, sometimes adding a few stitches. When they were done, the armed men would take the injured out to torture them all over again.

Then they dragged Rex in, and Baylee almost cried. Rex was their big protector. He was there for them all.

“What did you do,” she hissed, as they helped him onto the gurney.

Rex grinned, but it didn’t have the bravado it used to. “I was trying to be a hero.”

There was a bullet hole through his shoulder, but the more dangerous wound was in his thigh. Blood was pooling on the gurney beneath him, and Olivia held heavy bandages to the leg. Baylee injected him with a heavy dose of pain killer. “Do you know what’s going on?” she whispered.

He nodded tightly. “Staged attack, across the country. This is the anniversary of most of the troops moving in, years ago after September 11th, and they wanted to send a message.”

Baylee shook her head. This was so ridiculous. She hated the war, and she hated fighting. She’d joined the Army to have her education paid for, not to take part in so much death.

Olivia was looking at the thigh wound. “I think the bullet’s still in there, Rex. Gonna have to dig it out. Pump some local in right there, Bay,” Olivia directed, pointing.

Baylee injected as much as she thought was safe, then wiped down the area. After a few seconds, Olivia slipped a gloved finger into the wound, obviously feeling for the bullet. Baylee cringed at the thought of Olivia nicking herself on the metal. And the cross-contamination. But what choice did they have?

“Found it,” she murmured.

Baylee handed her the long forceps she needed and watched as Olivia pulled the bullet out, dropping it to the tray beside her. Then she stuck her finger in again. “It didn’t break the bone. You’re lucky.”

Baylee was working on his shoulder. There was an entrance and an exit wound, and she quickly stitched them both up. “It’s enough to hold it together.”

“Thanks, girls,” he said, looking at them each. “I’ll be back for you if I can.”

The Taliban guards jerked him off the table and marched him out. Baylee cringed, praying she would see her friend again.

A little while later, they brought Trent in. Baylee barely recognized the man. He’d been shot through the thigh and the abdomen, and he had the pallor of death. He’d been beaten with something, his face a mask of blood, and she thought he had a concussion.

“We need a doctor for him,” Baylee said, turning to face the man who spoke such perfect English. The man’s brown eyes were hard and cold. “He has a concussion probably and we aren’t able to stop the bleeding in his leg. We need a surgeon for that.”

“Put a bandage on it. He doesn’t have to live long.”

“Why are you doing this,” Olivia asked. “We’re trying to help your people.”

The man’s face closed down and fury darkened his eyes as he towered over diminutive Olivia. “No, you are trying to undermine a culture that has been in place for thousands of years. You have no business being here. You have no business bringing your ways to our country.”

“And yet, you have obviously benefitted from our ways,” Olivia said, lifting her chin. “I can’t even hear an accent in your voice. Obviously, you’ve been educated by…”

The man snarled into Olivia’s face. The fist came from out of nowhere and slammed into Olivia’s face. Baylee watched her crumple to the floor, unconscious. The man turned and stalked away.

Baylee half-carried Olivia back to the side of the room, where they’d been sitting. There was a growing swath of purple on her cheek. Baylee grabbed an ice pack, activated it, and propped Liv’s head on the floor on a bundled towel. Then she sat with her, waiting for her to wake.

Several times, the Taliban brought in injured. Baylee did as much as she could for them on her own, but she knew everything she did was for naught. As soon as they left the room, the men were tortured again, and it made her sick.

The terrorists at the door watched her every move, speaking softly between themselves in Pashtun, and she didn’t like the feeling of their gazes on her. It creeped her out, and she knew, without a doubt, that she was in danger. At one point, she asked if she could go down the hallway to the bathroom, but the men laughed and motioned for her to go in the corner. Then they laughed again when they saw how uncomfortable the thought made her.

Her face flaming, Baylee went back to Olivia. She didn’t want to pee her pants, but she would wait as long as possible.

Then Olivia began to rouse. Baylee brushed her short blond hair away from her face. “Oh, thank God you’re awake. You’ve been out for hours.”

“Trent,” Olivia asked.

Baylee shook her head. “They carried him out. I doubt he’s still alive.”

The way the bullets had been flying, she doubted very many of the men they worked on would survive. Olivia must have seen how much that hurt, because she gripped Baylee’s arm as a tear slipped down her cheek.

“We did what we could for him. For them.”

“I know,” she said, swiping the tears away.

Olivia moved to sit up, and Baylee gave her a hand. “I have to pee,” Olivia said.

“I already asked. We have to go in the corner.”

She watched Olivia sway as she pushed to her feet. “Remind me not to piss him off again. I have a concussion.”

Yeah, she’d thought so. “I’ll try.”

Olivia asked about the other prisoners, but Baylee shook her head. “I can’t think about it,” she said firmly. “They might just be in another room.”

Olivia crossed the room to the corner. She motioned for Baylee to grab a metal trash can. “I can grab a sheet and hold it up while you go.”

Olivia nodded, and that’s what they did. Then they swapped places. Baylee had just sat on the can and started to relieve herself when the guards moved in, ripping the sheet from Olivia’s hands and shoving her to the floor. Baylee felt her face go hot, but she finished her business, then swept her pants up as quick as she could. How mortifying.

The men were leering at her, obviously letting her know she’d done something wrong. One man reached out and gripped her ass. Instinctively, Baylee slapped his hand away, and as soon as she did it, she knew she was in trouble. Fury washed over his face, and he hit her in the mouth, in the same spot she’d been struck before. Her mind blanked out with blinding pain, but she didn’t go down. She staggered, trying to absorb the hit. Then she looked up at the man defiantly. He would not take her down.

Then he slapped her again, and it was hard enough that it spun her around. Quicker than she could respond to, he’d woven his arms through hers, pulling her elbows behind her back until they touched. Then he shoved her across the room to the gurney and flattened her across it. Baylee screamed and fought, kicking out with her legs, but the strong, wiry man had the leverage on her.

Olivia yelled out behind her, and she knew her friend had probably tried to help, but she was already injured. It would be up to Baylee to rescue herself.

Cold fear rippled down her spine as the man fumbled with her arms, then with his other hand, pushed her scrub pants down over her ass. She felt him fumbling behind her, knew he was unfastening his own pants, and she fought as hard as she could. Impotent fury hazed her vision. Rearing back, she smacked her head into his face, and she knew she dazed him for a second, but not long enough. He paused for a moment and laid over top of her, and suddenly the glint of a knife was in her peripheral vision. The terrorist reached around her neck to her left side, and she felt the point of the knife cut into her skin at her temple. Then it swept down her cheek and trailed down her neck.

Baylee had never felt that amount of pain before, and she screamed, and screamed again. Her vision dimmed. In the tiny, rational part of her brain that was unblinded by fear and pain, she knew he was cutting her to distract her from what he was doing behind her, and it worked. Her mind retreated into itself, too scared to register everything that was going on. All she felt was pain and humiliation, and extreme, overwhelming futile, helpless, anger.

Baylee imagined being back on the farm where she’d grown up. She and her sister had milked cows and goats and had chores to do, but it had been the most beautiful place on earth to her. It had broken her heart to leave when she was in junior high, but her dad had gotten relocated to Texas.

She’d gone back to the farm as often as she could until her grandparents had died, and the farm had been sold. On that last trip, she’d climbed the hill behind the house and sat in the wildflowers, letting the sun warm her sad heart. It had been idyllic and perfect.

The men switched, and she felt another cut across her face, then a blinding streak of fire down her arm. She screamed out, but they just shoved against her harder, pressing her head to the gurney. They wanted her to cry out. Blood was pooling beneath her cheek and obscuring her vision. They had cut her eyebrow that time, and she couldn’t blink the blood away fast enough. The sheet had absorbed what it could and was spreading, but there was nothing she could do. They still had her arms behind her back. The first man was laughing, and he reached out to squeeze her breast painfully as the second man used her.

She thought a third man joined them, because there was more laughter, and words spoken in Pashtun that she didn’t recognize. She thought the third man used her as well, but she wasn’t sure, because her mind was hazing in and out, and she struggled to keep hold of her dream. Some part of her was planning her retribution, though. Even pressed to the gurney, she could see the knife they’d used to cut her. It was less than two feet away from her face, her own blood glinting on the blade, obviously left there as a threat.

The third man finished, slapping her ass as he pulled away. The three of them were laughing as he walked out the door, thanking them for the good time, and her face flamed. They hadn’t even bothered to close the door.

Pain radiated through her like a drumbeat, and the men were talking amongst themselves, laughing occasionally. One of them kept rubbing her ass, and the other man cut a hank of her blond hair to tuck into his pocket. A trophy for the hard work they’d put in. Baylee could feel their seed dripping out of her body, and the anger built.

As soon as they let go of her arms, she curled them forward on the gurney, praying the blood flow would return before they thought to retrieve the knife. She sniffled against the mattress, pretending to be withdrawn, because that was what they expected. The two men were so used to rape that they had worked out a system.

As soon as she could clench her fist without needles in her skin, she started doing a check of the rest of her body. Her legs were fine. They would hold her when she needed them. Her pants were down around her feet, though. She would have to be careful not to trip. Her face throbbed with its own heartbeat, but it would not stop her. She tried to blink away the blood in her eye, but it continued to flow.

Drawing in two great big gulps of air, she jerked up off the gurney. Grabbing the knife, she spun to the right, slashing at neck height. She hit the second man as perfectly as she could have wanted, his throat slicing cleanly. Blood sprayed, and he slapped his hands over his throat, his eyes wide as he stumbled away. But she knew he was a dead man walking. The first man, the one that had started it all, moved in from her right, and Baylee knew she had microseconds. Pushing with both feet, she jumped toward him, her knife hand stabbing into the soft skin of his gut. Then she pressed up as hard as she could. Even as his fists beat at her head and shoulders, she dug the knife in as hard as she could. They crashed to the floor, and Baylee withdrew the knife and stabbed again under his armpit. She hit bone, so she drew back and stabbed again.

The man’s struggles were slowing, and she knew she had to have hit something vital with her first strike. He was gasping for breath, wheezing, and she knew one lung was gone. But she continued to plunge the knife in, over and over again, until his hands dropped away, and he quieted.

She pushed away from him quickly, disgusted to even be touching him. She dropped the knife to the floor and looked at herself. She was like something out of a horror movie.

Olivia was on the floor a few feet away, unconscious. Baylee knew her friend needed help, but she had to care for herself first. She had to get them off her body.

Not even caring that the door was standing wide open to anyone who walked through the hall, she stripped off her clothes as she walked across the room. There were scrubs in the laundry bag. Yes, they were dirty and someone else had worn them, but at that point, she didn’t care as long as she got the men off of her. She returned to the trash can they’d peed in and did her best to clean up, using bandages.

Her cheek was bleeding steadily, and it felt so weird. Like she had flaps hanging, or something. She knew she didn’t, but it was open to the air, and it needed closed. She taped a couple of thick bandages to her face, hissing with pain as she tried to pull the sides together. The cut through her eyebrow had stopped bleeding, but she took a minute to wet a bandage with saline and wipe her eye clear. Then she dressed in the dirty scrubs, pulling the string tight around her waist.

Taking a steadying breath, then another, Baylee looked at the men she’d killed. She felt nothing for them. At some point, she might feel regret for taking two lives, because it was diametrically opposed to everything she did in life, but that point wasn’t right now. If her luck held, no one would even notice them. She went to the door and peered out, but she couldn’t see anything. Carefully, she pushed the door mostly closed.

Now that they were a little bit safer, she had to check on Olivia. Before she did, though, she grabbed the weapons the men had been carrying and hauled them over. And she found the man who had cut her hair. She grabbed the hank from his breast pocket and stuffed it in her own pocket. She still felt very exposed, but she went to Olivia and kneeled beside her. The woman was out cold. Fear lancing through Baylee’s heart, she checked Liv’s pupils. Yes, definitely a concussion. Had they punched her again. She scanned her body and gasped.

“Oh, no,” she breathed.

Olivia’s right leg was bent at a terrible angle, and there was a puddle of blood beneath her. Baylee hadn’t realized it was Olivia’s blood. Leaning over, she gasped. Olivia had a compound fracture of the lower leg, and it was leaking a steady stream of blood. Baylee scrambled to her feet, lurching for bandages. In her mind, though, she knew something more drastic would have to be done.

“No, bandages first. Get the bleeding stopped. Then reassess.”

But the bleeding didn’t stop. With the way the break was positioned, Baylee had a feeling the anterior tibial artery had been severed. Tears flowed then, because she knew she had a heart ripping decision to make. If they were literally in a working hospital, there was a chance they could save Liv’s leg, but they weren’t. They were hostages with little to no hope of rescue, and Liv’s leg was a ticking time bomb. If she didn’t repair it herself, she was going to have to put a tourniquet on it.

She started an IV, knowing Liv would need fluids. And she added as much pain medication as she thought was safe.

Baylee stood for a minute, more torn than she’d ever been before. It was hard to think through the pain throbbing through her body. Olivia would die if she did nothing. Baylee had never done surgery before, but she’d seen it done and assisted hundreds of times. Did she have the ability to do it herself?

“I have to try,” she whispered. She grabbed a surgical tray, setting it close to their little nest, then she stacked items around her, within reach, blocking the view from the door. She set one weapon down by Olivia’s feet, also within reach if someone came in. Then she got to work.

The artery was shredded, though, and she knew it was a lost cause. Olivia was losing even more blood, and Baylee knew she was at a crossroads. If she didn’t tourniquet Liv’s leg, she would die. There was no doubt in her mind. Knowing that she would forever be impacting Liv’s future, she put the tourniquet on her lower leg, tightening it down until the bleeding stopped.

Baylee bandaged the fracture as well as she could. She’d just finished when the bombing started up again.

Olivia jerked, but didn’t wake. Baylee sat on the floor next to Liv, her eyes going to the tourniquet on her leg again and again. Without a doubt, this decision bothered her more than killing her rapists.

The bombing continued, and she didn’t understand why it was even happening. Were the American forces fighting back? Whatever the reason, no one entered the room looking for care. Maybe they’d killed everyone they’d been torturing.

Terrible thoughts roamed through her mind, and she worried that Liv would never wake. A few times she roused a little, usually when the bomb blasts went off, but she stayed unconscious. The bombing seemed to get closer and closer, and then there was weapons fire. Some of it sounded like it was right outside the hospital.

Then, more than two hours after she’d been injured, Olivia opened her eyes.

“I didn’t think you’d wake up,” Baylee cried, holding her hand.

“W-what’s going on,” Olivia asked.

“I didn’t think you were going to come back to me. Do you know where you are?”

Olivia snorted and shifted, then gasped in pain. “Yeah, I think so. Is the Taliban still here?”

“Kind of,” Baylee whispered.

Olivia looked confused for a moment, then her expression cleared. “Wait, they…” She sat up, looking at the IV tube in her arm, then back at Baylee. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, but you’ve been out for hours. I had to do it, Olivia. I had to.”

Then, shocking Baylee to the core, she broke down into great, gulping sobs. Olivia wrapped her arms around her shoulders, trying to comfort her.

“What, honey? What did you do?”

Then Olivia looked down her body, and Baylee knew she saw her leg.

“I’m so sorry,” Baylee said, shaking her head. “You have a double compound fracture of your lower right leg, just above the ankle. By the time t-they…” Baylee’s voice stuttered and stopped, and she took a breath. “By the time they finished, and I found you, you had gone into shock from blood loss. I had to stop the flow of blood.”

Olivia turned and looked at her for a long moment, then pulled her into her arms. Then they both wept. Olivia was the first to gain control. She pushed Baylee back.

“You did what you had to do, Baylee. Look at me. Let me see your face,” Olivia told her softly. “What did they do to you?”

Baylee untaped the pad, and Olivia gasped softly. Baylee knew it had to be bad for the stoic Liv to react that way.

“We have to stitch this closed. As soon as possible.”

Olivia glanced around, obviously noting the bodies on the floor. When she looked at Baylee, she shrugged, her eyes chilling. “They weren’t watching. I grabbed the knife and cut one’s throat with a wild swing when I turned around and shoved it in the gut of the other with the same knife. They left their guns on the floor when they, well…”

Baylee glanced away, not wanting to see recrimination in Liv’s eyes.

“Look at me,” the older woman snapped. Baylee glanced up at the sharp words, her eyes wide. “You did what you needed to do. There is no shame in that. And there’s no shame in protecting yourself. I’m proud of everything you’ve done.”

Another blast rocked the building, and they braced their arms over their heads.

“Get me a suture kit,” Liv said. “And some local. Why are these blasts going off?”

“Not sure,” Baylee said, moving carefully to the far cabinet. “It started about an hour ago. Just random blasts. The Taliban have been running around like crazy, trying to figure out who it is.”

Baylee handed her the suture kit, and a couple of vials of local anesthetic, then took a minute to drag her attackers over to the corner, where several other bodies lay. Then she flung a sheet over the pile and returned to push the gurney toward Olivia. She placed an aluminum room partition on top of the gurney to shelter them from some of the falling debris.

“How do you want me, boss?”

Baylee forced some humor, and Olivia responded. “Lay down and rest your head here, baby. I’m not a surgeon, but I’ve done my fair share of scrub hemming. We’ll get you pulled together in no time.”

Baylee gritted her teeth in pain, even with the local. But Liv stitched her up, slowly. Baylee knew she was struggling to stay vertical, though. She’d pumped as much pain medicine as she could into Liv, but it had to be creeping back in.

“Thank you for putting the strap below the knee,” Olivia murmured. “It will make it easier to fit a prosthetic.”

Baylee gasped at the words, and tears immediately rolled from the corners of her eyes, burning as it hit her cut skin. “I’m so sorry, Olivia.”

Olivia tied off the last stitch, looking down into her eyes. “We’re going to survive this, one way or another. Now, did you have a cut on the back of your arm as well? It was dripping.”

Olivia patched her up, even as the bombing continued. There was a spate of gunfire, then it sounded like a group of men yelling Pashtun that they needed to evacuate before they were killed. Then running boot steps were coming closer. “They’re coming this way.”

In unison, they lifted the weapons to their shoulders and aimed down the barrels. They had no ear protection in and she had no idea how many bullets were in the enemy weapon, but she would run the fucker dry.

A soldier burst into the room and Baylee squeezed the trigger, then Olivia. They shot several of the Taliban as they rolled through the door, and Baylee felt not a single microgram of remorse. The terrorists had killed so many good people.

As the weapon clicked empty, she pushed out of their barricade. Crossing to the dead men in the doorway, she tossed her weapon away, then grabbed up one of the Taliban weapons. She looked at the men on the floor, and she caught a flash of dirty blue and white fabric. It flashed in her mind, and she felt a surge of satisfaction. He had been number three.

Fuck them all.

There was a rustle of boots down the hallway, and Baylee lifted her weapon again, praying she had enough bullets to protect her and Olivia. She’d just started to squeeze the trigger when Olivia screamed at her to stop.

The man standing in the doorway was obviously American. He wore American gear, and he held up his hands to them, grinning. “I’m American. Thought you all might want to get out of here.”

Baylee dropped the enemy weapon as two more Americans came into the room. She stumbled toward the first man. “You have to help Olivia. You have to get her out of here.”

The first man seemed to be the one in charge, and he turned toward Olivia. Baylee slumped, leaning against the door jamb. One of the soldiers said something to her, but she was kind of in a fog. Her body was throbbing with pain, and she wasn’t even sure she would be able to walk out of here under her own steam.

“Baylee,” Olivia called. “Go check on our people.”

Baylee straightened and turned to do what her supervisor had told her to do, finding some last reserve of energy. When she walked into the hallway, though, nausea churned. There were bodies everywhere. There were several American soldiers— were they SEALs? — moving dead Taliban out of the way so they could deal with the few living left. Baylee walked through a hallway of dead people, seeing indicators of the people she’d known. That looked like Myrna’s hair, and that bandanna had been what Charles wore when he was on duty to keep the sweat out of his eyes.

Desperately, she looked for someone alive that she could help, and she spotted one doctor. He was moaning on the floor, and Baylee dropped down beside him to treat the gunshot wound through his gut.

Baylee lost herself in bloody, gritty work. Olivia was placed onto a stretcher, and a big medic worked on her for a while. He pumped several syringes of fluid into her IV bag, and when the helicopters arrived, Olivia was the first one out the door.

Baylee wanted to go to her friend to tell her she was sorry again, but she was whisked away. That was okay. Olivia needed care as soon as she could get it.

More relief arrived on the helicopters, and Baylee found herself gently nudged out of the way. Then the big medic was there, smiling gently down at her. There was a long scar running down the man’s face, and she stared for a long time. That was how she was going to look.

“Baylee,” the man said. “My name is Truck. I thank you for everything you’ve done, but I think it’s time you got care now. Can you sit down?”

Baylee dropped to the lowered gurney the man positioned behind her, then he crouched down in front of her. “Will Olivia be okay?” she asked, her voice rough and raw.

Truck nodded as he removed the bandage from her face. “I think she will be. The last thing she said to me, though, was that she wanted you cared for. You’ve done a lot to care for the people here, Baylee, and now it’s our turn to help you. Okay?”

Tears stung her eyes, and she nodded, exhaustion washing over her. She slumped on the gurney, and when Truck nudged her to lay down, she didn’t fight him. The hard mattress felt good under her abused body.

Abused. Used. Suddenly, the emotions she’d been cramming down inside burst out of her, and she sobbed. Curling on her side, she pulled her legs up, gasping as she dragged in air and fought not to scream. Truck stayed by her side, and he seemed to sense that she wouldn’t want him to hold or comfort her. Instead, he talked softly to her, telling her that she did everything exactly the way he would have done it. And that he wished he could have shot the fuckers for her again. He praised what she’d done, and it was weirdly what she needed. When she reached out to him, he gripped her hand so tightly that she thought it was going to break, but it was exactly the stability she needed in that storm.