The information was there in her head, clinical and clear, but it was separated from her body by a wall of ice.She could see it and could understand it.But she couldn’t reach it through the cold to act on it.
“You are doing better, Meg.”Liam’s voice remained calm and steady.His face still blocked her view and kept her grounded in the moment instead of spiraling.“Keep breathing.”
“It’s stable.But we have to lift them through the shaft.And movement could—” Teague’s gaze flicked to hers just before he left.
Could kill him.
That’s what he wasn’t saying.What he didn’t need to say.
Any movement could kill him.The knife shifting.Tearing the iliac artery.Puncturing deeper into the peritoneum.A dozen ways for Noah to bleed out before they reached the surface.
Liam stared at her again, those steady eyes holding hers and keeping her here.“Think, did he say how much time we have with the explosives?”
“I don’t know.”Meg’s voice cracked.Raw.Like she’d been screaming even though she couldn’t remember making a sound.“He said an hour or less.It all happened so fast, and I’m not sure how much time between then and when you showed up.”
How long had she been kneeling here?Minutes?Hours?Time had lost all meaning.
Teague stepped into the chamber then with a radio in hand and static crackling.“Medical is on the way.Ten minutes out.”
“Did he say an hour before or after the shots?”Liam handed her a water bottle.
“He was dying.So after the second shot, I think.”
Meg swallowed a gulp of water—lukewarm and tasting of plastic and cave minerals—then looked over to where Alex lay.His chest rose and fell.Alive.Still alive.
“He needs help too.I had to do a fasciotomy.He’s stable but…”
But he needs a real hospital.Real doctors who aren’t broken.
“We’ll help him.”Liam pushed the water back toward her mouth with gentle insistence.“Keep drinking.You are probably dehydrated too.”
Teague set a narrow yellow backboard beside Noah.“We can get a basket down the shaft, but not around some of the turns of these tunnels, so we’re going to have to lift him onto this.”
“The knife.”Her stomach plummeted.
“We’ll be careful, but we have to get moving.”
The two men’s hands worked in rhythm—Liam at Noah’s shoulders, Teague at his feet—but every movement made Noah’s body shift and made fresh blood seep from around the packed fabric.
Dark.Too dark.
Too much blood.
He couldn’t survive losing this much blood.The human body only held so much.Five liters.Maybe six for someone Noah’s size.And how much was already soaked into the cave floor?Into his clothes?Staining her hands?
They all walked him to the base of the shaft—each step measured and careful but still jostling—and lowered the backboard into the waiting orange basket.They secured the yellow plastic board to the metal frame.Layer upon layer of protection that suddenly felt impossibly inadequate for seventy feet of vertical lift.
Noah moaned with the movement—low and pained.The first sound he’d made since collapsing.
“Meg.”Teague’s voice broke through the fog—sharp and demanding.“I need you to come talk to him.Keep him calm while we get him strapped in.”
She couldn’t respond.
Couldn’t move.
Her legs wouldn’t work.Wouldn’t carry her the ten feet to Noah’s side.
Noah was dying.
