She was closer than she liked.
But she was also a doctor. And she was Harper Fox. She didn’t spook easily—or if she did, she got through it.
She glanced at Pav slumped in the passenger seat. Thirty minutes ago he’d knocked a man unconscious with one hand while running a fever. Now he could barely sit upright.
Gears ground as she shifted. The clutch was stiff and unforgiving, and the UAZ responded to steering input with the enthusiasm of a shopping trolley with a locked wheel. The heater didn’t work, and the windshield had a crack running corner to corner. One wiper blade was missing entirely.
Buckle up, Harper. He needs you.
His head was tipped back against the window. The wound on his scalp had bled through again, dark at the edges. His skin had gone gray beneath his stubble, beads of sweat catching the light. His breathing sounded wet.
Stopping was a gamble, but she needed to check him. She pulled to the side of the road, then reached across, fingers pressing into the groove beneath his jaw. She counted the beats. Thready but still with her.
“Don’t you dare die on me.”
His eyelids fluttered but never opened. She pulled her hand back and checked the rearview mirror.Empty.She exhaled and moved off again.
He was alive. She was driving. She could do this.
“Okay.” Her voice was loud as she repeated his instructions. His head lolled with the rocking of the UAZ, but he didn’t wake. “Thirty miles. Left at the birch fork. Yellow door.”
Smaller tracks peeled off into the trees. She ignored them and kept to the road Pav had marked, then checked the mirror until her eyes hurt. If they were followed, every junction bought her seconds. Maybe minutes. She’d take seconds.
The silence pressed in when she stopped talking, so she filled it. “Your friend Katya better have antibiotics. Seriously—if I’ve driven on this shitty road in a stolen car with a missing wiper blade and your blood on my map and she doesn’t have antibiotics, I’m going to be extremely upset.”
Nothing from him. Just that ragged rhythm. Sweat had soaked the collar of his shirt. Another flush burned high across his cheekbones.
“The wound is tracking.” Saying it out loud made it manageable. “The infection’s already spreading. Fever. Confusion. Rapid pulse.” She huffed a small laugh. “You’d say that’s not relevant.”
Her grip tightened on the wheel. “But you’d be wrong.”
Ten more minutes of driving. The road curved and the forest crowded in on both sides. When she stopped talking, blood hummed in her ears.
“I became a doctor because of my dad. He’s a GP in Herefordshire. Old school. House calls. Knows every patient by name. I used to go with him on rounds when I was little—I’d sit in the car and read comics while he worked. He’d come back smelling of tea and biscuits because every single patient fed him.”
The UAZ bumped over a rut. Pav’s head knocked against the glass and she swore, braking hard. She leaned across, eased him back against the headrest, then got the UAZ moving again.
“He never rushed. It didn’t matter how many people were waiting. Whoever he was with—that was the only person in the world for those ten minutes.”
Her mouth twitched, almost a smile.
“That’s the job,” she said, more to herself now. “You stay. You fix what’s in front of you. You don’t panic about everything else.”
Her eyes flicked to Pav. His breathing had changed again. More shallow.
“I’m staying. That’s what I do. Even when it scares me.”
She changed down a gear as they lumbered up a hill. At the next fork, she almost turned too early, then caught the map’s blood-smudged mark and kept straight. Behind her, the empty road stayed empty.
“Fox is my uncle on my Dad’s side, in case you were wondering. He was always the wild one. Military at eighteen. Special forces by twenty-two.”
Another check of the rearview mirror. Still no sign of their pursuers.Thank God.
“If he picked you…” A sigh escaped her. “Then you’re the best option I’ve got.”
One thumb lifted from the wheel. A small shrug at herself. “I don’t usually go for men like you.”
The road zig-zagged and she followed it, fighting the steering.
