Page 158 of Shadowing You

“Pay…ger.”

He figured it wasn’t spelled “pager,” but he’d go with the nickname for now.

“Where were you hit, Pager?”

“It’s his hip.” The white guy pointed, and Ethan moved the dark coat out of the way.

The man’s shirt was soaked in blood.

“Help me get his coat off.”

“Yeah, okay.” The white guy—American, based on his accent—knelt opposite him and worked one of the man’s arms out of his sleeve.

“What’s your name?” Ethan was fighting with Pager’s shirt. He paused long enough to look at the American. “You. What’s your name?”

“Uh…Kyle.”

“Kyle, I’m going to need your help. You have a knife?”

“Uh…”

“I don’t have time for uh, Kyle.” He looked at Lu. “A knife, now.”

Lu nodded, and the other Chinese guy handed him the folding knife.

Ethan cut the shirt away and dropped the knife into the dirt beside him. No matter how this ended, he needed to pocket that knife somehow.

He dabbed at the blood to find the source.

It was a bullet wound, a finger’s width under the iliac crest, dark and welling steadily. Not spurting. That might be a good sign. Might not. Blood could pool in the pelvis as easily as it leaked out the hole.

“Kyle. Pressure, here.” He grabbed the hired man’s hand and jammed it flat over the wound. “Lean your weight on it.”

The patient howled.

“It’s going to hurt, Pager.” Ethan took off his jacket and pulled his sweatshirt over his head, barely feeling the icy air hit his chest. He folded his shirt into a pad. “I need light. A phone, whatever you’ve got. And water. Anyone have a flask? Alcohol? Hand sanitizer?”

A flashlight came on. A water bottle landed in the leaves at his knees.

Ethan pushed Kyle’s hands out of the way of the entry wound, pressed the pad against it, and slid his other hand beneath the man’s hip. He felt no corresponding hole.

The bullet was still in there.

In an ER he’d have left it. ER doctors didn’t dig for bullets in a trauma bay. They stemmed the bleeding, got an image, and let a surgeon make the call.

He looked up at Lu. “You a surgeon?”

The man shook his head. His face had lost all color.

Great.

There was no trauma bay, no surgeon.

Ethan poured water over his hands and stuck his finger into the bullet hole. He felt the slug tucked against bone, a hard ridge under the muscle, pressed into a vessel that wouldn’t quit weeping.

The man screamed, trying to jerk away.

Ethan pulled his finger out. “He needs a hospital.”