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She was on the verge of going to sleep, or at least appearing to be asleep, when we arrived at the hangar where the helicopter that would be taking her to the trauma center was located.
When we’d arrived, it was already booted up and running with Trouper standing in a flight suit next to it with a helmet in his hand.
Things moved quickly after that, and once again we moved, this time into a much smaller, much more cramped space.
“You ever flown before?” Trouper asked my girl, as I put on a helmet that was handed to me.
I’d done it often in my military days. The familiar buzz of anticipation of being in the air started to burn slowly through me. But this time, that familiar excitement was dulled due to why I was flying.
“No,” she croaked. “You’re popping my first flight cherry.”
Trouper laughed and patted her shoulder.
He did it softly, but I still saw the flash of pain that flowed through her at the touch.
Goddammit.
There really wasn’t a place on her that wasn’t sore.
Rage burned in my chest as I tried to get it under control.
It wasn’t working, though.
The longer I stared at her poor, beat up body, the worse it got.
I wanted to hit something.
Hard.
Preferably the something that had been responsible for hurting my girl.
“We’re wheels up in two minutes,” Trouper said as he settled into his seat and started to turn things on.
The blades above our head started to spin, slowly at first, until the movement of them was shaking the entire rig.
Her eyes widened at the noise.
“It’ll be okay,” I said softly, pressing my lips to a bare spot of skin on her jaw that didn’t look too raw.
She smiled. Or, at least, she tried to. Her lips couldn’t quite form a smile. “I know.”
I looked down at her, having to raise my voice so that she could hear me over the racket above us.
“Because you’re here now,” she croaked.
Then she went to sleep.
Just like that.
“Gave her some pain meds,” Zach murmured. “She’ll be out for the entire flight, hopefully.”
“Hopefully,” I said softly. “Do you have a rundown of what is wrong with her?”
“The doctors at the small hospital there know that she has a broken leg for sure. Her hand is bruised, too, though. Here.” He pointed to the hand I’d been holding earlier. “I suspect that she’s broken a bone in her palm. A defensive wound.” He continued naming off things wrong with her, and the more he named, the worse that my stomach felt.
The flight happened soon after that. Overall, from leaving the hospital to arriving at the new one, it took us less than thirty-eight minutes.
When we arrived at the helicopter landing pad near the hospital in Longview, Texas, it was to find a team of nurses and a doctor waiting for us.
Zach got out and pulled the stretcher free of the bird, Trouper a close second. I followed last, my eyes taking everything in at once.
When I tried to follow them, though, Zach caught my arm.
“They need to work,” he said as we got into the hospital hallway.
I felt myself stiffen.
“Zach…”
“She’s bad, Trick,” he said softly. “I didn’t want to tell you when we were in the helo, but this is the worst case that I’ve ever seen. She’s… she’s going to require surgery. Likely on her brain as well as her leg. She’s also got internal bleeding. Trick, I want you to know that she’s going to have to fight. This is going to be a long, slow recovery if she makes it at all.”
I felt my spine stiffen. “She’ll make it.”
I scrubbed my face with my hands, and stayed that way, stiff as a board, waiting to hear news even though I knew logically they wouldn’t have it right now.
“That redhead from earlier,” Zach said suddenly. “Did you believe him?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“His story,” he said. “He was talking to the officer in charge, Miguel, about something before we left. I heard half the conversation. But, I have to admit, I’ve heard a lot of lying assholes in my time, and that man was one of them.”
The feeling from earlier, the one that screamed at me that Sadler was lying, came back to the forefront of my mind.
“What do you mean?” Trouper asked.
“Well,” Zach said. “I listened to Miguel speak about his night. How he’d found her. Things like that. And then I got to comparing what he had said and how he looked to the redhead. Sadler. Both men supposedly happened upon her at the same time. Right? Then why was Sadler splattered with so much of Swayze’s blood and Miguel only had his hands and knees stained with it?”
He had a point.
“You think Sadler’s dirty?” Trouper asked.
My eyes once again drifted to the door where my girl had disappeared.
