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“Can he wait that long?” Nolan asked from the back.

Now that they were within range of one another, their comm system worked, and the men with Gideon heard his question.

“He’ll have to. We’ve got a tourniquet on his thigh. It just missed his femoral artery. But he still lost a fuck-ton of blood. He’s shocky.” That was Linc talking.

Brax closed his eyes for a second. They didn’t have plasma with them, but they could definitely do blood transfusions. “Everyone’s with you, right?”

“Right,” Gideon answered.

Brax blew out a breath as he continued to slow down. There. There were the headlights. They were still backing up. He caught up and stayed at their speed.

“How’s she doing?” Brax asked Nolan.

“Not conscious. She needs to rest, but at the same time, I need her to clear her lungs.”

“How?” Brax asked.

“In addition to the saline drip, she’s got to drink water. Lots and lots of water. That’ll thin the sputum and help clear her lungs. That plus the broad spectrum antibiotics should do it for her in the next six hours before we get to Chattogram. But her fever is at one-oh-three and her blood pressure’s in the basement. I’m worried about sepsis.

“Jeez.”

“How close are we to Jase?”

“You better start packing up your kit, but leave behind what I need for Jenny. I’m going to be taking care of her when Ryker comes up here to drive.”

“Gotcha.”

One-oh-three. That was not good. When he’d picked her up in the shack, he could barely feel her. She felt lighter than his backpack.

“Stop,” Kostya said through the comm link. “Nolan, get over here now.”

Nolan already had his poncho on, and he was jumping out the tailgate before the vehicle stopped. As fast as Nolan was running toward the other vehicle, Ryker was running to Brax’s. Brax gave himself a shake and got the hell out of the driver’s seat then shuffled his ass back to Jenny, making sure the tailgate was securely shut.

“You good back there?” Ryker yelled as he dropped into the driver’s seat.

“We’re good. Get this turned around and us out of here.”

“Yes, boss.”

Brax rolled his eyes. That was Ryker, always irreverent no matter the situation. Brax held onto Jenny so that she didn’t slide around. As soon as Ryker had the SUV turned around, he yelled, “Incoming.”

Brax looked up in time to catch his pack with one hand.

“What the fuck?”

“It’s got most of our water. Figured she needed as much as you could get her to drink before we got to Chattogram.”

Brax grinned as he looked down at the woman who was tucked in close to him. Ryker was right, he needed to wake her up.

“Jenny, I need you to wake up.”

The leaves were beautiful. She loved fall in Appalachia. Especially when she could carve out a day to go hiking. Just her and nature. The hickory and maple trees were her favorite. Not just the color of their leaves, but their smell.

She took a deep breath. But she couldn’t. It was like her head was covered by a plastic bag. She opened her eyes and saw a man looming over her.

“Get it off,” she begged.

She tried to tear it off herself, but her arms wouldn’t work.