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Olivia’s eyes were huge and her face had gone sheet-white with fear. But then she looked along the street to where one of the Shuar men lay clutching his chest, and her jaw tightened in determination. I winced as she broke cover again and sprinted closer to the man, then ducked behind a water barrel, pinned down by gunfire.
She was terrified, a thousand miles from home and completely out of her element, but she was still trying to help people. Something rose up in my chest, a huge warm swell of love and…I realized it was pride. I wanted to thank Colton for saving my ass but it was suddenly impossible to speak.
Every instinct was buzzing with the need to keep her safe. I wanted to run over there, pick her up and carry her to the school, tying her up if I had to, just as long as she stayed there. But I was just realizing that I couldn’t do that. Saving lives was what she did: it was why she’d been an ER doc, why she’d come out here to Ecuador, why she’d saved me, in so many different ways. I couldn’t stop her being her. All I could do was try to protect her.
Colton and I opened fire and managed to take out the soldier who had Olivia pinned down. “Go!” I yelled, and she sprinted to the next bit of cover, and then finally reached the man she’d been trying to get to. She dragged him behind a building and went to work with bandages, trying to stop the bleeding. I relaxed a little. But as soon as she’d stabilized him, Olivia was up and running again. Where was she going now?!
She disappeared behind a building. Dammit! I could work my way over there, but not until we’d secured this street. I’d never felt so helpless: I’d never had someone to worry about before. Please, baby, be careful, I prayed.
46
OLIVIA
I pressed my back against a wall, panting. I’d never been so scared in my life. The village, so idyllic just a few hours before, had become a waking nightmare. The air stank of cordite. Brass shell casings littered the ground, and in every building people huddled, terrified, pressed against the walls in fear while others fired rifles from the windows. My hands and clothes were already stained with blood and I’d only managed to treat three people: there were so many more.
I’d seen news reports from wars on TV, seen reporters in flak jackets and helmets talking about how scary it was, but that had done absolutely nothing to prepare me for the real thing.
It felt like the air itself had become deadly. There were so many soldiers firing, all the time, that any open space in the village, anywhere where you were exposed, was death. You couldn’t see the bullets, you certainly couldn’t dodge them: by the time you heard the crack of gunfire or the hiss of the bullet, it was too late. You had to accept that if you were out in the open, you would die within seconds.
This is what Gabriel and the others had lived for years, in war zones all over the world. How the hell do they do this?!
I peeked around the edge of the wall, picking out the next bit of cover to run to, just like Gabriel had taught me. Every cell in my body was screaming at me to stay where I was, to stay safe.
I took a deep breath and ran, as fast as my aching legs would carry me, my whole body tight with tension, waiting for a bullet to rip into me. I slammed up against a stack of crates filled with fruit and crouched there, panting and shaky.
I risked a glance around the edge of the crates and my heart sank. I’d been trying to reach a woman who was lying injured in the middle of the street, having been hit in the leg, but I’d run out of cover, and she was still a good twenty feet away. How was I going to get to her and drag her behind something before I got shot? Worse, I wasn’t in sight of Gabriel or the others, anymore. There was no one to protect me.
I heard footsteps behind me and twisted around to look that way. A soldier came around the corner, saw me and raised his gun to fire. I tensed, flinching—
And then the soldier just crumpled to the ground. The sound of a gunshot echoed off the buildings like a clap of thunder.
I had a guardian angel.
I shielded my eyes from the sun and squinted. Right down at the far end of the village, on the roof of one of the buildings, I could see the head and shoulders of someone lying full-length, a rifle in front of them. Cal!
