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Kalugal smiled. "I don't expect it to be. Just do your best, starting now."
"Yes, boss." Dagor gave him a mock salute.
"Much appreciated." Kalugal repaid him with a dip of his head.
"Here goes nothing," Dagor murmured as he cast his shroud over the enclosure.
The women should have noticed that they were suddenly encased in silence and couldn't see their captors, but none of them reacted, which was a sad testament to the state they were in.
He still hadn't let Frankie get a good look at them, and thankfully she was happy to have her face buried in his shirt.
As Kalugal motioned for those of their group who wished to get their fangs dirty to disembark, one of the thugs guarding the enclosure turned to look their way and frowned.
Obviously, he couldn't see them, or he would have sounded the alarm, but there was no doubt in Dagor's mind that the thug was sensing something.
He was about to tell Negal to take care of that when the thug lifted his machine gun and fired blindly in their general direction.
Chaos erupted as the rest of the gang followed, their gunfire slicing through the still air. Inside the truck, Dagor's reflexes kicked in, and he grabbed Frankie, pulling her down to the truck's floor and shielding her with his body. A rain of bullets pelted the truck, and he winced as several hit his back and his left arm, but he wasn't worried about them doing any lasting damage. His body was already expelling the foreign objects and healing the damage.
Beneath him, Frankie shivered and whimpered, probably feeling every impact as his body vibrated when hit with bullets, but he couldn't offer her words of solace while ignoring the pain and still trying to maintain the shroud around the barb-wired enclosure.
The snarling sounds of his companions were music to his ears, and as the screams began, he grinned like a savage despite the excruciating pain in his back and his left arm.
When the scent of blood reached his nostrils, it confused him. It wasn't his, and the thugs who were being torn to pieces were too far from him for the smell to be so strong.
Besides, the blood smelled too good to be theirs…
Lifting a few inches off the woman he was shielding, he saw where the smell was coming from. Frankie's side blossomed with vivid crimson, the blood that was seeping out too quickly painting a terrifying picture.
"Frankie!" He dropped the shroud and gently turned her face to look at him, but her eyes rolled back in her head, and she passed out.
With his own pain only a distant thunder against the lightning strike of Frankie's injury, Dagor knew he had to act fast, but he was momentarily paralyzed with the kind of fear he had never experienced before.
Around them, the battleground was still a whirlwind of noise—full of the Guardians' snarls, the crack of gunfire, the screams of the thugs, and the terrorized girls who could now see and hear the horrors he had been shielding them from.
"Luis is wounded," Jin said from somewhere behind him. "We need to get him to a doctor."
He heard the sound of tearing fabric and then Luis groaning.
"Frankie was also hit," he finally managed to say.
"Oh, crap," Jin cursed. "I'm taking them both to the ship."
"I'm coming with you," Negal said, and then the truck dipped as he jumped in. "Pedal to the metal, Jin. I'll call Aru to send the doctor to meet us halfway."
Thank the merciful Fates for the clan's satellite phones, but would the doctor make it in time to save Frankie?
"Don't let her bleed!" Jin yelled from the driver's seat. "Take off your shirt and hold it against her wound!"
As she turned the truck around and raced towards salvation, Dagor followed her instructions, tearing off his shirt and pressing it against Frankie's side.
The roar of panic in Dagor's mind was pierced by the whine of the engine as Jin navigated the rough terrain like a bat out of hell. The jostling and bumping were not doing Frankie any favors, but slowing down to make the ride a little smoother was not an option either.
With the truck careening through the landscape, time became the enemy, and each second stretched out with excruciating sluggishness.
While Negal made the call to Aru, explaining the emergency, Dagor cradled Frankie in his arms, trying to absorb as much of the bumps as possible.
With panic clawing at Dagor's insides, the tremor of his own heart mirrored the stuttering beat of hers, and he pressed the shirt down on her wound harder, trying to stem the tide of her life's blood seeping out.
