Page 70 of Peace Under Fire

“He won’t survive long enough for the helicopter to reach us,” Mandy said, her voice suddenly strong and sure. Her hands fell still. She jerked the chin strap to her helmet up and yanked it off, dropping it on the floor beside her.

“Thanks for…the…concern,” Grumpy gasped.

Mandy ignored him. “JoAnn, you’ll have to heal him.”

Grumpy’s eyes snapped open. “Over my dead body,” he wheezed out.

“Okay,” Mandy agreed briskly. “You’ll be dead soon enough anyway. It’s not like we’ll have to wait long.”

Squish rocked back on his heels. What the fuck? Was she being facetious? Or could her sister actually bring people back from the dead?

“Are you sure, Mandy?” JoAnn straightened against the wall and wrung her hands. “If he’s one of the cockroaches—”

“He’s not,” Mandy said, her fingers flying over the blood-soaked vest, yanking loose the Velcro straps along either side of Grumpy’s waist. “He’s Jacob’s friend. He came with us to look for you.”

“But—” JoAnn’s voice rose.

“Trust me,” Mandy’s voice rose even higher, overriding her sister’s misgivings. “He might not act like it—in fact, he’s a total douche most of the time—but he’s one of the good guys. We can’t let him die. Not when you can prevent it.”

Crusher leaned forward and caught Mandy’s hands. “Pulling his vest off will dislodge the pitchfork. He’ll bleed out.”

Mandy jerked her hands loose. “He’s already bleeding out. And JoAnn needs skin on skin contact. She can’t heal him through the vest. Besides, we don’t want the tines in there when she does heal him, or he’ll be wearing them the rest of his life.”

“Don’t…let…her…touch me,” Grumpy wheezed, his voice noticeably weaker. A bubble of watery pink broke at the corner of his mouth and slid down his chin.

Crusher stared at the bloody froth, his face collapsing into grim lines. “Son of a bitch.” The lenses from his NVDs tracked up to JoAnn’s face. “Can you heal him?”

The woman swallowed so hard her throat trembled, but she nodded and stepped forward. “But Mandy’s right. I need to touch his chest where the wound is.”

“You…mean…where you…skewered…me?” Grumpy asked, the words garbled, rather than spoken. His head rolled toward Squish, who’d dropped to his knees beside Mandy. “Don’t let her touch me.” His voice was a bit stronger this time, like he’d put the last of his strength behind it. But his breathing soon turned hitchy and weak again.

“What’s with all this bitching?” Squish rasped back. “Dude, we’re trying to keep you alive.”

He recognized the gurgle to Grumpy’s breathing, and the froth bubbling from his mouth. His buddy was headed for wheels-up to permanent evac, and long before any helicopter could reach them.

Could this JoAnn heal him? Who the hell knew? But it wasn’t like trying would cause any more damage at this point. He glanced at Mandy and nodded, ignoring the look of betrayal that darkened Grumpy’s eyes. Or maybe it was just death that had turned his buddy’s gaze to the color of an old bruise.

“You’ll need to pull out the pitchfork. But wait until his vest is loose. We need to do it fast, so Jo can get to work.” Mandy looked over at him with both focus and calm in her gaze.

She was surprisingly steady. Not at all like he’d expected her to react in a life-or-death emergency.

Squish rose to his feet. “You see those straps on the vest, the ones up on his shoulders, the ones that feed into the buckle? Pull those out. That will detach the back of the vest from the front.”

Grumpy tried to say something, but it emerged as a wet, slurred whisper.

Mandy unthreaded the shoulder straps and scooted toward Grumpy’s knees as JoAnn dropped down next to Mandy. After checking to make sure the Velcro side straps were still loose, Squish grabbed the pitchfork and pulled it up—hard.

The Kevlar gripped the tines tight, but with a wet, squelching sound, the steel spikes popped out of Grumpy’s chest. The vest, tines still embedded, flew up.

Blood sprayed everywhere.

Grumpy groaned, pink froth spilling out his gaping mouth.

JoAnn slapped her hands over the four geysers spewing a fountain of red from Grumpy’s chest. For a second nothing seemed to happen. Blood pooled over JoAnn’s hands and bubbled between her fingers. But then the tide of crimson…just…stopped. The pool of blood didn’t vanish. It was still there, almost burying the woman’s fingers, but it stopped bubbling. And it did not increase in depth or width.

Stunned, Squish’s gaze flashed up to Grumpy’s face. His buddy’s expression looked calm, almost tranquil. The pink froth still glazed his lips, but it wasn’t bubbling out any longer. Plus, all that wheezing and gasping and gargling had stopped.

Fuck.

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