Page 122 of One Last Chance

“Axel . . .” Her face crumpled and she started to cry.

“It’s okay. Let me see—are you shot?”

She shook her head. “I fell. I hit a branch—I think it stabbed me.”

He wanted to weep with the relief of that, especially when he saw the wound. A glancing swipe against her abdomen, it hadn’t even broken the hypodermis, but a long, terrible tunnel gouged across her side. “Okay, it’s just a lot of blood, but I don’t think you pierced your body cavity. Let’s get you wrapped up here.” He pulled off his life jacket, then his thermal shirt, wound it into a length, then tied it around her waist, tight against the wound. She cried out, then bit her lip to keep it in.

“What happened—do you remember?”

“Yeah. I was going to Laramie’s place—we were having a youth group event—and I saw a guy standing on the side of the road. He was holding a dog—it looked hurt, so I stopped.”

A dog. Adog.He hadn’t even thought about a dog.

“Did you know him?”

“Of course I knew him—it was Hondo?—”

Another shot boomed through the forest, shuddering the trees with the lift of birds. Parker screamed and clutched her hands over her head.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Return shots, like pops, short bursts.

Sounded like a pistol.

“Okay, I’m going to get you into some cover and call Moose. He’s in the area with the chopper. We’ll get you out of here.” He strapped his life jacket back on over his bare chest, then he scooped her up.

She clung to him, her fists in the straps of his vest as he picked his way back to the thick of the forest. Found a tall pine, the arms bushy, and tucked her under it. “I’ll be right back.”

He scrambled back to the shoreline, picked up his paddle, and tugged out his radio, heading back to cover.

“Air One, this is Axel. Do you copy?”

“Copy, Axel. What’s your twenty?”

“I’m right above Glacier Veil—north bank. I’ve got Parker. She’s injured, not shot. I repeat,not shot. But we need evac.”

“I’m five minutes away. Hang tight.”

“Roger.”

More shots, pops, closer now, and he scrambled under the canopy of the tree, bent over Parker. She trembled, her hands over her mouth, maybe to keep from screaming. “It’s okay. Help is on the way.”

Then he heard crunching, breaking of branches, cracking of needles on the forest floor.

Parker met his eyes, her eyes wide.

He put a finger to his mouth, took a breath, grabbed up the paddle, then scurried out from their hiding spot.

Scrambling over to a trio of birch, he crouched into the mass, searching. Spotted movement—a body—rolled, his back to the tree, caught his breath, counted?—

The loam snapped near him and he sprang out, paddle out, ready to swing.

Flynn jumped back, hands up, bear gun in one grip. “It’s me! It’s me!”

Oh . . . wow. His breaths came out hard, and he dropped the paddle, took a step, and grabbed her against him.

His heart hammered against his chest, his hold probably too tight, but he couldn’t help it. “I . . . I thought—I don’t know what I thought, just . . .”

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