Page 23 of Deadly Strain

One. Two. Three. Dead.

Relief shot champagne into her blood, which went straight to her head.This time she’d made the right choice.“You still shooting at yours?” she asked Sharp.

The only answer was a burst of gunfire. “Not anymore.” He came through the wreckage and glanced out at the bodies on her side. “You’re a good shot, Doc.”

She’d killed three more people. Five altogether. The fizzy feeling went flat. “Yay me.”

“When you say it in a monotone like that, it doesn’t sound so happy.”

She stared at her hands, which were vibrating at a rate that would have done an earthquake proud. She’d been fine,fineuntil Marshall had reopened the emotional wounds Cranston’s death caused.Son of a bitch.

She wasn’t like this. Wasn’t someone who couldn’t handle her shit. Until today happened. “Sharp, I think I need that slap now. Um, just as soon as I throw up.” She stumbled a few steps away and let her stomach complete its protest. She stood there bent at the waist, her hands braced on her knees until the nausea and dizziness passed.

She turned to check Rasker’s pulse. Weaker and slower. He didn’t have long.

She glanced outside. The sun beat down on the desert with unrelenting heat, but it was getting closer to the horizon. Nighttime wasn’t far off, and darkness would bring out even more predators. Rasker wouldn’t make it without surgery. If he didn’t get that surgery soon, he wouldn’t make it at all.

Time, the conditions, and the men trying to kill them were all the enemy. She and Sharp had precious little to fight them off with.

“Have you been thinking about our escape plan?” she asked him.

He didn’t stop his inspection of the horizon. Moving from side to side of the aircraft, watching for more unfriendlies. “Yes.”

“I’ve got everything you asked me to gather. I just need to find a couple of packs to carry it in.”

“Check the same spot as those medical supplies. There might be some at the very back.”

She did and found three that were relatively undamaged. She quickly packed two of them and placed them where they could grab them on the run if they had to.

“Have you got enough ammunition?” she asked.

“I grabbed everything I could get my hands on.”

She glanced out at the desert. Desolate and empty of life. No help or safe place in sight. “Is it going to be enough?”

“Probably not.”

She grunted. Sharp had something huge going for him. He didn’t lie.

Grace checked Rasker’s pulse again and found it had slowed even more.

He wasn’t going to make it and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to change it. Tears cooled her face, but she let them fall. No one besides Sharp would see them.

People said she was cold behind her back, thinking she didn’t care, that she really was as unfeeling as she often appeared, but they were wrong. She cared too much, and sometimes her emotions got away from her no matter how hard she tried to lock them down.

Keeping the fingers of her right hand on his carotid pulse point, she smoothed her left index finger down his nose. “It’s okay to go, Rasker,” she whispered to him. “It’s okay.”

The pulse under her fingertips slowed and disappeared.

She stood, looking down at the dead body of her brother-in-arms, then glanced at Sharp. “I’m done,” she said, and was shocked at how bleak her tone sounded. “I’m sodone.”

He looked at her. “I wish we couldbedone, but for us the shit’s just getting started.”

She glanced at him. His face was drawn in sad, angry lines, his mouth pressed tight, and the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching. “We need to go, and I need you to keep up. Can you do that?”

She swallowed a bitter mouthful of regret. “Okay.”

Sharp came over and picked up one of the packs. “We’ll head northeast for a bit, get lost in those hills.” He paused for a moment, then met her gaze with a frankness that told her she might not like what he was about to say. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Doc.”

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