Page 59 of Hot Soldier's Rescue

He didn’t argue with her. They did need to get to the Jeep, or more precisely, her medical kit in the back of it. No way was he going to a hospital. He’d be thrown in jail the minute he showed his face. But he’d fight that fight with her if he made it back to their hotel alive.

Two police cars appeared on the street ahead and he nearly passed out when he and Elise jumped into a recessed doorway to avoid the approaching headlights. The cars sped past, sirens blaring.

“Where are Mia and Emanuel?” she murmured as they moved out again.

“With Grandma. I told her to run.”

“Thank God they all made it out of the hotel.”

He merely grunted in response.

The citizens of Mercado, no strangers to gun battles, apparently, were staying completely off the streets. The rest of their walk back to the hotel was undisturbed. Which was a good thing. He was hanging on to consciousness by a thread. Only Elise’s steady stream of salty commentary on the stupidity of heroes kept him going.

Finally the hotel came into view. One more block to go. He staggered and nearly went down. Elise jumped and managed to get her shoulder under his right arm before he fell. “Only a little bit more,” she encouraged him. “You’re doing great.”

One thing he knew for sure about nurses. If they said you were doing great in that particular tone of voice, you were about three quarters of the way to dead.

“Jeep,” he gasped.

“Right.” She veered into the parking lot and guided him to the Jeep.

“Key. Right front pocket.”

She propped him against the vehicle and dug into his pocket. “Got it.”

She made as if to put him in the passenger seat, but he shook his head. “Your med kit. In the back.”

“I’m serious, Drago. You need a hospital.”

He mumbled, “Government will arrest me.”

She stared at him in dismay. “Now you tell me this?”

“Get your kit,” he gasped.

“Don’t you faint on me. I’m not doing surgery on you in some parking lot,” she threatened.

Not good. Nurses only threatened when you were about to die. Reaching for the last dregs of strength he could muster, he staggered to the hotel door. He made it to the elevator, but his legs collapsed as it lurched into motion.

“Don’t you dare give up on me, Drago Cantori,” Elise ground out. “Get up.” When he didn’t move, she said more forcefully, “Get up!”

It was so hard to follow her order. He was slipping into a warm, comfortable place where the pain was receding and panic had no meaning. Something impacted his cheek sharp and hard. Did she just slap him? Vague indignation pushed back the beckoning blanket of white just a little.

“Walk, buster.”

Someone dragged insistently at his right arm and he didn’t have the energy to fight it. He stumbled forward. A door loomed and then opened. He was pulled forward into a room. A bed rose before him. At long last. He smiled at the sight of it and gave up the fight.

* * *

Elise gaspedas Drago passed out on the bed. She’d expected it, but it was still alarming to see such a strong, invincible guy go down like that. At least he was unconscious. She dumped the contents of the med kit on the mattress beside Drago and frantically went to work. She peeled off the Kevlar vest and cut away the makeshift bandage. A new flow of blood gushed over his shoulder.

She grabbed a scalpel and sliced the wound further open. She spotted the big bleeder right away and clamped it so she could go hunting for the bullet. She found the mashed bit of metal lodged up against his rotator cuff, which was shredded. She winced at the damage. Even with good reconstructive surgery, the joint was done for.

The bullet was slippery and she finally had to wedge her fingernail under the damned thing to get it out. She didn’t have the supplies to irrigate the wound and properly clean it and could only pour hydrogen peroxide into the area and hope it was enough.

The peroxide flushed the wound a bit and she spotted two smaller bleeders, which she used her last clamp to close off together. It was meatball surgery at its worst. She could only pray he stayed unconscious until she was done. She wasn’t strong enough to hold him down if he started to thrash around.

She used a lighter to heat up the scalpel as much as she could and cauterized the two small bleeding veins. The smell of burning flesh made her nauseous, but she pressed on grimly. If Drago could win a firefight and walk back to the hotel with this, she could at least fix his wound.

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