Page 141 of Beware of Dog

It’s okay, she wanted to say.Darling, it’s okay.

But she could say nothing, and then all was dark.

~*~

Shep heard the chopping whump of helo blades. He recalled the smoke of the marker, the stench of blood and cordite, the acrid scent of a person’s insides.

The flashback reared up, potent and vicious.

And then he was back in the moment, though it made no sense, and Cass was swooning, and there was blood, so much blood, and he couldn’t, he didn’t—

“Cassie!” he screamed.

His brain split into two. His awareness of what unfolded next took on two narratives.

As a person, as a man newly married, as a man in love with a woman who’d taken his hand and his name hours earlier, he watched his wife swoon and collapse; grabbed her, and wanted to scream.

Did scream.

How could this happen?

How could he get married, and walk up the hill with his bride, and then she collapsed, and spit blood in his face, and couldn’t speak?

The second part of his brain was a soldier, was someone who’d worked, mostly to good effect, but sometimes in vain, on men who’d been wounded in battle. That part of him breathed in the scents of the desert, the panic of other men, and neatlycut his emotions away so that he could triage his patient. That’s what his wife was: a patient.

Someone had been shot.

A member of his company had been shot.

Blood was pouring everywhere.

Shep registered a few more shots, sharp cracks, the splitting of branches, and flung himself down on the forest floor on top of Cass.

A plan. He needed a plan.

First: stop the bleeding.

He pushed up on his hands, still low, and the moonlight painted Cass’s face nearly as white as her dress. Her eyes were huge, lashes fluttering, lips twitching as she fought to breathe. Blood marred her perfect wedding-day makeup, a bright ketchup splatter from jaw to cheekbone. She was gasping, trying to speak, panicked and in pain.

“You’re okay,” he said, nonsensically. “I’ve got you.” Shocked by how calm he sounded.

He shrugged off his cut, and then fumbled with his shirt, tearing seams and buttons in his haste. He wadded it up and pressed it to the spreading dark stain on her chest.

But he needed real supplies. He needed his kit, back at the main house.

Another shot rang out, and he heard the whine of the bullet overhead.

He pulled his own gun off his hip and fired three blind shots into the darkness. Silence ensued.

With a curse, he holstered the Colt, then gathered Cass up in his arms. A bloody bridal carry totally at odds with the way he’d planned to lift her over the threshold of his cabin.

“Oh,” she whimpered, curling up, hands flailing uselessly.

“No, no, don’t move, it’s okay, baby, I’ve got you.”

Second: evac to safety.

He ran. Not elegantly, not as quickly as he needed to. Not safely: he had no backup, no brothers in arms there with M4s aimed at the enemy. He tripped more than once, and feared he would fall, but managed to press onward, drawn by the house lights through the dark.

---