Page 74 of Ravens
His hand slips from my neck, and I stare at his body on the ground in front of me. It feels murky, slow . . . The air around me feels too thick to wade through until someone grabs me from behind, and I flail.
“Stop.” August's voice cuts through my panic. “York.”
Eyes wide, I look around me. Jeffries is down, the three agents are down and . . . My eyes dart to the road. York is down.
“No,” I whisper and tear out of August’s grip. I jump over the cuffed agents and scramble to the road, dropping down beside York.
“Shit,” I blurt out as I grab onto him. There is a hole in the front of his right shoulder, and despite the dark jacket, I can see the bloom of blood around it growing rapidly.
“On three,” August says, breathing heavily as he comes up beside us and slips his arm under York. “We’ve got to go. That virus has been delivered by now. Their whole system is melting down, and we’ve got to be the hell away from here.”
“Yeah.” I work my arm under York and count. On three, we tug him up and get his arms around our necks.
“Fuck,” York groans weakly.
“Inbound,” Carter barks in our ears, and I squint at the volume.
Shuffling, we turn York as a car screeches around the corner, pulling up right in front of us. We get in, me first, resting York’s head on my lap as August squeezes in behind us.
Carter peels away again, and I rummage through my tactical vest until I find some field dressings. Tearing them open with my teeth, I press them into York’s shoulder and then feel around the back only to discover there is no exit wound.
Not good.
Still, my hand comes away bloodied despite it. I stare at my fingers confused and then frantically tilt him away from me and look again. The back of his head is split open and bleeding. It probably smashed against the road.
Not. Good.
“Head trauma,” I say loudly as I press another dressing to his skull.
“Fuck!” Carter slams his hand on the steering wheel.
We tear through the small square, stopping on the corner. William jumps in the front seat, and we tear out of there.
“How is he?” He looks over his shoulder at York and then up to me.
“Not good.”
Thirty-Four
“We have to ditch this car,” Carter says calmly.
“We need something bigger,” August says, stealing the thought from my head.
William spies a “park and ride” for the airport an hour later. Carter waits while William hotwires a minivan, and then takes off in the other car once we have York loaded in the back with a few seats folded down.
“We’re going to Maine,” I say definitively as I swap out York’s bandage on his head. He’s been unresponsive since we first picked him up.
“Why?”
“Resources,” I mutter, thinking of how York said the same thing to me not so long ago.
We pick Carter up on the side of a dirt road, laden with gear as smoke rises in the near distance behind him. I’m sandwichedbetween the gear and York in the back as Carter loads the van with whatever was left from the car. I take a moment to go through our kit. York’s duffel is never comprehensively packed, but it’s always efficient. No doubt since meeting me, he’s gotten more prudent with his first aid gear.
Grunting with approval, I pull out his first aid kit and smile when I find a chemical icepack in it. Cracking it, I set it under the back of his head and reapply pressure on his shoulder.
“The bullet is still in him,” I say finally. “Anyone know how to deal with that?”
“I’ll handle it,” William says from the driver’s seat.
