“Matt, how bad?” she asked, voice unsteady as she ripped open his jacket with her free hand and searched beneath it for the wound.
“I’m okay,” he rasped out, the strain in his voice alarming her. A lump settled in her throat and a hot blur of tears stung her eyes. Then Matt’s hand wrapped around her wrist as she reached for his wounded shoulder once more, his fingers squeezing. “It’s okay, baby.”
The sound of the approaching sirens grew louder still. Briar straddled Matt’s waist and bent over him, trying to see the wound. Moments later men stormed into the trees, seven of them fanning out around them with rifles aimed, shouting commands.
“Everybody freeze! Hands up, now!”
Briar eased into a kneeling position and raised her hands, still shaking all over. They wore NVGs so they could see them all clearly but she knew they were HRT. Three men rushed for Balducci and Georgia, who stood where she was, weapon behind her on the ground, hands in the air.
Briar could vouch for her later. All she was worried about at the moment was Matt. “It’s DeLuca,” she shouted over the noise. “He’s hurt. Schroder, where are you?”
“Right here.” He emerged out of the shadows behind another member and rushed toward them. Briar moved off Matt and eased to the side, keeping pressure on his shoulder wound. She could feel something sharp sticking out of it.
“I don’t know if he’s been shot and I don’t know if there’s another wound but his shoulder is bleeding bad—”
“Not shot,” Matt managed from behind gritted teeth.
Relief slammed into her, so hard it left her dizzy.
“Let’s take a look,” Schroder said, totally calm as he switched on the headlamp on his helmet and started looking Matt over. He pulled open Matt’s jacket and shirt to expose his shoulder and Briar saw why he was bleeding.
The wicked end of a KA-BAR knife had pierced through the muscles at the side of his left shoulder, going clean through it beside the strap of his Kevlar vest. Another few inches to the left and it could have hit his lung, maybe nicked his heart.
Nausea hit her, her stomach contracting into a sickening ball.
“Anywhere else?” the former PJ asked, grabbing her hand and pressing on it in a silent command to keep pressure there.
“Just…ribs,” he said, trying to shift onto his side. “It’s all right.”
“Stay put for me, okay big guy?” Schroder said.
And it wasn’t fucking okay, because there was a big dent in the side of the vest where a bullet had punched into it.
Briar swallowed the bile rising in her throat, aware that if he hadn’t been wearing the vest, he’d be bleeding out right now in front of her. She pressed her lips together and sucked in a steadying breath through her nose. She wanted to wrap around Matt and hold him, make him stop hurting and just feel him warm and alive in her arms.
Schroder finished checking him over, put a dressing on his shoulder and closed the cut on the side of his head with some steri strips. “Can you stand?” he asked him.
Matt nodded. “Yeah.” He grabbed Schroder’s hand, allowed him and Briar to pull him up, then leaned against her as he got his footing. She tucked her body into his, lending him her support.
He shot her a terrifying glare and yelled at her. “Goddammit, woman, you fucking scared me to death, tackling him like that! You’re not even wearing a vest for Christ—”
“Too fucking bad!” she shouted back, still shaky as hell and not regretting her actions one iota. She’d do the same all over again to protect him. “You were lying there bleeding to death for all I knew and I wasn’t letting him get away with it!”
They glared at each other, both breathing hard, until strangled laughs from nearby broke the taut standoff. She whipped her head around to see three HRT guys standing there, watching the show. The lighting wasn’t great but from the glimpse she got, she thought she saw Evers, Bauer and Tuck, all grinning at them.
“Come on, boss, that’s actually kinda hot,” Schroder said on a laugh. “All one-hundred-and-thirty pounds of her took him down to protect you. It’s sweet.”
“Sweet my ass,” Matt fired back, his eyes now shooting daggers at the medic. “God-dammit.”
Schroder didn’t seem to take his CO’s wrath to heart. “I know you’re not gonna want to hear it, but you need that looked at some more,” he added, nodding at Matt’s shoulder. “They’ll wait to pull the knife out at the hospital. Let’s hope you don’t need surgery.”
“Fuck,” he snarled, and this time she felt some of the anger drain out of him, his body sagging against her.