The slashes to her body were horrifying. Two were deep and the flesh lay raggedly open. One carved a path down her midline between her breasts. There were two just underneath her breasts and one across her flat, muscled belly. And another two on the insides of her thighs.
The son of a bitch had carved her up and then forced himself on her because that’s how he got his rocks off.
“Damn,” Donovan murmured.
Cole focused on Donovan, trying to calm his fury. Donovan was holding P.J.’s right hand. It was swollen and bruised. Cole hadn’t noticed because it had been her left hand he’d clung to as they’d raced for the airport.
“Looks like she broke it,” Donovan said grimly.
He turned it over carefully in his palm and examined the swelling before returning it to her side.
Dolphin brought back the med pack and then took a seat across from the couch, his eyes burning with concern.
“Is she going to be all right, Van? How bad is it? Level with us. We’re going crazy up there.”
Donovan took in a deep breath. “Physically? She’s going to be okay. Eventually. The cuts are bad but not life threatening. Emotionally? I can’t say. What she went through was horrific. P.J.’s strong, but I don’t know of any woman who can escape what she suffered unscathed.”
Cole scrubbed his hands over his face and then through his hair. “This shouldn’t have happened. I should never have let it happen. Goddamn it, I knew it was wrong. My gut was screaming at me that it was all wrong, and I let her walk into that situation.”
Donovan sighed. “It was her decision, Cole. You can’t make those for her. It was a team decision.”
“It was bullshit,” Cole spat. “It was a coward’s move, using a woman to draw out a monster. There was another way. There’s always another way, but we were too anxious and lazy to find it.”
“Try telling that to the mothers of the girls we’ll send home,” Dolphin said quietly. “And then ask P.J. if she thinks it was worth it. Knowing her as I do, I know which way she’ll go. Do you?”
Donovan gave P.J. an injection of pain medication and then numbed the area around her wounds. Afterward he began the meticulous task of stitching the wounds closed.
“This is beyond my scope,” he admitted. “There is tissue damage that needs to be repaired, but my main concern is to get the wounds closed so infection doesn’t set in.”
He checked the pulse in her injured wrist and then did another perusal of the swelling. Then he wrapped an ice pack around it and secured it so she couldn’t move it if she awakened.
Steele ducked into the back. “How is she?”
Donovan’s shoulders heaved. “I’ve patched her up. She needs care more advanced than I can provide, but she’ll do until we get to Fort Campbell. Have you gotten us clearance to land there instead of Henry County? Will sure as hell save us some time.”
Steele nodded. “Sam’s getting it worked out now. They’re pretty pissed and they want blood. He’s called up Rio and his team. This could get messy. I told him we were staying with P.J. unless he absolutely needed us. I don’t want to leave her, but I don’t want any member of KGI getting killed either.”
Cole studied his team leader for a long moment. Steele wasn’t much of a talker. He rarely volunteered more than a terse order or a very cut-and-dried summary of a situation.
But this had shaken that legendary composure of his and melted some of the rigid ice that seemed to encase him. Anger—no, fury—burned in his eyes, making them colder than ever. His jaw was set in a permanent bulge, and he looked like he wanted to physically put his hands on someone—anyone—and make them suffer a long, painful death.
But then Steele was all about the team. The team was it for him. He lived it, breathed it. He performed his duties, and he’d never failed in a mission.
Until now.
It was a weight they all had to bear. They weren’t used to failing. They always did whatever it took and they accomplished their goal.
Well, they’d accomplished what they set out to do, but one of their own had paid a very dear price, and for Cole, that was unacceptable. It was an epic fail on their part that they couldn’t keep P.J. from harm and succeed in their mission.
It was a truth they’d all have to confront, live with and deal with in their own way, but Cole knew his team and he knew this weighed heavy on their minds and would for a long damn time.
* * *
WHEN they landed at Fort Campbell, they were met by Sam and Garrett along with the base commander who’d given permission for the jet to land. A medical team hurried in with a stretcher, and P.J. was loaded and quickly hustled away.