Every muscle in Aden’s body locked as the impulses started to snake up at rapid speed, going for his cerebral cortex. She didn’t even think about it. Sliding the tip of the blade directly under the main part of the implant, she tore it off without finesse and threw it aside. “Aden? Aden!” He was bleeding badly, his head hanging forward.
She washed out the wound with the last of the disinfectant and, with no way to repair the membrane, slotted in the pieces of bone she’d removed and slapped on a thick piece of gauze to soak up the blood while she tried to find a pulse in his neck. “Don’t be dead,” she said. “Don’t be dead.” It was a low, staccato mantra as she searched desperately for a pulse, her blood-slick fingers sliding over his skin. “Don’t be dead, Aden.” Don’t leave me all alone. You promised I would never be alone again.
Tearing off the gloves, she replaced the blood-soaked gauze and searched for a pulse again. Aden couldn’t be dead. Aden was the squad’s future. Without him, they’d crumble, fade away, break into a million pieces. “Don’t be dead,” she said again, and this time it was an order. “Wake up!”
Thud.
She halted, listened with her fingertips, and felt it again, the thud of his heart pumping blood. Removing her fingers from his throat, she quickly lifted the gauze and checked the state of the bleeding. Bad. There was nothing in the medkit to seal it up, so all she could do was tape a fresh gauze pad over the site and try to put pressure on the wound.
It wasn’t enough. He needed proper medical attention.
Her abdomen cramped at the same time, pain shooting through her torso. Breathing past it, she found the second-to-last bottle of nutrient drink and, tilting Aden’s body back toward her own so that his head was supported by her shoulder, dripped the enriched liquid into his mouth. When he didn’t swallow, she stroked his throat. “Swallow, Aden, or I’ll cut your throat and pour it straight in.”
There was little chance he could hear her, but he swallowed with the next stroke of her fingers, so she continued the action. “A little more. I need you conscious and able to walk.” If necessary, she’d put his body against the tree behind her and kill anyone who came close, but he’d have a much higher chance of survival if she could get him farther from their pursuers.
It took time to finish the bottle and the chopper got close to them more than once. If it came too close, the heat-seeking equipment would capture their images and betray their location, but the rain pounded down again just in time, the wind even stronger. So strong that it howled through the copse of trees, tearing apart their hideout in a matter of seconds and scattering their supplies.
Chapter 8
ZAIRA TURNED HER back into the wind, protecting Aden’s face as the rain and the wind hit the leather jacket she wore. Realizing she couldn’t afford to lose body heat through exposure, not if she was to get Aden to safety before her own body gave out, she tried to search for the larger rainproof jacket and could see nothing in the darkness and the rain. It was only when she shifted to better protect Aden that she realized she’d accidentally knelt on the jacket.
Placing Aden’s head very carefully on her thigh and making sure his hood was on, his jacket zipped up, she pulled on her own. She had to fight the wind to do it, water running from her drenched hair down her spine. That wasn’t good, but hopefully the jacket would keep out the worst of it now. Pulling on her hood, she tied the drawstring under her chin tight before slipping on the gloves she’d stuffed into the pockets.
Three hours she’d been out. If Aden was going to be unconscious that long, she had to come up with plan B, find some way to protect him from this vicious weather. She’d have to dig, she decided. Use her hands to make a shallow indentation where—no, the water would fill that up. If she lost consciousness and didn’t keep his head up or keep the rain off his face, he could drown.
Unable to sense his pulse through her thick gloves, she bent her face to Aden’s, tried to feel his breath as she continued to consider and discard possible options. If only she could carry him, but he was too heavy. She might be able to create a litter, drag—
“Zaira.”
Jerking up, she looked down at his closed eyelids, wondering if she was having an auditory hallucination as a result of the fragmentation caused by the aloneness, but then he lifted the thick, curling lashes so unexpected in the otherwise clean lines of his face. “Out?”
She spoke against his ear so he’d hear her. “Yes, I got it out.” When he tried to sit up, she helped him, leaning his back against a tree. “Keep your head down!” she said into his face, the rain and the wind loud around them. “I’m going to see if I can find any of our supplies!”