Artem's hot blood seeped from the wounds, warm and thick against my fingers. I pressed down with everything I had, desperate to keep his life force from escaping.
"Keep your hands exactly where they are. Move your knee. It's going to feel wrong, and trust me, it's going to hurt Artem like a motherfucker. But it's going to keep him alive."
"What?" How could he want me to cause this man more pain?
"Put your knee on that wound and press down. As much pressure as you can. We need to keep his blood in his body where it belongs."
I nodded, silently apologizing to Artem as I drove my knee into the wound on his side. When he didn't even groan in protest at the pressure, tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision.
With my hands pressing into his blood, I could feel the faint beat of his heart and his slow, shallow breaths.
They were weakening, but they were still there.
As long as I could feel that rhythm, he was with me.
"Hold on," one of them commanded as they rushed the gurney out of the bedroom. The men didn't slow down for a second. Even when they reached the stairs, they wordlessly lifted the stretcher and kept moving with grim efficiency.
“Take him to the kitchen,” the man who’d taken charge ordered the men, who wasted no time heading in that direction.
"How long until we get a doctor?" I demanded, never releasing the pressure on his wounds.
"No doctors," he said as he kicked open the door to the kitchen.
"What do you mean, no doctors? He needs a surgeon and blood or he's going to—" I couldn't make myself say it. I had wished for it so many times before, but now I was physically ill at the thought of it.
"“Someone find the fucking first aid kit,” he directed the men, ignoring me. “The good one."
The men carrying the stretcher maneuvered it into the kitchen, where they unceremoniously swept everything off the massive island counter with a crash of breaking dishes and scattered utensils.
"He needs a hospital," I screamed, hot tears streaming down my face. I refused to move my hands to wipe them away.
"No hospitals," the man repeated, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Don't worry, I've got him. I'll stitch him up as good as new."
"Are you a doctor?" I demanded as they transferred Artem from the stretcher to the kitchen island that had been transformed into a makeshift operating table.
"No, but my wife made me watch a lot ofGrey's Anatomy. It doesn't look that hard."
"What?" I screeched. If I hadn't been holding Artem's blood in, I would have clawed this man's face off until they took us to a real hospital.
"Calm down. I was a field medic in Spetsnaz. I've pulled more bullets out of more bodies than most surgeons." He said it so casually, it was almost more terrifying.
After scrubbing his hands in the kitchen sink and pulling on latex gloves he grabbed from the medical kit, he had me move my knee while he cleaned and packed the wounds. I watched his every movement like a hawk, looking for any mistake—not that I would recognize one. But his hands moved with quick, precise motions. His movements were strong and confident, which reassured me that he had done this many times before.
"I'll stitch this up now, but first we need to save as much of his blood as possible. If we need more, I have two donors on standby."
"Not it, Mikhail," called one of the men setting up lights around the island.
"Kostya, if I need your blood to save your brother, I'm taking it. You can volunteer it and take the needle like a man, or I can slit your throat and drain you like a pig. The choice is yours." Mikhail's voice was deadly calm, leaving absolutely no room for negotiation.
Other than his first name, I didn't know this man, but I was beginning to like him.
My eyes never left his bloody hands. He may not have been a real doctor, but his medical training was evident in every movement. A field medic, clearly a good one.
Dima had once told me about his time training as a field medic. It wasn't because he had any intention of going into a war zone, he'd said, but if war came to him, it was important to treat his men well enough that they survived long enough to get someone more qualified. That looked like what Mikhail was doing—packing and binding each wound so Artem no longer relied on my small, shaking fingers or my knee to keep him alive.
After several tense minutes, Mikhail had each of Artem's wounds—the one in his upper arm close to the shoulder, and the deeper one on his side—stabilized.
Even before pressing his wounds to staunch the bleeding, I already knew where they were. I had watched each of those bullets tear into his body on the monitor in the panic room.
