Crouched in front of him, Grant yanked on one strap after another until he pulled the vest over Adam’s head and tossed it aside. “Breathe, motherfucker.” Tinged with urgency, Grant’s order snapped Eve back to reality.
No.
No. No. No!
Not Adam!
She dropped to her knees beside him, and her hands went to work, searching for a wound, for blood, for something she could fix. Her fingers trembled over his chest, his shoulders, his neck. Nothing.
“Blunt force trauma to the chest,” Grant said, ripping open Adam’s shirt to expose the bruise already starting to form over his left lung. “He can’t breathe.”
“Hold him,” she ordered, and positioning herself behind Adam, she wrapped her arms and legs around his body, settling his back against her chest. His head on her shoulder, she laid her hands over his lungs. “We’re going to breathe together. Okay?”
She inhaled. His chest didn’t move. “Focus on me, Adam. Feel my lungs expanding and breathe with me. In for three.” She filled her lungs again. “And out for three.” She dipped her head and put her mouth next to his ear, so he could hear her draw air and feel the warmth of her exhale against his skin.
With each subsequent breath, she felt a little more oxygen enter his chest, lifting her hand on the right side only. “That’s it,” she whispered as the noise level increased around them. “Focus on me.”
“What do we got?” Doc asked, taking a knee next to Adam and Eve, and shucking the pack on his back.
“Three fifty-seven to the vest at close range,” Grant said, backing up to give them some room.
“I think his left lung is collapsed,” Eve added, keeping her eyes down as Doc pulled out his medical kit. She didn’t want to think about Bryan right now. Didn’t want to see the blood spatter on the wall, or his body on the floor.
All she cared about was Adam.
“Let’s have a listen.” Doc pulled out a stethoscope and jammed it into his ears. Eve slid her hands down to move them out of the way. He pressed the scope to Adam’s chest. “Breathe in,” he ordered, and Eve heard the labored attempt. “Again.”
Another breath, followed by two more.
“Can you bend forward?” Doc asked.
Adam nodded and groaned as he leaned over. The sound lessened Eve’s worry. If he had enough air to make noise, he had enough air to sustain him until they could get him to a hospital.
“You can sit back now.” Doc removed the stethoscope from his ears, coiled it, and set it down on his kit. “Eve’s right, decreased breath sounds on the left side indicates a partial lung collapse.” He poked his fingers over Adam’s rib cage. “I don’t feel any broken bones, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a cracked rib or two. Won’t know for sure until we get you to emergency for an x-ray.”
“No hospitals,” Adam wheezed. “We’re out of time. Kincaid, tell Z to bring the van around, grab the briefcase, and let’s roll. LAX in thirty.”
“Listen, dumbass. You can’t fly with a collapsed lung,” Doc replied, zipping up his kit.
“Partially collapsed,” Adam argued. “Get me up.”
Eve’s arms tightened around his waist. “Adam—”
“Get me up, assholes. That’s an order.”
CHAPTERFORTY-ONE
Holy shit.Talk about your close calls. Grant shook his head. If Bryan Matthew’s aim had been six inches higher, they would have been hoisting Adam out of this concrete hellhole in a body bag.
Last thing the JTT needed was their newest leader biting the big one on their first mission after the colonel’s death. Zero fucking chance they’d recover a second time.
And as to Gray…
Well, he didn’t want to think about what it would have done to her.
Or to Eve for that matter. Plain and simple, the woman had fallen fast and hard for Adam’s steely charms, and if he’d…
Nope. Not fucking thinking about it. “You got him?” he asked, looking up at Adam’s ass as he executed a slow climb up the metal rungs of the ladder.
