Despite his residual rage, a swell of euphoria filled his chest and buoyed his spirit. Grant was alive. In what condition? They weren’t sure. T-Two had reported a head injury. What that meant, they had no idea.
Whatever. Didn’t matter. The bastard had survived.
They’d worry about his brain later. Priority one? Getting everyone back to Montana and into Doc’s medical clinic so he could work his magic.
“Roger that,” Jamie said, seeing the logic in Chase’s orders. “I’ll start on a list of things I want Adam to have ready and waiting when we land. In the meantime, let Eve know I’ll need her assistance in the OR.”
“Will do.” Chase clapped his palm down on Cody’s shoulder, the brotherly gesture a comfort in the wake of the emotional rollercoaster they’d been riding. “Let’s get to work so we can get out of here. Yeah?”
“Sounds good,” Zander agreed.
About to add his two cents, Cody’s oorah got stuck in his throat as the scrape of the exterior metal door opening brought his gun up and his head around.
“Who ordered a pizza delivery?” Greely called out, and Cody’s heartbeat went into double overtime as the Canadian assault team filed into the hangar, one at a time, an assortment of satisfied expressions doing absolutely nothing to make them look any less lethal.
Christ, they were an impenetrable wall of muscle as they advanced. Didn’t stop Cody from searching their faces, looking for rust-colored eyes and a familiar goatee. And nope. Zero. Zilch. No sign of Grant at the front of the human wedge.
Shit! Had something happened to him? Had he taken a turn for the worse? Worry spiking, he was about to start asking questions when the group split down the middle to reveal the knuckleheaded caped crusader wrapped in a wool blanket and looking ready to pass out.
Yeah, if it weren’t for Tom One and Tom Two holding an arm each, Grant would be cuddling up with the concrete floor and quite possibly taking a permanent nap. Head wrapped in a gauze helmet and one eye covered over, he looked like hell had chewed him up and spit him out because the devil didn’t enjoy his particular flavor.
“You motherfucker.” The first to recover from seeing their larger-than-life teammate looking like a reanimated corpse, Zander moved in to relieve one of the Toms of his burden. “You ever do something like that again, I’m gonna beat your ass into oblivion. You hear me?”
Grant grinned. Fucking grinned. Like he hadn’t just forced them to choose between one brother and another. “How’s Jay?” he asked, his voice raspy and weak as Cody took over as crutch number two.
Too overwhelmed to speak, he took his half of Grant’s weight without a word, displacing Tom Two with a silent nod of thanks. Now that they had the bastard back, there’d be plenty of time to cuss him out later.
“He’s alive, dickhead.” Jamie pointed to the same chair Chase had indicated earlier. “Put him over there. I need to do a quick exam to make sure there aren’t any signs of intracranial bleeding or brain swelling before clearing him to fly.”
“I’m fine,” Grant grumbled between shallow breaths. “I don’t need?—”
“Shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.” Fists clenched, black eyes angrier than Cody had ever seen them, and the muscle in his jaw twitching like a live wire about to spark, Chase looked about two seconds away from manhandling Grant into the chair himself. “JP, let’s talk.” He jerked his head for the JTF2 leader to follow and left without so much as a glad you’re still alive nod in the dufus’s general direction.
“Jesus. Who pissed in his Cornflakes?” Grant asked, his weight doubling as they moved toward their goal one excruciatingly slow step at a time.
“You did,” T-Two replied, sounding only slightly less angry than Chase, but not willing to leave until his buddy had been taken care of.
“Forget the chair,” Jamie said, sliding the offending piece of auditorium memorabilia out of the way with the toe of his boot. “He’s not stable enough to sit. Put him on the table and lay him flat so he doesn’t pull a Humpty Dumpty.”
“His shell’s already cracked.” T-Two tapped his fingers against his own forehead, indicating the injury site. Unnecessary due to the blood seeping through the bandage on Grant’s head. “He needs stitches, definitely has a concussion, and I think he might have a couple of broken ribs.”
“How long was he out for?” Jamie asked as the four of them manipulated what amounted to two hundred pounds of melted butter onto the rickety table.
“About three and a half hours, but he’s been drifting in and out since he came to. And just so you know what you’re dealing with, this is his third concussion.”
“Fourth,” Grant groaned as Cody and Zander helped to lay him flat.
Jamie snorted and reached for a pair of scissors. “When was the last one?” He took Cody’s spot and started to cut through the gauze wrapped around Grant’s head. No response. “Hey, asshole.” He paused mid-snip. “Wake up.” No response. “Grant.” No response.
“Hey, Griff,” T-Two growled while executing a rough-knuckled sternum rub. “Don’t be a dick and wake the fuck up.”
“What?” Grant moaned, responding to a name they didn’t know was his and sliding his hand over his chest.
“When was your last concussion?” Jamie repeated, peeling open the bandages to reveal a bloody mess, and at the sight of the scraped skin, open gash showing bone, and swollen flesh masquerading as an eye socket, Cody sucked in a long breath through gritted teeth.
Jesus Christ.
Iceberg—one.
