Page 45 of Mountain Target

“Stay with her,” she told Alex. “Make sure she keeps breathing.”

She rushed to the group of men huddled around the prone figure—pushed her way through, taking in the man’s pallor, the way his skin was gray with more than dust.

“What do you need?” Beau asked, his voice harsh.

“Open his shirt. I need to see his chest,” she said.

She cleared the man’s airway, then began chest compressions—pushing much harder than she had on his daughter’s chest. And she didn’t give a shit about bruising or breaking his ribs, the only thing she cared about was getting his breathing started again. Because if she failed, if she couldn’t bring him back, that little girl was going to grow up an orphan.

No.

I will not let that happen.

She looked up, saw Alex moving away with the girl in his arms, glad that she wouldn’t be able to see her dad in this shape.

She breathed into his lungs again. Once, and then again.

“Valentina,” Beau said, his deep voice laced with pain. “We don’t know how long he was trapped under that beam. Sometimes—“

“Don’t say it,” she begged, and went back to the chest compressions.

She knew better than anyone that sometimes there was no way back, but it wasn’t what she needed to hear right now.

He has to live.

“Ok,” he said. He moved back a step, and she felt deep relief that he wasn’t going to try to stop her.

“Where’s. The. Helicopter,” she said, punctuating each word with a firm compression.

“Damien’s ten minutes away,” someone said.

Ten minutes was a long time if you weren’t breathing.

At thirty, she shifted closer to his mouth—sealed her mouth over his and breathed for him.

Once.

Twice.

The man coughed.

Yes.

Beau was beside her in an instant, helping her turn the man on his side into the recovery position and speaking to him gently but firmly in French, letting him know his daughter was safe, and Val welcomed his help because her entire body was suddenly shaking.

Lorenz and Hugo brought a makeshift stretcher and loaded the man onto it.

“Careful,” Val begged. “We don’t know if he has any internal injuries.”

“We’ll bring him with Ry and his daughter, then keep searching.”

And then it was just she and Beau left.

“Thank you,” Beau began. “We wouldn’t have been able to save them if you hadn’t been here.”

She shivered, her breaths falling in great, rasping sobs.

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand what’s wrong with me.” She understood, better than most, the fragility of the human body. She saw plenty of death every day in the hospital. And the man and his daughter had survived. So there was no reason for her to feel this way, no reason why she should be taking this so personally. “But it’s—“