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He knew she was still with him, because of the bouts of coughing she did in her sleep, and because he’d kept his thumb on her pulse almost the entire time they’d been driving.

He moved his knee so that she was cradled in his embrace, and now sitting up.

“Uh-uh. Sleep.” Somehow, he understood her words.

“Nope, no sleep for the wicked,” he teased. “There’s a full day of work ahead for you. First thing on your plate is to drink some water.”

“Don’ wanna.”

He adored that petulant tone.

“Did you notice you didn’t cough?”

“Big deal. Don’t wanna drink water.” Her voice sounded stronger

“No choice, honey.” Brax lifted the water bottle to her lips and dribbled some water against her closed lips. Finally, he gave up.

“Okay, what do you want?”

She opened her eyes and frowned. “Wan peash smoothie.”

“If you drink some water, you’ll get a peach smoothie. Is it a deal?”

“Kay.”

“You’re going to hell,” Ryker whispered from the front.

After ten minutes, he got an entire bottle of water into Jenny and felt like he had just come in first at target practice.

She went limp in his arms. He thought she’d passed out again. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “You with me?”

“Where’s peash smoothie?” she slurred.

“Soon.”

“Now.”

Ryker was right, I’m going to hell.

“I’ll get you a peach smoothie soon, honey. Soon. First, we have to get you well.”

Her eyes opened and this close he could see a little bit of blue mixed with the green. “You rescued me, right?”

“Me and a lot of others. We all rescued you.”

“Thank you. Thank them all.”

“I will. Sleep now.”

Before they even reached the city limits of Chattogram, Gideon started talking.

“Ryker, this is it. Pull off 163 and take a right onto Oxygen Kuwaish Road.”

“How far am I going?”

“In a mile, on your right, is going to be Evercare Hospital. It’ll be a good place to start getting them care and stabilized before we get Jase on a flight to Germany for surgery.”

“What do you mean, Jase?” Brax interrupted. “What about Jenny?”