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Blood flowed down his shoulder.
Damn, that hurt.
Wasn’t the first time he’d been shot, and Surf doubted it would be the last, but this had to be about the worst possible timing.
Who was going to protect Lila if he passed out from blood loss?
Already his clothes were soaked with blood, and he was feeling the effects. His limbs felt heavy, and his head stuffy, like someone had stuck a whole bunch of cotton wool in there.
He had to shake it off and pull it together because they still had miles to go before he got his girl to safety.
Not only were Zara and Ross Duffy and their bodyguards still out in the forest somewhere, but now some crazed mountain man was hunting them as well.
Yeah, this sucked big time.
“Oh my … you were … there’s blood everywhere …” Lila stammered. Her blue eyes were huge in her much too pale face.
“It’s going to be okay,” he assured her. The bullet hadn’t nicked an artery because if it had, he’d have bled out already. His arm was usable, and his wound needed to be stitched, but he had the supplies in his first aid kit. This would slow them down, he’d need time to recoup before he was capable of going any further, but they’d be okay.
“Okay?” Lila spluttered. “How can you say that?” Tears brimmed in her eyes, and the sight of them tore at his heart. She’d been through enough, seen enough, and now to add to everything she’d also been shot at. When he’d taken her to the ground, he hadn’t had the luxury of doing it carefully. No doubt he’d given her more bruises when he crushed her against the hard ground and made the injury to her ankle worse.
“Lila, I will get you home. I promise.”
A shudder rippled through her, and she closed her eyes for a moment, dragging in a ragged breath. When she opened her eyes again determination was back, and he knew she had stowed her fear and pulled herself together. “What do you need me to do?”
“There’s my girl.” Grabbing her hand with his good one he squeezed it, encouraging her to keep doing what she was doing. “First thing we have to do is check if the bullet is still in there.”
“And how do I do that?” Lila asked, looking way out of her league here. This might all be new to her, but she was strong enough to handle it, of that he had no doubt.
“We need to take off my clothes and check for an exit wound.” Removing his clothing from the waist up wasn’t ideal. With the cold and blood loss it would put him at greater risk for hypothermia, but getting the bullet out if it was still in there was more important.
“Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad,” Lila agreed. Carefully she helped him shrug off his pack, then his tact vest, and several layers of clothing until his chest was bare.
“Looks like the bullet went in here.” Her fingers traced along his skin right near the top of his shoulder. “It’s so close to your neck. If you’d been just a little further over, you’d be dead.” For a moment terror stood out starkly in her pale face, but then he saw her compose herself again. “It’s bleeding a lot, but I see where the bullet went through. It’s not still in there.”
“Didn’t get the bone either, I can still use the joint.” That was all that mattered. A few hours and his body would recover from the blood loss, and he’d be good to go.
“There’s so much blood.” Lila sounded distressed as though she felt his pain and was suffering right along with him. Same way he felt about her. Her fingers continued to gently caress his pecs, and the touch worked better than any painkillers he’d ever taken.
“You’re going to have to stitch the wound.”
Her fingers stilled. “Stitch it? Me?”
Surf smiled to encourage her. “You’re the only one here, darlin’. You got this. I’ll talk you through it, okay?”
Lila gave a shaky nod.
Talking her through cleaning the wound, stitching it, and bandaging it up, Surf gave himself a shot of antibiotics as Lila packed everything away.
They weren’t going to make it any further today. They’d have to find a place to bunk down and spend the night. He needed to regain some strength, and Lila looked cold and shaky. She was in pain, but he knew she wasn’t going to take anything stronger than paracetamol, which wasn’t nearly enough given what he suspected her pain levels were.
For now, they both needed to rest.
It would mean adding another day to their trek. Possibly more. If Lila’s ankle had been reinjured, she’d be moving slower than she already was. Assuming his team was alive and uninjured, they’d be looking for them, but they didn’t know that Zara and Ross hadn’t left the area and that he’d had to circle way around to get safely back to the mansion.
There was no way his team would leave Switzerland without him and Lila, but he hated knowing it would be another day before Lila got somewhere safe. She was flagging, hanging in there, giving it everything she had, but her body only had so much to give, and he feared her tank was already almost empty.
“What now?” Lila asked when she’d finished packing up and had helped him put his clothes back on.
