Crossing The Line (KTS Book 2) Read online

  “Don’t,” Daniel said, “Otherwise, she’ll end up like him.”

  Four pairs of eyes flicked to the car, to Jack in the front seat. To Jack dead in the front seat.

  “So, you’re going to back the fuck up, you’re going to tell me where your SUV is, and then I’m going to take it.” The gun dug deeper. “And only when I’m free and clear will I let this bitch go.”

  Another click.

  Only this time, it wasn’t from Daniel’s gun.

  Instead, it was from behind him.

  “First,” a female voice said. “She’s not a bitch. And second, you’re not getting out of here alive.”

  He rotated us to face Hannah, with Jesse a step behind her.

  My head began funneling through possibilities. We had the numbers, now we just needed the opportunity.

  The metal of the scissors’ blades had warmed where they rested against my palm.

  “I can shoot her a hell of a lot faster than you can shoot me.”

  “Maybe.”

  A bullet flew over our heads, close enough that I felt the heat of it, felt my hair rustle as it shot by.

  Hannah grinned. “But I’m not the one with a sniper’s rifle pointed at my head.”

  Daniel went stiff, whirled me back in the direction of where the bullet had come from, using me as a human shield.

  “You know that Ava can make that shot,” Laila murmured, coming a step closer.

  I felt Linc and Dan close in, too.

  “She’s not injured this time, and she’s got plenty of ammo,” Laila cajoled.

  Daniel was still motionless, still stiff, still frozen. Then he exhaled . . . and the gun at my jaw dropped slightly away.

  And I knew I had my opportunity.

  I plunged the scissors into his thigh and dropped like a stone.

  The gun went off, the shot blasting through the air, making my ears ring, but I didn’t pay it any mind. I hit the ground hard, rolled to put distance between us just as another shot went off.

  Daniel grunted, went down on one knee.

  Hands grabbed my arm, yanked me away, Linc’s scent filling my nose, his words almost indecipherable.

  Then the air changed.

  I didn’t know how else to describe it, except to say that it was as though the very marrow of my bones froze.

  “Fuck!” Linc.

  Daniel had pulled something from his pocket, was pressing down on it.

  Another gunshot.

  Then—

  Boom!

  I felt more than heard it, the explosion renting the air, making my organs vibrate from the force of it. Linc’s body came down on mine hard, pressing us both into the pavement as heat seared through the space over us. Then the noise came. A roar filling the quiet forest, bright light blinding me, making my lids squeeze shut.

  And then . . . silence.

  “Linc?” I whispered.

  He lifted his head but didn’t loosen his grip on me. “You’re okay.”

  I nodded. “Are you?”

  He nodded.

  He looked like hell, cuts dotting the parts of him I could see, a bruise across his cheek, a burn on his forehead, but he appeared otherwise uninjured. “Thanks for the rescue.”

  His face softened, and he cupped my cheek with one hand. “I love you.”

  My mouth fell open.

  I. Love. You.

  Just like that, after all that?

  But even as I was processing the words, he was pushing back, finding his feet, and helping me to mine.

  We both looked around, looked back at each other.

  And then we moved.

  I ran to Dan, who was unconscious on the ground. He groaned by the time I made it to him, his hand lifting to his temple and the cut there. “I’m fine,” he said as I began examining him. “Go check on the others.” After giving him one more once over, I stood and moved to Laila.

  She was kneeling next to Ryker, blood dripping down her arm as she put pressure on his side. His skin was pale enough to make me uneasy, but despite the rather large gash below his ribs, he didn’t appear to be critical. Lily appeared with her first aid kit, knelt beside them.

  “I’m good,” he said. “Go help Linc. Hannah was shot.”

  Laila nodded. “We’ve got him.”

  I moved toward Linc and Hannah, who was sprawled on the ground, a bullet wound in her thigh. Jesse was unconscious behind her, but her pulse was steady, and there were no visible wounds. She woke after I passed some smelling salts beneath her nose, blinking and slowly sitting up.

  I turned back to Hannah. “Go after him, Linc,” she was saying. “I’m fine.”

  She was the least fine of all of us. Her wound was gushing a lot of blood, and her pulse, when I took it, was thready. I yanked open Linc’s pack, began pulling out items, handing them to him as he ignored her protests and started dressing the injury.

  A tourniquet to slow the bleeding. One of my namesake bandages to help with the pain and clotting. Then two more when it soaked through the first.

  “Go,” she gritted. “He can’t have gotten far with those scissors in his thigh.”

  I blinked.

  She propped her shoulders beneath her, smirked up at me. “Nice one, by the way.”

  “Lie down,” I told her.

  “I’m fine. Go get—”

  “Hannah,” Linc snapped, and the tone was so unusual that Hannah froze, her words cutting off. I knew he shouldn’t be talking to his commanding officer that way, but I also understood. This was his teammate, his family, and she was fucking bleeding out on the ground—or would be, anyway, if we didn’t get it under control.

  Daniel could fucking wait.

  Hannah needed us right then.

  “Lie down,” I ordered again.

  “I’m—”

  But exactly how not fine she was seemed to hit her at that moment, her skin going very pale, her breath hitching.

  I grabbed her shoulders, coaxed her to the ground, shoving my sweatshirt beneath her head.

  And then I helped stabilize her, putting pressure over the wound, continuing to hand supplies to Linc as he needed them. But it wasn’t looking good. Hannah was bleeding too fast. She needed to get to the infirmary, and she needed to be there sooner rather than later.

  “Laila,” I said, when my leader came over.

  She took one look at my face, at the scene on the ground then snagged the keys from Ryker and handed them to Lily, who took off running.

  “We need to establish a perimeter,” Hannah ground out, her skin deathly pale.

  “Dan, Jesse, and I are on it,” Laila assured her and moved away to do just that.

  “Pop?” Linc’s gray eyes came to mine. “What do you think?”

  I knew what he was thinking. Because he saw the same thing I did. The gray cast to her skin, the blood still soaking through the bandages. The need to stop the bleeding. Preferably that would be in a clinic, with sterile materials and blood bags at the ready. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always possible.

  And this was one of those impossible times.

  I nodded, held his gaze. “It’s the only way.”

  Keeping one hand on Hannah’s leg, I snagged Dan’s pack, reaching in for his kit, grabbing an injector of morphine, and sticking it into Hannah before she could protest.

  “Hey—”

  She slumped over.

  Then I thrust my hand back in, closed my fingers around the tube of pure clotting agent, and tossed it to Linc.

  “Ready?” I asked as he got situated.

  He nodded.

  I reached for the tourniquet, twisted it tighter.

  Linc pulled out his knife, disinfected it quickly.

  Then he ripped off the bandages.

  Chapter Twenty

  Middle of fucking nowhere

  Western Georgia

  Unknown hrs

  Linc

  The moment the bandages came free, the blood started gushing.

  But I had to make the wo
und larger, had to get the clotting agent into the right spot.

  I used the tip of my knife to widen the incision. More blood came, making Olive yank harder on the tourniquet and Hannah cry out in pain despite the morphine she’d just been given.

  I knew I couldn’t focus on that, not when I needed to get the clotting powder into the right spot. Otherwise, no matter how many bandages I wrapped around this leg, no matter how much pressure or how tight Olive made the tourniquet, the bleeding wouldn’t get under control.

  And Hannah couldn’t afford to lose much more.

  Olive kneeled on Hannah’s leg, putting even more pressure then held up a flashlight so I could see as I worked, widening the wound, searching for the worst of it. But there was so much blood, so much injured vasculature that all of it seemed to need it.

  I knew that I couldn’t go with that. I knew an artery had to be nicked, otherwise the other bandages would have done the job. So I resisted the urge to turn over the canister into the wound and kept searching.

  Time was ticking.

  The blood was pooling.

  I knew I had to fucking do this, or Hannah would be—

  “There!”

  Olive shifted the flashlight beam, and I saw it, quickly squirting the canister’s contents onto where the bleeding was the worst. It began working almost immediately, and I released a relieved breath, heard Olive do the same.

  “Here,” she said, shoving a bandage at me as I dispensed the rest of the solution.

  I dropped the empty bottle on the ground, worked rapidly to wrap Hannah’s leg, even as Olive kept moving while still putting pressure above the wound.

  First, a shot of antibiotics. “Not exactly sanitary.”

  Then another bandage for me to wrap. “For extra security.”

  Then more morphine. “She’s going to have a hell of a headache when she wakes up.”

  I finished wrapping Hannah’s thigh, feeling the fist that had been gripping my gut finally loosen. “Did I tell you I love you?” I murmured, sitting back onto my heels.

  Blue eyes that were darkened to navy in the night sky. “Yes, you did,” she muttered. “And we’re going to have a talk about your timing later.”

  I grinned then turned my focus back to Hannah.

  She was still out, but her color seemed marginally less gray.

  Olive stood, glanced around the clearing. I did the same, mentally checking everyone else, minus Lily, who was retrieving the SUV.

  Laila, Ryker, Jesse, and Dan came over. “Okay?” Laila asked.

  I nodded.

  “Where’s Ava?” I asked.

  Dan’s expression was stark. “She wasn’t where we left her, and I tried her cell, but no answer.”

  Shit.

  I opened my mouth, but before I could formulate a reply, Ava came jogging out of the woods, her stride clunky because of her cast, and hustled, as much as she was able, over to Dan and Laila.

  “I lost him,” she announced darkly. “I trailed him through the woods, but even injured, he was faster than me.” She glared at her cast, her expression thunderous. “I couldn’t get a clear line of sight with all the trees. I did see he was picked up about two miles down the road. Nondescript black sedan. I got the plate, but I’m sure it’ll turn out to be a fake.”

  There was a round of cursing, and then Lily drove up in the SUV, and we moved into action, quickly loading Hannah in the back, then the rest of us started to get in and buckled up.

  But as I tried to herd Olive in before me, she stopped, glanced back at the car.

  My eyes followed hers.

  “Jack,” she murmured.

  I gazed over her head, saw Laila had heard her, and though a muscle ticked in her jaw and her eyes were furious, she nodded. “Dan and I will get him.”

  “Come on.”

  We crawled into the back next to Hannah, shifting so they could fit Jack’s body in, and then Laila was behind the wheel, Ryker, Lily, Jesse, Ava, and Dan were buckled in, and we were driving away from the scene.

  Lily had already called in a cleanup crew, but we couldn’t wait.

  Hannah needed the infirmary, and we still had a forty-five-minute drive.

  “Will she make it?” Laila asked.

  I was checking Hannah’s pulse, trying to ignore Jack’s dead body and the urge to open the hatch and shove him out the back. Her vitals were decent, though. Temperature and rhythm stable. Her skin slowly turning less gray. She needed blood and surgery to remove the bullet and suture up the damage, but she was stable for the moment. “She’ll make it,” I said, meeting her eyes in the rearview.

  A nod.

  The engine revving as she picked up the pace.

  Turned out we could make the drive in only thirty-five minutes.

  Later, I found myself at a different woman’s hospital bed, my eyes bleary, exhaustion dripping from absolutely every pore of my body, but confident that Hannah was going to pull through.

  Part of me was seriously starting to hate this, though.

  The waiting for a woman I cared about to wake up.

  But we’d gotten Hannah to surgery, had removed the bullet fragments, cleaned and stitched the wound, and given her three pints of blood. Her skin was the proper color, she was being pumped full of antibiotics after our crude attempts at field surgery, and she was stable.

  Now, I would just love it if she actually woke up.

  Yeah, that would be good, and then maybe I wouldn’t have nightmares of losing her mixing in with the nightmares of losing Olive.

  That was more than any man could reasonably deal with.

  Perhaps a little dramatic.

  But after the panic that had gripped me in its talons so tightly for the last few hours, I figured I was allowed a little drama. It was certainly a safer alternative than attempting to lock these women in a padded room so they would never go out into the world and get hurt again.

  “Okay,” Olive said, coming through the room with a tray. “Your turn.”

  I put an arm around her waist, tugged her close to me, snagging the tray and putting it to the side. “I’m fine,” I told her.

  “Ah,” she muttered. “The KTS catchphrase, and just what a doctor loves to hear.”

  “Pop,” I began, coaxing her into my lap.

  “Don’t Pop me,” she said, pushing against my chest and wriggling to her feet. “You don’t let your teammates slide with the I’m fine bullshit, and I’m not going to let you slide with that, so don’t even try it.”

  “I love you,” I said.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Also something that’s not going to work with me,” she muttered, reaching the tray and pulling on a pair of gloves. “Now, strip.”

  “Yes, take it off.”

  We both looked over at Hannah, relief pouring through me.

  “How are you feeling?” Olive asked, moving to the pitcher on the counter and pouring a glass of water. She held it up to Hannah’s mouth so she could drink.

  “Just peachy,” Hannah muttered after she’d sipped. “Now get out of here, lovebirds, I’m not dying today.”

  We both did a quick check of Hannah’s vitals, which had her muttering about having to deal with two doctors rather than the usual one, and then we said our goodbyes, checking in with the nurse before we went.

  “Don’t think you got out of me cleaning those wounds.” She rattled the tray she’d snagged from the room.

  “I wouldn’t dream of betting against you,” I murmured. “My room or yours?”

  “Yours,” she said, and I immediately recognized the stupidity of my question. Of course, she wouldn’t want to go back to hers, not with it being the sight of her kidnapping, not to mention it was trashed.

  “Okay, baby,” I said, snaking my arm around her waist.

  “Thanks.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  She shrugged. “Not much to say. He surprised me outside my room, clocked me over the head as I was coming out to find you all and tell you what I’d dis
covered. I didn’t even know who’d taken me until after he was dead.” A shake of her head. “It was dark, and my vision was blurry, and the residual pain from the blow made it so . . .”

  “What?”

  Her face clouded. “He said he loved me.”

  I inhaled. “He did?”

  Olive nodded, her hand rubbing over her face. “It’s all so fucked up, and”—a sigh—“I swear to God, all I can think—and I know, sure as shit, that this shouldn’t be what I’m thinking—is that Daniel called me Ms. Prim and Proper.”

  I froze. “What?”

  “In the car, before I was able to place their voices. They were having a conversation about me, and Daniel said I was Ms. Prim and Proper.” She pushed a hand through her hair. “Why the hell do I keep thinking about that? Of all the things I should be worrying about—Daniel out there, base security, considering Jack had his hands all in it, how deep or how many other agents are in this—and I’m upset that someone called me prim and proper.”

  I brushed my fingers over her cheek, a light stroke that made her eyes slide closed. “Clearly, he never saw you in those see-through sweats.”

  Her lips parted, outrage in her eyes.

  And I prepared for a blast of anger. After what had happened, now that all the adrenaline was fading, it wouldn’t be unexpected.

  Instead, she blew out a breath.

  Then laughter filled the air.

  “Oh, Linc,” she said. “I really want to tell you that I love you right now.” Her blue eyes were dancing.

  My heart squeezed tight. “Why don’t you?”

  She turned in my arms, the tray of supplies digging into my side, her free hand resting on my shoulder. “Because you said it in the heat of the moment and . . .”

  “I might not mean it?”

  One shoulder lifted. Dropped.

  “What about Hannah’s hospital room? That was the heat of the moment, too?”

  Her lips turned up. “Obviously.”

  I drew her closer. “What about now?”

  “Definitely.”

  “I love you,” I said again.

  “And circling back to still in the heat of the moment.”

  I chuckled, drew her away from me, and started walking again. “You’re going to torture me with this, aren’t you?”