Sam scrambled over to Fletcher. The bullet had entered his neck and exited out the back, but nicked the carotid artery. Blood seeped from the wound at an alarming rate, staining the leaves and dirt with blood.
Xander grabbed Fletcher’s radio and starting screaming, “Officer down, Officer down,” while Sam put pressure on the wound.
She thought Thor was shot, he was so limp and heavy, but she realized Fletcher had the dog locked in his arm. She moved his hand. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You can let him go now. You’re going to be fine. Fletch, stay with me, come on, that’s good, stay with me.”
He relaxed his grip on the dog, and Thor stumbled to his feet. His snout had a graze, a small channel of red. Sam realized the trajectory of the bullet, coming down from the trees, would have been a head shot for Fletcher if Thor hadn’t knocked him down.
“Braver Hund!” she said, touching his snout. “You’re going to be fine. Now let me work.” Thor trotted to Xander while Sam assessed the full extent of Fletcher’s injury.
“Shit.”
Xander leaned over her. “What do you need, what do you need?”
“An operating room,” she said. “Sutures, and a thrombin bandage to help stop the bleeding. It’s just a nick, but it needs to be sutured immediately.”
Fletcher was groaning. She touched him on the shoulder and smiled down at him. “Come on, Fletch, ’tis but a flesh wound. You’re going to be fine.”
But her eyes didn’t look as calm as her voice sounded, and his were rolling in pain. He tried to talk, but she shook her head. “Shh. It’s okay. I’m going to fix you right up. Might hurt a bit. Be ready.”
Xander handed her the emergency medic kit he always carried. She ripped it open with her teeth, pulled out what she needed. She swiped Betadine over Fletcher’s neck, then used a scalpel to open the wound in his neck so she could ligate the hole in the artery. Fletcher grunted, and tried to roll away from the pain. “Hold him down,” she shouted at Xander, who moved to the other side of Fletcher’s head and put his knees on Fletcher’s opposite shoulder.
There were people coming toward them, shouting, and she heard the rotors of the Little Bird drawing closer, but she ignored it all and swept the thin sutures through and in and out until the blood stopped pulsing from his neck. She tied it off, slapped the thrombin field dressing on.
Fletcher had gone limp beneath her hands. She freaked for a moment, felt for his pulse, realized he’d conveniently passed out. She didn’t blame him. She felt a bit like passing out herself.
One of the medics knelt beside her, grilled her about what she’d done, said, “Well done,” when he heard. They trundled Fletcher onto a portable stretcher and carried him off to the helicopter, which took off into the air so fast it made her dizzy. Leaves and dirt and branches rained all over them, then settled as the helicopter rose farther into the sky.
Sam sat down hard, legs crossed in front of her. She wiped her hands on her jeans. Xander dropped in the dirt beside her. They were both breathing hard. Thor cuddled between them, licked Xander on the nose.
She buried her hands in his thick fur and laid her head on his flank.
“Braver Hund,” she whispered. “Braver Hund.”
And the shadows grew close, and rain began to fall.
MONDAY
“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”
—Blaise Pascal “Faith in the Mother is the only true path. Those who do not believe will not be chosen to move on, will not see my love in heaven.”
—Curtis Lott
Chapter
60
Fairfax County Hospital
LAST MONTH, IT had been Fletcher visiting Xander in the hospital. Now the tables were turned, and Sam and Xander waited outside Fletcher’s room. She heard him arguing with the doctor, and it made her heart leap with happiness.
Xander saw her smile, squeezed her hand with his left. His other arm was in a right-angled splint cast that went over his elbow. He’d ended up not needing the plate and screws she expected. Even Thor had gotten a few stitches. He was at the vet, relaxing after a quick knockout to sew his snout back up.
Everyone around her was so battered and bruised, it didn’t seem fair that she was unscathed.
The media were having an absolute field day, though they were being supportive of the FBI’s actions because Rachel Stevens had been found alive, unharmed, along with five other women of varying ages who had gone missing over the years. Every television station was running footage of the scene in front of the Stevens home, where Rachel had been restored to her parents. The national media were scrambling to get reporters in all the cities to speak to the parents of the girls who’d gone missing over the years.