He moved his hand to her face and carefully smoothed her hair aside. “Kylie, I’m sorry, but I have to.” He flicked her on her cheekbone. Hard.
“What are you doing to her?” Creed asked, taken aback at the sharp smack he heard.
“I can’t find a pulse so either she’s died or it’s too weak to feel in a moving vehicle. I’m doing what I can to check for consciousness by performing a ‘face flick’ in hopes of eliciting a corneal reflex.”
“English!”
“I flicked her in the face to try to wake her up!”
“Why don’t you just do CPR or something on her?”
“I can’t effectively perform CPR on a person in a seated position and there’s no room to stretch her out.”
“I could stop the car—”
“No. We can’t risk stopping. Let me try once more.” Evan growled through his emotions as he tried again, watching closely for a twitch response around her eye.
Flick
This time he saw one. “Oh, thank God,” he took a shaky breath. “She’s alive, but only barely.”
“Is she still losing blood?”
“No. It was quick and crude, but I managed to cauterize her wounds. She’ll need surgery to remove the bullets and fix tissue and possibly organ damage, but it was the best I could do to buy her time.”
“Are we going to discuss the fact that she worked for Williams and probably was the cause of everything bad that happened tonight?”
“No.”
Creed raised his brows at the sullen and exhausted kid climbing back into the passenger seat, but said nothing.
Evan leaned back against the headrest and flung his arm over his aching head. Miles slipped like black laces through the metal holes of a military boot.
Creed was lost in his thoughts when he heard Evan clear his throat. “Just so we’re clear, I’ll take her down myself if I even suspect she’s still working for the enemy.”
“Copy that,” Creed nodded at the kid who’d earned the soldier’s respect that night.
20 The Billboard
The billboard stood stark and naked against the dark night sky. Margo asked for the umpteenth time, how long they’d been waiting.
“It’s only been twenty-five minutes, Margo. The boys are coming as fast as they can.”
“That’s what worries me,” she sighed, rubbing her eyes. They ached from straining to see further in the darkness than her mere human eyes would allow, and her useless legs bothered her more now than they had in months. All she wanted to do was stand and fight to protect her family.
“I don’t see anyone yet,” Farrow whispered into the anxious van. With their naturally exceptional night vision, Farrow and Sloan had the responsibility of searching the horizon for headlights. “At least we weren’t followed,” she offered.
“It shouldn’t have taken them this long, Theo. We had this timed. We know they should be able to—”
“Wait!” Sloan and Farrow whispered at the same time. They looked at each other, eyes wide.
“What?” Margo craned around in her chair so she could see the girls in the back seat.
“You heard it, too?” Sloan wet her lips worriedly.
“Yeah,” Farrow nodded slowly.
“Heard what?” Theo asked.
“The C4. It just went off.”
“How could you possibly hear that? We’re so far away.” Margo tried to keep the frantic tone from her voice.
The girls had identical apologetic expressions before they looked away from the distraught woman.
“Margo, the C4 was supposed to have gone off twenty minutes ago.” Theo said the words they were all thinking.
“What are you saying?” Margo snapped, tears welling in her eyes.
“I’m saying we’ll give them time, of course. Our pilots, Jacobi and Trainer will wait for us,” he said, though his voice faltered. “But you may have to prepare yourself for the worst.” He looked away from her tortured face. “We both need to prepare.” His voice hitched at the thought of losing his only child.
“Prepare myself for what, exactly?” Margo leveled her gaze though her body began to quiver. “You want me to prepare myself for the thought that the boys may have sacrificed themselves just now? Prepare for the rage and guilt at the idea of our children detonating the C4 to take out as many of the enemy as possible, just so we would have a better chance of escape? Are you kidding me? Never! Never! I will not prepare myself for that! I will wait here until I grow roots if I have to, but I promised our children I would meet them at this God forsaken billboard in the middle of the desert, and I will not leave until they are with me!”
The car waited in silence, Margo’s words bouncing like a pinball around those who sat in rigid stillness, reeling in their wake.
Time slipped by.
“How long do we wait before we go back?” Farrow was the first to whisper past the still palpable anguish.