“Um…”
“One thing first.” She shook out of his grasp and ran back up the porch stairs. Lola was still curled in the same spot. She raised her head and thumped her tail limply when she saw Alex.
“Hey, Lola, good girl. Let me take a look at you.”
Alex sat cross-legged in front of her. She stroked Lola’s side with one hand while searching for the wound with the other.
“Is she okay?” Daniel asked softly. He was on the other side of the porch banister, his elbows resting on the edge of the floorboards. He seemed unwilling to get any closer to the house. She didn’t blame him. Lola whimpered as Alex felt along her legs.
“She’s lost some blood. It looks like the bullet went through her back left leg. I can’t tell if it hit bone, but the bullet definitely passed through. She was lucky.”
He reached through the slats to rub Lola’s nose. “Poor girl.”
“The stuff in the back of the Humvee must be in total chaos. I’m going to hunt up the first-aid kit. Keep her calm, will you?”
“Sure.”
Einstein followed Alex back to the vehicle, just as he’d trailed her to the porch. It surprised her how the silent support buoyed her, made her feel safe despite all the evidence to the contrary.
She opened the back of the Humvee, and an impatient Khan almost knocked her down. She dodged out of his way just in time as he sprang over her. She imagined the cargo hold was tight for him, though she had plenty of space as she crawled inside.
Guns and ammo were strewn haphazardly, loose bullets rolling under her knees. There wasn’t time to organize. Her conversation with Hector had been cut short; she hadn’t been able to ask one last vital question. What happens when the job is done? Who was expecting a call, and when? At least there was the third house still waiting. Unless Hector had made a call between the first and second stops.
Had he called his manager, told him which address had been cleared and which he was heading to next? Was the manager waiting for another call? Would he have realized that the call was overdue?
She located the duffel that held her first-aid kit. There was nothing she could do now except move fast and make the right decisions. The only problem was she still didn’t know exactly what those right decisions were.
“Okay,” she huffed as she and Einstein arrived back at Lola’s side.
She knelt beside Lola’s legs and quickly realized it was too dark for her to see what she was doing.
“I need you to bring the Humvee around and give me some light,” she said.
Daniel lurched away from the porch, a massive shadow hulking beside him: Khan still on duty. She wondered how Khan and Einstein had decided to switch assignments. She pulled off her tactical gloves and replaced her bloody latex gloves with a fresh pair. She was just injecting Lola with a mild sedative when the brilliant lights of the Humvee came shooting through the banister slats. She adjusted her position so the glare was out of her face and on the wound. It looked like a clean through-and-through. She waited for Lola’s eyes to droop before she started cleaning the wound. Lola’s leg twitched a few times, but she didn’t cry out. Antiseptic, then ointment, then gauze, then a splint and more gauze. It should heal well, if she could keep Lola off it.
She blew out a sigh. What were they going to do about all these dogs?
“What’s next?” Daniel asked when she was done. He was on the ground beside the porch, rifle in hands, scanning the dark plains around them.
“Can you throw a couple of stitches in my ear while I’ve got the stuff out?”
He balked. “I won’t get it right.”
“It’ll be easy,” she assured him. “Haven’t you ever sewn on a button?”
“Not through human flesh,” he muttered, but he slung his rifle over his shoulder and started up the stairs as he spoke.
She lit a match from the kit and sterilized the needle. It wasn’t the highest standard of medical technique, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances. She waved the needle quickly back and forth to cool it, then poked the suture thread through the eye and knotted one end.
She held it out to him along with a fresh pair of gloves. He put the gloves on and then reached slowly for the needle. He didn’t seem to want to touch it. She tilted her head back and poured antiseptic across the wound, waiting for the scorching sting to run the course of the cut all the way to her ear. Then she angled her jaw toward him, making sure she was in the brightest beam of light.
“Probably just needs three little ones. Start at the back and pull through.”
“What about a local anesthetic?”
“I’ve got enough painkiller in me already,” she lied. She could feel the slash across her jaw like a brand. But she was out of Survive, and anything else she could use would incapacitate her at least partially. This wasn’t an emergency, it was only pain.