On Point (Out of Uniform 3)

“No matter what, I’m going to get you home,” he whispered to Maddox. “And you’re going to pull through this, I know it. Wizard’s going to get you all fixed up, and then you’re going to have a nice long leave. You’ll make it to Napa.”

Maddox mumbled something Ben couldn’t make out. Ben stripped off his undershirt and tied it to a vine, hoping to help the other guys find Maddox, hoping like hell the hostiles didn’t find him first.

The chopper got closer. This was it. Now or never.

“Say a prayer for me, Preacher,” Ben said to Maddox, kneeling over him one last time. Then he did the only thing that seemed to make sense and pressed a kiss to Maddox’s clammy forehead. “You’re going home.”

Gun blazing, signal mirror at the ready, he leaped into the clearing. Heart hammering, knowing he could take a bullet at any moment, he signaled over and over. See me. See me. Save Maddox.

The chopper dipped, and his pulse surged. Come on, come on.

Then it went past and all the air left his lungs. No. Unacceptable. He let out a yell that echoed across the clearing, probably shook Maddox awake back at the hiding spot.

“Tovey! What the hell you doing?” Rogers, bless every ounce of his cantankerous soul, came barreling out of the foliage at the opposite end of the clearing.

And oh fuck, he wasn’t alone—Ben spotted a hostile with a pistol close behind him. “On your six!” he yelled to Rogers.

Thinking fast, he aimed the SCAR, hoping with everything he had that it would fire. Rogers spun, firing too, and the hostile dropped like a pile of rocks. But the recoil of the gun almost made Ben hit his knees too. Fuck. He hurt.

Rogers was yelling into his com set and then Encyclopedia and Zinger were there too, guns at the ready, and for the first time in hours, Ben wasn’t alone and it was enough to make his sinuses burn.

The wind picked up, but the chopper, thank fuck, was circling back.

“Need Wizard,” Ben called to Rogers, his own headset still nothing more than overpriced plastic with nary a buzz out of it. “Horvat’s hurt bad.”

Sticking to the perimeter of the clearing, the three made their way toward Ben as the chopper came in close. Still seemed to be having some issue landing, but there was Wizard, rappelling down and rushing toward them.

We did it. He ran toward Wizard, needing to show him the way to Maddox, ignoring his pains. He inhaled hard, suddenly not able to catch his next breath. What the fuck? He ran farther just to get to his car on base. Pain, intense and like nothing else he’d experienced, bloomed behind his ribs. He couldn’t fucking breathe.

Was he shot? He tried again. Nothing. He fell to his knees. “Can’t...breathe...” he gasped right as Wizard reached him. “Save...Preacher.”

And then everything went black.

Chapter Eight

“Holy cow, Preacher, what happened to you?” Rogers’s voice filtered past the haze in Maddox’s brain.

“Fell.” Maddox was cold and wet, and had been only vaguely aware of Ben dragging him through the jungle. Bumpy. Ben pleading. Ben’s lips ghosting over his skin.

“From a burning skyscraper?” Rogers crouched down next to him. Maddox would have laughed but it hurt too much, and he was already starting to drift again. “Tovey wasn’t lying about you being in rough shape, but we’re gonna get you out of here.”

“This is going to hurt.” That voice was Zinger, one of the younger guys on the team, a pimply faced, gangly kid who was far stronger than he looked and able to slither in and out of the tightest spots.

“Don’t care,” Maddox slurred. “Ben?”

“Wizard’s with him.” Rogers’s voice had an ominous tone to it. “Brace yourself, okay?”

Then Maddox was moving, off the makeshift stretcher Ben had made, onto a field stretcher, Rogers and Zinger hustling, and they hadn’t been kidding about pain. His leg throbbed at the move, a deep ache that felt different than it had a few hours ago.

Please don’t let me lose it.

They emerged into a clearing where a chopper was waiting. “Horvat’s bad,” Rogers said to someone. The haze was back, Maddox floating on a cloud instead of the stretcher as they loaded him up.

“Hey, Preacher. Let’s see how stable you are.” That was the senior chief, who had been a medic before getting into the upper ranks. “Wizard’s got his hands full with Tovey.”

“Ben?” Maddox remembered Rogers’s dark tone. “What’s wrong?” He tried to swivel his head, but all he saw was the backs of men hovering over another stretcher. Wizard was yelling something about a chest tube, and fear snaked past Maddox’s fog, made his stomach curdle. Ben was hurt, and it was his fault, falling down the stupid cliff in the first place and then being too weak to go on.