The Heroic Surgeon

“Oh, give me a break.”

He pulled back, his black eyes devoid of intensity, obsidian wells of serenity, a tinge of almost-humor deepening their beauty. He continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him. “If we do die, it will count for something, because we’d go out as fighters, not victims, and we’d probably end up saving far more than two lives. What do you say?”

So simple. So calm. As if he was asking her to take a ride with him, a ride with a very pleasant surprise at the end. What a man.

Oh, why hadn’t she met him before? Why did she have to meet him now? Find out that he existed just a couple of hours before they had to die?

The possibility of violent, irrevocable loss had always been a fact of her life. She never got close, never let anyone close, expecting people to go away, to die or worse. Expecting herself to.

But she would have made an exception for Dante. She wouldn’t have cared how soon he would have disappeared from her life. Or how. She would have taken her fill of him, fulfilled all fantasies, assuaged all hunger, if she’d only had a day with him. But she didn’t have a day. Not even an hour.

She’d have nothing of him!

No! She’d already had. A lot. He’d given her so much. Much more than she had ever had. Solace. Strength. Wonder. Affirmation. And he would now give her the ultimate gift. He wouldn’t leave her to die alone.

If she had to go, what better way to go than with him by her side?

She willed her lips to move in answering resolve and lightness. Anything seemed possible with him there, seemed worth it. Anything at all. And then some.

“So do we just charge them or do you have a plan?”

“I have a plan.” He paused, his lips twisting. “Sort of.”

“Reassuring!”

His lips spread in a smile. “It’s still forming as we speak. Feel free to make amendments and suggestions. Here it is. We load all the Valium we have into syringes. Then I’ll pretend that I have decided to leave. You will translate for me that I have chosen you and that guy over there to take with me.”

Her heart picked up, sensing an emerging significance. “Anyan?”

“If that’s his name. He’s unable to move on his own and he’s big enough that it’ll take three men to carry him to the door for me.”

It probably would. “What if they get suspicious? Ask why him specifically?”

He frowned. “You can say he means a lot to you—or something!”

Oh? “But will they believe me? I haven’t come near him ever since I splinted his fractures.”

His frown deepened. “You’ve been busy trying to tend to everyone’s injuries. You are a nurse after all.”

“I see. OK. And then?”

“You and I will hover around them, pretending to help, and while they struggle to lift him we will stick the Valium syringes into them.”

Then it would all hit the fan. “And when they shout out, or decide to shoot us before they lose consciousness?” He had asked for amendments and suggestions, hadn’t he?

He nodded, sighed. “I guess all we can do is make sure we inject the whole thing in one go. If we manage to hit a vein or an artery, they’d drop in a second. Otherwise, we have to be ready with pads of cotton to stifle their shouts with.”

OK again. Maybe. A very shaky one. “What about the others? Where would they be while we’re doing all that? Conveniently oblivious?”

He shrugged. “I am not saying this is iron-clad, but I am counting on the total boredom with me and what I’m doing that they’ve displayed so far. They haven’t been watching us at all, and they have no reason to suddenly start watching us like hawks. I also bet they shove the hauling job onto their lowest ranking men. If they are who I think they are, we’re in luck. These men are real slow.”

Well. “We come back to the moment we inject them. Even the slowest person in the world will yell in surprise and pain if stabbed with a three-inch needle. That’s bound to get the others very interested in you!”

“Hmm.” He rubbed his two-day beard, sexy and crazy and the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen. And nonchalantly planning their deaths. “How about we create a diversion, something loud enough to drown any shouts?”

Her body throbbed with his nearness. She forced herself to focus, raised her eyebrows. “How?”

“I have no idea.” He actually grinned and she just wanted to devour that smile.