His fingers danced up and down the frets, plucking and strumming the soul of the song, coaxing it forward from his memory. When he came to a place of uncertainty, he filled in the measures, adapting the sounds to fill in, making it up on the spot. Hopefully, no one would notice.
He jammed out the earth-shattering ending, letting the notes hang in the air, reverberating with pain, heartache, and revenge. As the music came to an end, he opened his eyes.
“How was that?” he asked.
Spike’s mouth hung open, unhinged and gaping.
Bent remained silent, his head bowed, hands clasped in his lap. “Damn, but that was…”
“Oh, I know,” Ryker said with a shrug. “I messed up a couple of places.” He couldn’t fool them, but he’d had to keep playing. Stopping would have only proven Spike right and him wrong. Two things in Ryker’s life were a given. One, he never backed down from a challenge. That was why he was certain Tia would be in his bed later that night. Two, there wasn’t a challenge he’d ever failed to meet once he set his mind to it.
“Fuuuuck!” A low whistle split the air behind him. “What the hell was that?” Ash had risen from his nap and seemed none too pleased.
Ryker quickly handed the guitar to Spike. “It was nothing,” he said. “Just goofing off.”
Bash twisted fully around in his seat. “There was a little more than simple goofing off going on.”
“Hey, look, didn’t mean anything by it. Just filled in the gaps and improvised on a couple of the—”
“Improvised my ass,” Ash called out. He pointed to his fellow band members. “Now, tell me one of you asswipes was recording that.”
Recording? Why would Ash care? Ryker felt two inches high, mortified for daring to alter one note of their song. Damn his competitive streak. He should’ve stopped playing, but no, he’d had to show off, and he had loved every second of it.
Ash glared at Bash, Spike, Noodles, and finally Bent. “Seriously? Not a single one of you thought, Oh hell, maybe we should record this?” His strong hand came down on Ryker’s shoulder. “I don’t know what that was, but you took our song and—”
“I didn’t mean to overstep,” Ryker said with apology.
“Overstep? Hell, you took spots that have been bugging me for weeks,” Ash said, “and hammered out the damn wrinkles. I really wish someone had recorded that. Do you think you could do it again? Play it the same way?”
He shrugged. “Maybe?” There was about a fifty-fifty chance. His retention for songs played to him was different than the music he created on the fly. Yet another reason his band never made it big. Hell, they’d barely been mediocre. Ryker could play, as could the rest of his band, but the new music he’d created fizzled. It’d failed because he never wrote anything down. He couldn’t. No one had ever taught him to sight-read.
Forest rose from his seat and extended his hand. “Pay up,” he growled. “Ash has risen from the dead.”
Ryker glanced forward just as the Humvee in front of the bus lifted into the air. Fire licked its underbelly. A billowing cloud of black and gray smoke devoured it. The concussive blast shook the bus. The driver stomped on the brakes, catapulting Forest forward. They swerved sideways. Brakes squealed. Tires crunched on the deteriorating road surface. Forest landed with a thud, shaking his head. A secondary blast lifted the right front tire of the bus.
The bus canted sideways as the driver attempted to regain control, but they pitched over the edge of the roadside. There was enough of a dip to send the bus rolling like a sausage. People and bags tumbled about, slapping into and against one another until all movement stopped. Ryker’s entire world blacked out.
He groaned as he came to. The window was gone, and it looked like the bus had landed on its side. A roaring filled his head, but only one thing drove his body.
“Tia!” he screamed out her name, looking around for the only person in the world that mattered.
Beside him, Bent groaned. The bassist lay in a crumpled heap, his arms tucked beneath his large frame. A glance to the back of the bus showed Warren grabbing a ruck and chucking it out the shattered windows overhead. Where was everyone else?
“Tia,” he screamed again, checking the destroyed interior for his girl.
“She’s good,” Warren said. “Tia’s outside. I just lifted her out. Skye’s there, too, along with Collins, Drummond, Marks, and the band.”
“Shit,” he said. “Did I black out?”
“Knocked out cold,” Warren said. “We’re good, Ryker. Everyone’s alive, but we’ve got work to do.”
“Are we under fire?”
Dumb question because, if they were, they wouldn’t be unloading the bus, and he didn’t hear the exchange of gunfire. He turned to Bent and squatted to feel for a pulse. Strong and sure. Another groan escaped Bent’s mouth.
“Hey, bud, you okay? Can you move?”
He performed a cursory exam, moving quickly. Behind him, Warren found another of their team’s rucks and tossed it outside. There would be only one reason Warren was focused on their supplies rather than the wounded.
“Why are we the last?” he demanded.
“T checked on you both, stable but not critical. Everyone else is walking wounded, and we have other priorities.”
“What about Bent?”
“Collins didn’t want to move him,” he said. “He’s worried about cervical instability.”
“We can’t leave him here.”
“We’re not,” Warren said, lifting the last ruck into waiting hands.
“Is he up?” Scrabbling noises outside the metal frame of the bus had him tracking the sound.
Tia’s dirt-smeared face popped through the broken window. “Lyons, if you’re done fucking around, I could really use you outside.”
“You left my ass,” he said.
Her brows drew together. “I’d never leave you. Checked you out first, but if you’re feeling up to it, it would be nice to have you out here.”
“I need to get Bent out of here.”
“We’ll take care of him,” a throaty voice boomed.
The entire bus creaked as Forest lowered himself through the gap. He laced his fingers together and cupped them near his thigh. Warren placed his hands on Forest’s shoulders and his foot in the makeshift stirrup. Without much effort, Forest assisted Warren out. That same set of hands reached for him and drew him out.
“Your turn,” Forest said.
Ryker turned to Bent. “I think his arm is fucked up,” he said.
Indeed, Bent’s left arm was bent at an unnatural angle.
“Looks like,” Forest agreed. “I’ve got him, Ryker. They really do need you.”
That meant there were wounded in worse shape than Bent. With a sigh, he admitted Forest had a point. The world flickered; he had double vision, and his head ached, but he seemed no worse for the wear. Forest gave him a lift up, and two of the security detail pulled him clear of the bus.
The Humvee in front of them lay on its side. Security forces took positions, barrels pointed out, searching for threats. Unexploded ordinance and roadside bombs were an ever-present threat. There had been ten vehicles in their convoy. The first three had passed over the bomb without triggering the device. The fourth, the Humvee, hadn’t been as lucky. Nor had the bus.
Collins knelt beside the wounded on the ground and performed an exam. Marks and Drummond each had a patient. Even the petite Skye Dean knelt beside a man with blood running down his temples. She had a hand on his chest, pushing him back to the ground. With her other hand, she unfastened his belt. With a yank, the canvas belt was free.
“Stay down.” With an economy of movement, she looped the belt around the man’s shredded and bleeding leg. “Don’t move.”
There were five wounded down that he could see. All others were what they called walking wounded. Injured but still able to ambulate.
Collins enlisted those closest to him, instructing a young man to place pressure on a wound. Drummond and Marks did
the same, pulling those uninjured in to provide extra hands. Where was the rest of his team? Where was Tia? She’d poked her head inside the bus, but where had she gone?
Warren humped one of their team’s packs to an area marked off to the rear, a place of relative safety between two vehicles. A gaping hole separated the convoy where the bus had rolled off the road, leaving them open and vulnerable. He picked up his ruck and slung it over his shoulder. Then, he jogged after Warren. Weaving around the vehicles, he spotted Tia crouched on the ground. With her pack open, she rummaged inside, pulling out vials and supplies to start intravenous lines. She glanced up and breathed out a sigh of relief.
He ran to her and lifted her up and into his arms. “Are you okay?”
Happy to see her alive, he almost kissed her in front of everyone, but she stiffened and pulled away. They only had four of their team’s bags retrieved from the bus.
He gripped her hand hard. “Let me get the rest of our gear. Then, I’m all yours.” He turned to Warren. “Go ahead and start setting up.” God only knew what, if any, surgery they’d need to do.
He hadn’t seen the extent of the injuries. He jogged back to where Warren had dropped the rucks. Gathered to the side, Angel Fire had been corralled by their security detail, who seemed to be having some difficulty keeping them away from the bus.
Two airmen squatted over the top of the bus. They reached down and grunted. The top of Bent’s head cleared. His curly black mop of hair appeared, matted down and glistening. That wasn’t good.
Every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine trained in the basics of self-aid and buddy care. He relied on their training to extricate Bent and stabilize him. Despite the bomb, fortune had graced the convoy with not only the presence of his team, but also for none of them to be counted among the wounded.
With his head throbbing, he hefted a ruck and then called out for help with the other. When he returned to Tia and Warren, they were fast on their way to laying out supplies. He located Collins’s pack. The trauma surgeon carried a stretcher in his pack. Assembling the device took no time, and then Ryker enlisted the aid of the same airman who’d carried the last pack. Senior Airman Mack followed him as he ran to the crippled Humvee and the wounded.
“Sir,” he said, coming to a stop by Collins, “priorities?”
Collins pointed to the man Skye hovered over. “He’s the most critical.”
Ryker wasn’t sure what he’d expected of Skye Dean, but the woman was fierce. He had expected her to fall apart. Instead, she was crouched right in the thick of things. She’d fashioned a field tourniquet while barely blinking an eye, unbuttoned her patient’s overblouse, cut the cotton of his shirt, and performed a secondary survey with the same alacrity as Marks, Drummond, and Collins. She might even be a step ahead.
“Over here,” she called out.
Skye had two helpers with her, and he didn’t need to tell them how to load her patient onto the stretcher. She took command flawlessly and had them trotting her patient back to where Tia and Warren waited.
He moved to Collins. “Sir?”
Collins gave him a rundown of injuries, triaging the remaining four men. He grabbed more troops to buddy-carry two of the wounded back to relative safety and then waited with Collins until the men with the stretcher returned for the last one. As they carried that man back, the men on top of the bus lowered an injured Bent into the waiting arms of his bandmates. Blood trickled down Bent’s temple, but he was conscious and groaning against the pain of what was most definitely a compound fracture of his left arm.
The convoy commander stood beside Collins, the two men speaking while Collins oversaw the chaos. Tia was with Skye and worked on placing an IV in their most critical patient.
With everyone gathered in one place, Ryker got to work. He grabbed IV starter packs and went to the first man. After placing the IV, he strung fluids and then moved to the next.
It didn’t take long for support aircraft to arrive. The convoy commander had men sweeping the road, looking for additional bombs. Troops unloaded from the helicopters, making room for the wounded to be transported back.
Ryker heard bits and pieces of conversation. The convoy, which carried critical resupply items, would continue on. The wounded, his team, and the members of Angel Fire would head back to Bagram.
Chapter Twenty-One
Truth
Tia
The flight back to Bagram was loud and chaotic as the blades of the helicopter cut through the air. They had six patients to transport and split them between the two medevac helicopters. Tia and Ryker separated. She stayed with the more critical patients while she sent Ryker with the others.
Less than thirty minutes later, she was in triage back at Bagram, handing off control of her patients to the medical staff. She’d been here enough times over the past few months that these people were familiar, even if still strangers. The operating room was short-staffed, so she volunteered to run the case of the man with the leg injury. Drummond assisted, helping the newly arrived orthopedic doc debride the wounds, showing the latest advances they’d made in limb salvage techniques. The young twenty-some-year-old wouldn’t be losing a leg. Not today.
Tired from the entire ordeal, she looked forward to her bunk. She bumped into Ryker and Warren. The two of them had found a small corner of space and pulled apart the rucks. They were going over the inventory list and marking items that needed resupply.
“Hey, guys,” she said. “Can I help?”
She didn’t want to help. A shower called to her. That and sleep. Never could get enough sleep in this place, but they were a team, and she wouldn’t rest until all the work was done.
Somewhere along the way, she’d lost track of Skye. Despite her friend’s actions in the field, Skye hadn’t accompanied them back to base in the helicopters. Instead, Skye had been forced to stay behind—although forced might be too strong of a word. Tia doubted anyone could’ve pried Ash from her side.
“Have they given us lodging yet?” she asked as she plopped down on the floor. Her knee brushed Lyons’s, and where before she would’ve discreetly pulled away, she savored the connection, as small as it was.
Lyons placed a hand on her knee, followed by the cut of Warren’s gaze. “How are you holding up, Tia?” Lyons asked.
“You know, just another day in hell.”
Warren snorted. “Now, ain’t that the truth?” He unfolded his legs and stood, stretching out his back. “What do you say, the two of you finish up here while I figure out where they’re putting us for the night?”
He left, rushing out a bit too quickly—or maybe that was her imagination. Did he suspect something? He shouldn’t. It wasn’t the first time Lyons had reassured her with a touch. Hell, she’d let Warren hold her in his arms once or twice after they lost a soldier. It was all part and parcel of being a well-integrated team.
After Warren was out of earshot, Lyons leaned close. “Really, how are you holding up?” He cupped her chin and turned her toward him. The pad of his finger swept across her lips.
He’d seen combat before. She’d only ever seen the aftermath. Her entire body vibrated with a surge of adrenaline; even her teeth seemed to buzz.
“To be honest,” she admitted, “and please don’t judge what I’m about to say…”
He squeezed her knee, moving his hand partway up her thigh. “No judgment.”
“I was happy there were wounded.” She glanced at the ceiling and vented a deep sigh. “I know that’s a horrible thing to say and so very wrong. I should never wish something like that on another person, but…”
“I understand,” he said.
“You do?”
“It’s easier to be busy than to think of what might have happened.”
“Yes,” she said, happy he understood. “It’s like I was on autopilot. I didn’t have to think. I just did…”
“You were in shock,” he affirmed. “Might still be, in all honesty. Now that you have time, your mind is processing. I sa
w how you volunteered to run anesthesia for that surgery. Keeping busy lets you keep your mind off what happened, but you need to talk about it.”
“But that’s just it,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want to wash it away and sleep it off.”
“Don’t do that,” he said. “In fact, I insist.”
“Insist?”
“Yes, you and I are going to find a place to talk this through.”
She didn’t think the two of them alone together would lead to talking.
“What’s there to talk about? The bus nearly blew up. I could have died, or you…” She couldn’t finish that thought.
They both could have died—or worse. One of them could’ve lost a leg, like that boy in the OR nearly had. She’d seen enough trauma to last her a hundred years, and she was sick to death of it.
What she didn’t want was to be one of the trauma statistics, and that by itself had the fine hairs on her arms standing on end. She shivered with a chill crawling down her spine. Her breaths huffed in and out, but no matter how hard she breathed, she couldn’t get any air. Her vision tunneled inward, blacking out at the edges, and pinpricks tingled at her lips.
“Tia,” Lyons said. “Tia!”
Warmth enfolded her. Strength flowed into her. Lyons’s warm, musky odor infiltrated her nostrils and had her eyelids slamming shut. Her cheeks were wet. Globs of tears spilled down her face. She swiped at them, even as Lyons gripped her against his chest. His massive paw of a hand cupped her neck and cradled her against his shoulder.
“Shh,” he soothed, “you’re safe.”
Footsteps sounded.
“Oh,” came a voice.
She recognized Warren’s deep alto and stiffened, terrified of the uncharacteristic intimacy between her and Lyons and what Warren must think. Instead of backing away, Warren knelt beside them. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and leaned his forehead against her temple, placing the three of them in a close embrace.
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