Butterfly Ops

by Jen Doyle

  Catastrophic injuries? Massive, traumatic blood loss? For Brooks it was a walk in the park: the man was probably the best medic Ian had ever seen. Gifted, Abby had said after spending a few months training him. Better, even, than Abby back in the day—and that was saying something because Abby had been damn good.

  Just keep Lyndsey stable for another minute. One more minute and Brooks would be here. Everything was going to be fine. Or so Ian told himself as he went through the motions—Airway, Breathing, Circulation, and so on.

  Matt’s voice came over the comm: “Transport is on its way, ETA twenty-five minutes. Ian—we’re getting Zachary set up in San Francisco. Do you want him to have video?”

  Ian honestly didn’t give a damn about whether Zachary had video or not. “Whatever he wants,” he said as he heard Catalano talking to Zachary in the background. Right now all Ian really cared about was that Lyndsey was breathing on her own, her pulse was steady although a bit weak, and everything was reacting the way it should. She wasn’t out of the woods yet by any means, but those were all good signs.

  She’d be fine. Everything was going to be okay.

  In another realm of consciousness, Ian heard someone saying his name. He looked up to see Brooks staring at him.

  Ian pulled back, more than happy to turn things over. He was careful to move a few feet away because he had this overwhelming need to grab Lyndsey’s hand, and that would only put him in the way.

  He stood up and took off the gloves, throwing them to the ground as he turned his back on the others and walked away. Squeezing his eyes shut, he ran his hand through his hair.

  If anyone could do this, he reminded himself, it was Brooks. Abby had never been able to believe that the only medical training he’d had was what he’d learned on the job. She’d made it her business to teach him the rest. A few months before she died, Abby thought he was ready; she had pushed for Brooks to be promoted. He started as the official medic on Ian’s squad two weeks before the chopper crashed. Ian had always thought it an odd twist of fate, had always wondered if Brooks could have saved Abby that day.

  Of course, if Brooks had been on the helicopter, he probably would have died, too. He probably wouldn’t have been here, saving Lyndsey’s life. Kind of ironic. In a way Ian really would rather not think about.

  “Ian…” came Matt’s voice.

  “Yeah,” Ian said, knowing that Matt was about to tell him to get his head out of his ass and get back in the game. This wasn’t the time to be going to that place. It wasn’t the time to be thinking about the day Abby died or about whether this would be the day Lyndsey did. Brooks was doing his job; it was time for Ian to do the same. “I’m on it.”

  Procedure: Find out what the fuck happened. Although, granted, that wasn’t exactly the way the manual put it…

  Ian turned back and looked at the scene in front of him. Deliberately not concentrating on the blood—God, there was so much blood—Ian focused instead on Joe. The guide was now sitting about ten feet back, where he’d moved after being relieved by Malek. His intense gaze shifted from Lyndsey to Brooks and then back again.

  There was something about the way he stared at Lyndsey’s face; something Ian couldn’t quite put his finger on. ‘Shock’ didn’t really seem the right word for it, although the same elements were there—surprise, disbelief… That general all-around daze that takes over when something monumental occurs.

  Monumental? Why? Why would this possibly matter to Joe?

  The man didn’t seem too distressed by the carnage; Ian figured that if you spent your life in this part of the world, you saw your share of blood and guts. Living in the woods was kind of like living on a farm—it was hard to get away from the cycle of life. Death came with the territory. As long as it didn’t involve someone you loved, at least.

  Ian’s gaze was drawn back to Lyndsey. Her face was as bad as the rest of her body—scratched raw in some places, bruised in others. As awful as it looked, though, that was just surface stuff; it didn’t bother him too much. From what Matt had told him of the days of the Wars, super fast healing was just another part of the package. So if she still healed the way she used to, all of that would be history soon.

  What did bother him was that she hadn’t moved. Despite being poked and prodded and all around handled by Brooks, she was utterly still. At least they weren’t doing CPR. Gotta focus on the little things.

  And on Joe. Not on Lyndsey, on Joe. On why Joe seemed so stunned. If it wasn’t because of the injuries themselves, then maybe it was the fact that she was injured at all.

  No, that didn’t make sense. Joe didn’t know anything about Lyndsey; there was no way he’d know that this was unusual. So maybe it was the other way around. Maybe he couldn’t quite believe that she was still alive.

  Could he have had something to do with this, whatever ‘this’ was?

  Ian walked over to the other man and crouched down next to him. “What happened?” he said sharply.

  Joe looked up slowly. “A bear.” His words were tinged with disbelief.

  “A bear?” Ian asked, somewhat surprised. He knew it shouldn’t come as a surprise—as he well knew, superheroes weren’t completely immune to every day awfulness. But he had to be honest—of all the things he dreaded besting Lyndsey, a bear wasn’t high on the list. She was just too damn strong for that. Although Ian hadn’t seen her in action the way Matt had, he’d done enough research over the last few weeks to know what kinds of things she came up against regularly—the things she put down consistently. They were a hell of a lot worse than your typical wildlife.

  Now Joe was looking at Ian strangely. “It was a big bear.”

  Because Joe wouldn’t have known that, unlike with most people, a bear wouldn’t be enough, no matter how big. Shouldn’t be at least. Not unless her powers had diminished recently, which, based on Ian’s experience with her on the mats back in Boston—hell, in having to work a canoe with her even with her holding back—he didn’t think had happened. It wouldn’t hurt to check, though. Into the comm he asked, “Zachary…?”

  “No,” Zach answered curtly, knowing exactly what Ian was thinking. “She’d have kicked its ass.”

  Of course she would have. Ian glanced back over at Lyndsey. Brooks and Malek seemed to have gotten the bleeding in her shoulder under control. Good. Ian turned back to Joe. “Where is it now?”

  “Dead,” Joe answered.

  Now that sounded more like the woman Ian loved. “Did it have any friends?”

  If Ian had been doing his job correctly, he would have asked these questions ten minutes ago; as the senior officer on site, it was his responsibility to make sure that whatever caused the problem wasn’t a threat to the rest of the team. Under normal circumstances, Ian would have already left Brooks and Malek here and gone to scope out the situation. So it was a good thing Joe’s response was, “No,” otherwise Matt would have had no choice but to cite Ian for dereliction of duty.

  Matt’s muttered, “Lucky man,” meant he had obviously been considering the same thing.

  Lucky wasn’t exactly the way Ian was feeling right now. He had to force himself not to look at Lyndsey again. He asked Joe, “Where do you fit in?”

  Joe’s dark eyes got darker, most likely in response to the suspicion in Ian’s tone. The man took his time, choosing his words carefully. “I was on the cliffs. I thought I’d wait until she was out of the water. By the time I got down to where she was it was already over.”

  Zachary’s voice rang in Ian’s ear. “There’s something he’s not telling you.”

  Ian could feel the blood rushing to his face. No shit, Zachary.

  From Zachary’s perspective, it was probably looking like the part Joe was holding back was that he hadn’t just been waiting for Lyndsey, he’d been watching her. In a creepy, stalking kind of way. But Ian had been there for most of that time and he hadn’t gotten any there’s-someone-else-out-there vibes that he was pretty sure he would have felt had that been the case. So give
n the way Joe was looking at Ian right now, Ian was thinking that at some point during the course of the morning, Joe had come across Lyndsey in other circumstances—the ones involving Ian. And Joe had probably then gone back off again, returning right after Ian had left.

  Yes. From the hint of laughter in Joe’s eyes, Ian was definitely getting the impression that that was the part Joe wasn’t mentioning.

  Perfect. Just perfect. Because what was really needed right now was a muddying of already murky waters.

  So, the question of the moment: was Joe keeping it in so he could hold something over Ian? Was he just being nice? Or was it something else entirely?

  Okay. Three questions.

  Ian figured it would be easy enough to push, especially since in the general scheme of things it wasn’t important who knew or didn’t know that he and Lyndsey had spent the morning together in the Biblical sense of the word. “Tell me about the bear.”

  As Joe started to describe coming upon the bloody scene, Ian’s eyes wandered back to Lyndsey. Only half listening, Ian watched as Brooks’s movements became less urgent and he moved beyond the triage and into the treatment. Now that the blood flow had stopped, he’d be concentrating on building her supply back up, using Hespan or Albumin or one of the other various things they carried around in case of this very situation.

  Ian hated this.

  He hated that his hands were clenched so tightly they’d turned white; he hated not having any idea when it was that Joe had stopped talking. He hated that the whole world stopped turning every time Lyndsey’s name crossed his lips, and he hated—absolutely beyond doubt fucking hated—that unless she died today, this wouldn’t be the last time they’d be at this place. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Looking up to see Joe carrying Lyndsey’s body out of the woods was easily one of the worst moments of Ian’s life, second only to sitting thousands of miles away, watching as large chunks of metal strewn about a crash site appeared on a monitor. Not that he’d actually seen much more than that; he hadn’t been able to stomach it. Not, for that matter, that he’d actually needed to see it—a split second was all it had taken. In that split second he’d known Abby was dead.

  Jesus, Fox. You are on the Goddamned verge. Get it together before you completely lose your shit and you’re no good to anyone. This isn’t Abby, it’s Lyndsey. Lyndsey, whose body defies everything considered normal. She could pull through this; she could actually pull through.

  Turning back to Joe, Ian nodded for the guide to start talking again. He forced himself to listen to Joe’s words, only peripherally hearing Brooks ask Matt for an update on the status of the medical transport; only vaguely registering Matt’s response to stand by.

  Part of his brain was working though, because it did occur to him that at this point the transport should be no more than a few minutes away. He couldn’t think of any reason Matt couldn’t tell as much on the radar and would for some reason just be standing by.

  Ian had already held his hand out to stop Joe again when Matt said, “We’ve lost our transport. I repeat, there is no transport.”

  “Check again,” Ian snapped, straightening up and moving closer to the others. “

  There was a few seconds of silence before Matt said, “It’s gone, Ian. I don’t know—”

  Ian cut him off, focusing on Brooks. “Do we need them?”

  It might not even matter. Unless there was a need for more supplies, Brooks usually preferred to handle things in the field on his own.

  Brooks tapped the bag attached to the IV and then checked Lyndsey’s vitals. He seemed surprised at how well she was doing. Shaking his head, he said, “We’re actually good. Her pulse is strong, blood pressure’s up; I think we—”

  “Sedate her,” Zachary said over the comm.

  “What?” Brooks said, clearly perplexed. “Why?”

  “She’ll bleed out. You won’t be able to stop it,” Zachary answered, an edge to his voice that, if it were anyone else, Ian would have pegged as panic.

  Brooks looked up at Ian, his eyes asking, Is this guy crazy? Out loud he said, “She’s stable. She’s responding. If we sedate her—”

  “Ian,” Zachary interrupted. “You need to trust me. Sedate her. Now.”

  Trust. That was a word Ian normally wouldn’t associate with Zachary. Not trust and not, for that matter, panic. Because, as tightly controlled as he sounded on the surface, that’s definitely what it was. Ian was sure enough to turn to Brooks and say, “Cons.” He ignored Zachary’s obvious unhappiness with the delay.

  Brooks, on the other side of the fence, seemed astounded Ian was even considering Zachary’s request; but he responded to Ian’s command. “Cons? The sedatives we have are too powerful; their effect is unpredictable.” He glanced at Lyndsey. “Stable is a relative term. If we sedate her now her heart could stop altogether. Her breathing…”

  He paused, and Ian could practically see his mind working. Running through all the things he could tell Ian that might possibly convince his boss this was the most idiotic idea ever. His eyes hardened as he finally cut right to the chase and said, “You could kill her.”

  You, not we. Because when it came down to it, Ian was the one who had to choose.

  There were very few times Ian could ever remember even considering taking someone else’s word over Brooks’s, especially when the consequences were as dire as, oh, killing Lyndsey.

  This could possibly be one of those times. “Zachary?”

  Zachary spoke quietly and quickly. Urgently. “Everything her body does, it does ten times more than normal people. The Hespan is designed to expand blood volume. Her heart has already responded more quickly than your medic anticipated.”

  Ian looked up at Brooks. The man hesitated for a second but nodded. “Your point?” Ian asked.

  “You don’t have the supplies on hand to meet what she’s going to need,” Zachary answered. “Not to mention you’ve just tapped into pure, unadulterated Sekhmet blood. Her body will react, and you won’t be able to control it. She’ll kill you.” He let that sink in. “She’ll kill you and then she’ll bleed out.”

  “With all due respect,” Brooks responded to Zachary, clearly not meaning it, “how do you—?”

  Ian cut Brooks off with a curt, “He knows.” Ian figured that if there was one thing Zachary knew intimately, it was the mechanics of blood, and anything Lyndsey-related came in at a very close second. Plus, after drilling them for hours about what they’d be carrying, Zachary knew exactly how much of everything they’d brought with them. Put those two things together with whatever Zachary was able to see on the monitors and Ian had no doubt Zachary was right. He looked at Brooks. “Do it.”

  With an exasperated shake of his head, Brooks turned to the pack and pulled out a bottle of pills.

  “Oh, and Ian?” Zachary continued. “If her blood pressure’s already up, I’d say you better do it fast—before she takes out your whole team. Messing with her blood tends to energize her.” A smile appeared in his voice. “It can be a hell of a ride; it does, however, come with some drawbacks.”

  Drawbacks? Nice way with the understatement.

  But Zachary was right. After being out—for whatever reason—the body’s instinct was often to protect itself. Ian had seen more men than he could count come up swinging as they regained consciousness. Even a normal guy could do some damage in the minute, minute and a half of disorientation. Lyndsey? There was no telling.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Ian took the bottle from Brooks. “What’s the right dosage?”

  “Normally I’d say no more than half of one,” Brooks said after a slight hesitation. It was obvious on his face and in his voice that he wasn’t happy with the direction they were taking. “With Lyndsey, though? Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Although Ian had been hoping for something more along the lines of an informed medical opinion, he well understood the undead source of the man’s wariness: Zachary, who didn’t give a damn who he
offended and only cared about one thing in this whole scenario. Lyndsey.

  Which, incidentally, was the only reason Ian was willing to trust him. “Zachary?”

  “More than one,” Zachary replied. “Less than five.”

  Lovely. And not at all helpful. Ian pulled the cap off the bottle and poured out three pills. No—two. That felt better.

  He started to put the cap back on and then reconsidered, thinking three may have been the right answer after all. Not like there was any pressure or anything; one pill too few and she dies because her heart’s working too hard, one too many and she dies because it stops altogether. Oh, and make the decision while at any moment she could come to and kill them all in the few minutes it took for her heart to pump all the blood out of her body.

  Nope. No pressure at all.

  God, Fox, came Abby’s voice clear as day. Make a choice and stick with it.

  And now he was channeling Abby? Twisted, anyone? Hi, honey. It’s been a while. Did you happen to notice I’m back with Lyndsey again? Yep. That’s her over there with Brooks’s hands all over her. Brooks, the same guy who was in love with you until the day you died, in case you’d forgotten.

  Ludicrous.

  “Fox!” Zachary snapped. “Tick, tock.”

  Ian closed the bottle once and for all and looked down at his hand. Two. It’s what it would have to be.

  “Okay,” he said, resolved. With a little less confidence, he added, “If the sedatives don’t work…”—i.e., if she beat him to a bloody pulp—“…I suggest you all stay out of her way until she calms down.” He looked at Brooks. “Don’t suppose you’d like to do the honors?”

  With a hint of a smile, Brooks replied, “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you be the one she kill.”

  Yeah, that’s kind of what Ian expected. He took Malek’s place next to Lyndsey.

  As Brooks moved away, he said, “They need to dissolve under her tongue in order to get the job done.”

  Ian nodded as he kneeled down and reached to open Lyndsey’s mouth. She was already beginning to stir and he wanted to do it before she was fully awake. Otherwise, this had the potential to really su—