Digitalis (45 page)

Slowly, Azzan glanced around the building. “We have to—” His sudden silence jerked Piper in the direction of his gaze. Words stopped. A foot stuck out from beneath several feet of rubble.

She rushed forward with a yelp. “Colton!” On her knees, she started digging.

“Lily, no! The wall!”

Plaster scraped her fingers and knuckles. “I don’t care.” Blood bubbled up, a stark contrast to the fragments and the paleness of her flesh. “I won’t leave him here like this. I can’t.” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

A strange groaning reached out to her from the right. Sunlight peeked down at her, momentarily blinding Piper. Shielding her face, she looked to the sky. Where was the light coming from? She squinted. The wall … It looked like it was … leaning!

A scream climbed up her throat.

“Li—” Azzan’s shout was lost amid a resounding crack. He caught her shoulders and jerked her back.

Piper struggled against him. “No!” She reached for the foot. The stone wall groaned again and tilted inward. Over her. Then dropped.
Smack!

“Colton!” she screamed.

Hands hooked under her arms, Azzan dragged her back. “We have to get out. The IRG is going to bury us alive”

“I can’t leave him.”

He yanked her back again. “We must.” With that, he managed to stronghold her against his chest.

Tucked into his shoulder, Piper sobbed. The image of the boot seared her memory. The green pants—

She jerked up. Blinked. “It wasn’t him!” Grief bottomed out.

“What do you mean?”

A shaky smile flittered across her lips. “The pants—Colton had black tactical pants on. I saw olive green pants on the leg with the boot.” Renewed hope swirled through her veins. She pushed to her knees. Onto her feet. “That means he could still be alive somewhere … here. We have to find him!”

Hand clamped over her mouth, Azzan looked toward the opening. “Quiet.”

Only then did she hear the voices … drawing near … in the street.

Together, they scooted behind a large mound and ducked. Curled against the rock that poked into her shoulder and side, Piper wiped the tears from her face. She couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t. Not even if she had to move every rock with her bare hands. Colton had sacrificed everything to help them stop this massacre. Now, she would give up everything to save him.

She peeked up at Azzan. “Do you think he stopped the seventh messenger?”

Her cousin, the assassin, the one who used strategy and analysis every day, considered her for a moment. Stole a glance over the mound. He stared down, then shook his head. “No, he was up against too much.”

The sprout of hope withered under his words. Yet she ached to think of Colton failing. He was a sure shot.

Crack! Crack!

The noise reverberated through her chest and ears. She tried to peek at the opening, but rock and dirt spat at her, forcing her back down. She turned and found Azzan kneeling, his weapon aimed out as he fired.
Thwat! Thwat!

Silence dropped on them. She dared to look back to the street. A man stretched out in a dark pool, a weapon several feet away.

Faint noise drifted on the morning breeze.

Piper lifted her head, tilted it to the side, and frowned. What was it? She shifted, the rocks and dust grating beneath her weight.

“Stay.” Azzan pointed to their position, then leapt from behind the mound.

No time to object, Piper watched him scurry toward the street. He reached out and snagged the machine gun. Fire raped the quiet morning. He spun into the safety of the wrecked structure. Dropped to a knee and fired through a large hole in the remaining wall. Piper flinched at the sound, but also at seeing her cousin engage without hesitation. He was no longer the boy she’d played with so long ago in their small village.

Behind her … the noise again. She glanced around, wary. Scared. Had the IRG come around the back of the building? If they did, they’d have a clear shot at her. At both of them.

Only piles of rock and plaster, dust and dirt sat in the tease of the early morning sun. The building across the alley stared back, defiant. Silent, eerie.

Nothing moved. Then, something shifted. That’s when she saw—

“Colton!” She dove over the rubble, her gaze riveted to his form pinned beneath a large section of the rear, fallen wall. He lay on his side, unmoving. Was he alive? Breathing? The questions propelled her over the ruins. Concrete poked into her palms. Slices of glass and metal scraped and pricked her knees. But she kept going. “Colton, can you hear me?”

“Lily, get down!” Azzan shouted.

She dropped to her belly.

Shards erupted around her. More gunfire swallowed the day.

Arms over her head, she buried her face—yet kept her gaze on Colton. Still not moving. “Oh Yeshua, please …”

When quiet ensued, she looked back at Azzan, who relaxed just enough for her to believe there wasn’t an immediate threat.

Piper scrabbled the remaining half-dozen feet to Colton, heedless of the pain scoring her flesh. The large slab concealed all but the crown of his head. His black hair looked wet. “Colton? Colton, can you hear me?” When he didn’t answer, she tried to ascertain if he was alive. She slipped her hand around the side of his head to his neck and tried to feel for a pulse. But with her own erratic and frantic nerves, she couldn’t detect anything.

She had to get him out. Could she do it alone? She crouched low and peered under the slab. His shoulder was wedged, but it didn’t look like concrete trapped the rest of his body.

Pressing against the wall, she tried to push it off him. She strained and pushed, the stone digging into her arm and scraping her face. But it didn’t budge. Not an inch. Maybe she could unwedge him and draw him out from under the weight. She slumped beside him. Reaching in and under his left shoulder, she grabbed his armored vest. But when she pulled, her fingers slipped free … as if … wet. What …? She glanced at her hands—and paled. Blood. Her gaze shot to Colton. Her stomach roiled as she realized his wet hair was bloodied hair.

Urgency spiked through her. She had to get him out
now
. Feet propped on the slab, she dug her hands in under Colton’s shoulders, dug her fingers around the drag strap, and with a quick move, she twisted and slid him to the side, freeing his torso.

He moaned.

Her stomach seized. “Colton?” When he didn’t respond, she tightened her grip, used the leverage of her legs, and hauled him backward. He came out a few inches. Relief spurred her on. She dug in and repeated the move.

Finally, when she’d cleared him from the debris, she collapsed. His head dropped into her lap, facing away from her. She glanced down. He hadn’t moved. Blood trickled down his face and marred his handsome features. Her hand trembled as she touched him, longing

to see the dimples that had always made her smile. The sky-blue eyes that always held a smile. Was he—?

She severed the thought. “Colton …?” Piper shifted around, still cradling his head in her lap. Smoothing a hand down the side of his cheek helped her determine the blood wasn’t from his face. Gently, she turned his head and found a gash at the back of his head. Blood soaked her khaki pants. “Oh Yeshua …”

Biting back the tears, she eased him down, trying to situate him so the wound wouldn’t be aggravated. Maybe she should turn him on his side. Piper scooted around and—yelped. Blue eyes looked up at her.

“Piper?” He blinked, confusion rippling over his bloodied brow. As he rolled toward her, he groaned. He frowned. “Piper, tell me it’s really you.” His eyes didn’t seem focused.

“Y-yes.”

His strong hands grabbed her, yanked her down into his arms. “Oh, thank God!” He crushed her against his chest, holding her tight. Squeezing. His breath skated along her neck and rustled her hair. He tightened his hold. “Thank You, God.” He kissed her ear. “I love you.

Dawg, I love you!”

Though the double vision lingered, he’d never felt more focused or had more clarity than this moment right here. “I never thought I’d see you again. When they hit the building, I thought that was it.”

He reveled in the way she held onto him, tight. Slowly, she lifted. “Shh, you should keep still.”

“I—I can’t see.” Then the situation slammed back into his memory. “The IRG! They were hammering us.” The world spun. Gray washed over his vision.

“Colton?” Panic edged into Piper’s voice.

He tightened his grip on her arms. He felt himself falling … deep into a black void.

“Over here!” a garbled voice shouted.

“Will he live?”

M16 in his hands, Azzan stood over the medic, who attended the cowboy. Beside them, his cousin watched, her bloodied hand over her face.

“Pulse is weak—loss of blood.” He nodded to the cowboy’s head as he probed his body for further injuries. “We’ve bandaged the injury, so that should slow till I do stitches. I don’t detect any broken bones or internal injures—but that’s not a guarantee.”

The medic pushed back onto his haunches. “We need to get him out of here, have that head wound checked out ASAP.”

Shadows shifted near the entrance.

Azzan snapped up his weapon and trained it on the four men ambling into the building. His defenses relaxed as he recognized them.

Frogman jogged over the rubble. “What happened? How is he?”

“Unconscious,” Midas said as he stood. “We need to evac him out of here stat.”

Azzan could not help but marvel that these men were more concerned about their team member than about Israel. He would need to redirect their focus. One man against a million souls … “What of the seventh messenger? Did he stop him?”

With a shrug, Frogman watched his friend. “No word. Coms are down.”

“Can’t you find out?” Legend said as he joined them, his large boots crunching over the debris. “Don’t you have endless connections?”

Azzan eyed the man, then lifted his phone. Dialed. Pressed it to his ear and waited.

“Well done, Azzan,” Nesher said. “You were wise to trust the Americans.”

“It is done, then?”

“It is.”

The weight that lifted from him seemed tangible. His first clear breath in weeks traveled through his lungs. Around him, the men patted each other’s backs, congratulated one another. A moan came from Cowboy, effectively drawing the attention of the team.

Movement drew Azzan’s focus. He glanced to the right—Legend bent over the foot Lily had originally thought to be the cowboy’s. Stone by stone, the large man started clearing away the debris. “Looks like we lost a rookie,” Legend said.

Frogman turned. “Scar?”

Wiping his hands, Legend nodded and stood. “He’s been there a while. Blood’s already drying.”

Dark and long, a shadow stretched toward the building.

M16 up, Azzan took aim in Legend’s direction.

The man froze, widened his eyes, then grabbed for his gun.

Azzan fired—at the shadow behind Legend that had coalesced into the form of an IRG gunman who’d leveled a Glock at the black man’s head.

Just before he fell, the enemy darted a look to something behind Azzan. Knowing the Nightshade team had huddled to the left, he pivoted around to the right in the direction the gunman had looked. Another form stepped into the open.

Azzan fired again. The man dropped to his knees, then slumped into the rocks. He scanned the perimeter, noting Max and the others were doing the same. Finally convinced they were not in immediate danger, he lowered his weapon.

A hand clamped onto his shoulder. He looked up into the ebony face of Legend. Dark, serious eyes probed him. Then, the large man shook Azzan’s hand. “This doesn’t change anything, you saving my life.”

“It was a mistake. My aim was off.”

“Hey,” Midas called as he knelt beside Cowboy. “He’s coming around.”

Frogman glanced back at Azzan. “Yeah, so is someone else.”

Marveling at the way his chest seemed to swell as if absorbing the man’s praise, Azzan kept his distance. The strange feeling left a heady aftertaste in his mouth. He needed to get out of here before he was compromised.

Slowly, Frogman and Midas helped Cowboy to his feet. Head bandaged, scratches clawing his face, Cowboy wobbled. “I—I can’t see.”