“No one wants to hurt you,” Dalton says. “Drop the knife and step away from Will.”
Sutherland only adjusts his grip on the knife, his gaze fixed on Anders.
“Five,” I call. “Four—”
Anders kicks Sutherland in the leg and rolls fast as his attacker drops, knife stabbing down, hitting the ground right where Anders had been.
Dalton and Cypher are both on Sutherland in an instant. He slashes, catching Cypher in the sleeve, but they get him down, spread-eagled, as Anders pulls the knife from his grip.
“You’re lucky,” I say to Anders. “That could have gone all kinds of wrong.”
Anders shrugs. “Worth a try. I didn’t want you shooting him.”
“I wouldn’t have aimed to kill.”
“I don’t give a shit about him. I didn’t want you having to shoot.” He squeezes my shoulder with his free hand as he jogs over to the man on the ground.
Dalton says, “Just get him out of my sight,” presumably to Cypher about Sutherland, as I run with Anders to the downed man.
“You said I couldn’t do it,” Sutherland says, his voice rising. “You said I couldn’t, and I did.”
“Fuck,” Cypher mutters. “Me and my big mouth.”
“Is this Roger?” I ask Cypher.
“Yeah.”
“I did it,” Sutherland says. “I got the guy. It’s him. Casey, look at him.”
I am looking at Roger. What I see is blood. So much blood. I glance at his face in passing, assessing the worst injuries as I drop beside him. Yes, it is the man from behind my house, the one I saw the night Sutherland escaped back to Rockton. And I don’t care. There are bigger issues to worry about. Namely the fact that his chest is perforated with stab wounds.
“It’s him,” Sutherland says as Anders and I scramble to get Roger’s jacket off. “It’s the guy. He took me. He took Nicole.”
“And if you killed him?” Dalton says. “Then you killed her, too.”
“What? N-no. I … I…” Sutherland trails off in a stream of babble. There might be actual words in it. I don’t hear them. I’m completely focused on Roger, and even if he’s our killer that doesn’t matter because, as Dalton said, he is also the only one who knows where to find Nicole.
Dalton lowers himself beside me to help. “Fuck. He’s a mess. Fuck.” He inhales. “And that’s not helpful. Tell me what to do.”
“Roger’s in shock,” Anders says. “I need to get him stable and get him out of here. The first step is to stop the bleeding, which right now … shit, I’m not even sure where to start.” He inhales. “No, I’ve got this. Get his shirt off. We need to assess and triage.”
Between the three of us, we manage to peel off Roger’s blood-sodden shirt, and when we see the extent of the damage, Dalton lets out a fresh curse.
Anders freezes. He’s crouched in the snow over Roger’s prone body, hands gloved with blood, more dripping down his arms. Roger’s chest slick with blood and stippled with gore. It’s slashed open, muscles and intestine poking through. I’ve seen photos of servicemen ripped up by shrapnel, and that’s what it looks like, and Anders stares at his blood-covered hands and this man’s blood-soaked torso, red seeping into the snow around us.
“I don’t see any bubbling,” I say. “That means his lungs may be okay. There’s nothing near his heart either. So the first thing we need to do is—”
“Yes,” Anders says, snapping back to himself. “I’ve got this. Eric? I need the first-aid kit. I put my pack down over there. Casey? Hold this right here. We can’t worry about internal injury. This is triage. You can stitch, right?”
“I can.”
“Then help me with these two worst ones, and then we’ll divide the rest. Get him stable and pray he survives long enough to tell us where to find Nicki.”
* * *
We’re back in Rockton. I have no idea what time it is, only that it’s dark and has been dark since long before we returned. We found a makeshift sled at Roger’s tent and managed to get him here alive, which is a massive accomplishment. Keeping him alive will be an even tougher one. We’ve been working on that for hours, Anders and Mathias and I, with Dalton and Diana ready to grab whatever we need.
We have to reopen some of the stitches to access what we couldn’t mend in the field. That’s probably the last thing Roger’s system needs, but we have him doped up on enough morphine that he’s out cold, and we hope that forfends shock. There’s no sign of serious internal injury … which only means no one attending him has the know-how to make that call unless one of his systems fails. And if it does? Well, he’s screwed, because we don’t have the know-how to fix it either.
If there is any saving grace, it is that Sutherland stabbed wildly, his blade often slicing only through the skin. Roger’s chest is a mess, and maybe that in itself will prove too much, but by the time we’re done, he’s stable and resting.
Anders goes next door for a shower. I stay in the clinic, sitting on the cleanest piece of floor I can find. Dalton’s quietly mopping up, giving me room to breathe.
“We need to get him to a doctor,” I say.
“I know.”
“Is that possible? What’s the contingency plan here?”
He hands me a glass of water. “Val contacted the council. They’re ‘considering the matter.’ Which means we do need a contingency plan, in case they say fuck it and tell us to let nature take its course, considering he’s probably a killer.”