Where Winter Finds You (Black Dagger Brotherhood #18)- J.R Ward Page 0,104
its critical purpose. “You hold the oxygen mask in place and the IV bag. That’s just as important as her body. V, you’re going to have to pick her up. I haven’t given her any morphine, but I can’t run the risk of depressing her respiration any further.”
When he opened his mouth to argue, Doc Jane shook her head sharply. “Let’s make this fast, gentlemen, so I can stabilize her properly in the mobile unit.”
Trez was of a mind to disregard it all, but something in those forest green eyes got through his possessiveness. Doc Jane wasn’t giving him a choice, and not because she was playing games or didn’t understand how bonded males were. It was because she understood everything that mattered medically.
V’s face barged into Trez’s line of sight again. “I’ll get her down safe. You can trust me.”
Trez nodded numbly. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
He was given her oxygen tank and a flappy plastic IV bag full of God only knew what.
“Put that mask back on yourself,” V said. “The tank’s in my pack, so we need to stay close.”
“I love her,” Trez explained. “Even though it doesn’t make sense.”
V was known for empathy to the same degree one would expect it from a loaded shotgun. Nonetheless, the sadness and regret that transformed his harsh face was not so much a testament to a character transformation, but the life-or-death situation they were all in.
“I gotchu, true?” Vishous said softly. “And you and I are going to get her out together.”
Trez nodded and got to his feet. Or… tried to. The fact that he lurched and had to throw out a hand to the wall was a good indication Doc Jane had made the right role assignments. To help himself, he snapped his oxygen feed back into place, and took as much as he could of the plastic-scented, force-fed air.
As V bent down and gathered Therese’s arms and legs, she stirred. But when he lifted her from the floor, she cried out in pain under the mask, her eyes flaring open, her hands clawing, her legs kicking.
“We gotta be quick,” V said urgently. “Fuck.”
“I’m right here!” Trez repositioned the mask on her face, making sure the seal was tight around her lips and nose. “We’re getting you to help!”
“Down the stairwell. It’s to the left,” Doc Jane ordered as they moved as a group out of the bathroom.
“Stay with us,” Trez yelled through his own mask. “We’re almost there!”
Bullshit, they were almost there. They had countless landings, dead humans in the way, and God, Manny’s mobile surgery unit had better be where he said it’d be. Wherever the hell that was.
“Not long!” Trez said loudly.
As Doc Jane opened the outer door and they reentered the smoky, hot corridor, he stayed as close as he could to Therese and kept talking, for all the good it was doing. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, and he worried that the shock of the relocation was killing her.
“I’m behind you,” he said as V rushed out with his precious cargo, turning sideways through the jambs to fit Therese’s head and legs.
Left, Trez thought. They had to go left.
Faster, now, through the smoke, the level of which rose as they left the fire behind, now at their chests. Now above their shoulders. Better visibility and less heat—and then they were passing under the EXIT sign and entering the stairwell. Amid the screaming alarms and blinking lights, there were stragglers descending, some with bags in their arms, others with TVs they either had stolen or were protecting from theft or water damage. As Team Therese joined the rush, Trez struggled to keep his legs moving. He couldn’t feel anything in his body, his head dizzy even with the supplemental oxygen.
He was going to pass out. He was going to fucking pass out.
“Stay with me,” he repeated. “Stay with me…”
He didn’t know whether he was talking to Therese.
Or himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Trez didn’t make it.
As he stumbled on a landing, and his knees failed to catch him, he twisted around and held out the IV bag and oxygen to Doc Jane.
“Stop,” she yelled to her hellren. V froze on the dime as she caught everything Trez threw at her.
Coughing, he tore off his oxygen mask and blinked in the flashing lights. “Go! Fuck me! Take her and go!”
“I’m sending help!” Doc Jane said as she turned her mate around and removed the tank that fed Trez’s mask. “I’m sending help!”