Page 63 of Talk to Me

Fortunately, I didn’t have to go too deep to get the tracker. I put it to the side, then closed her up, careful to use skin glue to seal it, then applied butterfly bandages before I taped it up.

Done, I stripped off the gloves before I helped Locke settle her back onto the gurney. She was out. Her expression hadn’t even changed. With care, I checked her pulse. It was rapid.

That was good, right?

“What else is in the IV bag?”

“Not much, but saline,” Locke said. “She looks dehydrated, cracked lips and open wounds on her fingertips. But we have no idea if she’s allergic to anything.”

I glanced to the lidocaine and sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have used it.”

“Maybe.”

“Lidocaine allergies are extremely rare,” McQuade called from the front. “We have epinephrine onboard so we can do something about it. For now, it’ll have to do.”

Yeah. It would. I went back to work, packing away the medical supplies before I dropped the tracker into a thermos and sealed it up.

“We need to dump this,” I called up to him.

“Already looking for a good spot.”

Fifteen minutes later, we left a rest area with the truck pulling out behind us now carrying the tracker in a thermos secured beneath it. McQuade didn’t stay with that road and diverted more toward an interstate now so we could move faster.

Through it all, Patch hadn’t even twitched. I found myself studying her again in the flickers of light now that we’d turned off the lights in the back. The slope of her brow where it wasn’t beaten. The curve of her lips. The lack of expression—or at least the utter stillness of her expression—didn’t sit well with me.

Patch was one of the most vibrant people I’d ever heard.

She should be the same in person. That her light had been so dimmed was on them.

“Did we figure out who they were?”

“No,” Locke answered, in a voice that seemed as troubled as my soul. “We didn’t have time. She was trying to get out when we got in.”

I paused. “You’re sure this is her?”

“She recognized us,” Locke said. “I saw it in her eyes—they’re gray by the way, if you were wondering. But she knew who we were.”

“She spoke,” McQuade added. “She said ‘I’m going to pass out now.’”

“It was rough and she hurts,” Locke confirmed. “But it’s her. It’s our Patch.”

Right. Good.

We had her.

Chapter

Twenty

PATCH

“You’re a special kind of irritating,” McQuade groused. “How has someone not shot you yet?”

“I assure you, some have tried. They missed.” Locke sounded almost bored.

“You realize I don’t miss, right? I could just as easily shoot you right now.” The complaint in McQuade’s voice was all bluster. As irked as he sounded, there was a kind of gruff amusement present too. I’d heard it often enough when he’d been in the middle of some firefight he actually enjoyed.

Odd man.