Page 5 of Rescuing Baylee

“W-what’s going on,” Olivia asked.

“I didn’t think you were going to come back to me. Do you know where you are?”

Olivia snorted and shifted, then gasped in pain. “Yeah, I think so. Is the Taliban still here?”

“Kind of,” Baylee whispered.

Olivia looked confused for a moment, then her expression cleared. “Wait, they…” She sat up, looking at the IV tube in her arm, then back at Baylee. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, but you’ve been out for hours. I had to do it, Olivia. I had to.”

Then, shocking Baylee to the core, she broke down into great, gulping sobs. Olivia wrapped her arms around her shoulders, trying to comfort her.

“What, honey? What did you do?”

Then Olivia looked down her body, and Baylee knew she saw her leg.

“I’m so sorry,” Baylee said, shaking her head. “You have a double compound fracture of your lower right leg, just above the ankle. By the time t-they…” Baylee’s voice stuttered and stopped, and she took a breath. “By the time they finished, and I found you, you had gone into shock from blood loss. I had to stop the flow of blood.”

Olivia turned and looked at her for a long moment, then pulled her into her arms. Then they both wept. Olivia was the first to gain control. She pushed Baylee back.

“You did what you had to do, Baylee. Look at me. Let me see your face,” Olivia told her softly. “What did they do to you?”

Baylee untaped the pad, and Olivia gasped softly. Baylee knew it had to be bad for the stoic Liv to react that way.

“We have to stitch this closed. As soon as possible.”

Olivia glanced around, obviously noting the bodies on the floor. When she looked at Baylee, she shrugged, her eyes chilling. “They weren’t watching. I grabbed the knife and cut one’s throat with a wild swing when I turned around and shoved it in the gut of the other with the same knife. They left their guns on the floor when they, well…”

Baylee glanced away, not wanting to see recrimination in Liv’s eyes.

“Look at me,” the older woman snapped. Baylee glanced up at the sharp words, her eyes wide. “You did what you needed to do. There is no shame in that. And there’s no shame in protecting yourself. I’m proud of everything you’ve done.”

Another blast rocked the building, and they braced their arms over their heads.

“Get me a suture kit,” Liv said. “And some local. Why are these blasts going off?”

“Not sure,” Baylee said, moving carefully to the far cabinet. “It started about an hour ago. Just random blasts. The Taliban have been running around like crazy, trying to figure out who it is.”

Baylee handed her the suture kit, and a couple of vials of local anesthetic, then took a minute to drag her attackers over to the corner, where several other bodies lay. Then she flung a sheet over the pile and returned to push the gurney toward Olivia. She placed an aluminum room partition on top of the gurney to shelter them from some of the falling debris.

“How do you want me, boss?”

Baylee forced some humor, and Olivia responded. “Lay down and rest your head here, baby. I’m not a surgeon, but I’ve done my fair share of scrub hemming. We’ll get you pulled together in no time.”

Baylee gritted her teeth in pain, even with the local. But Liv stitched her up, slowly. Baylee knew she was struggling to stayvertical, though. She’d pumped as much pain medicine as she could into Liv, but it had to be creeping back in.

“Thank you for putting the strap below the knee,” Olivia murmured. “It will make it easier to fit a prosthetic.”

Baylee gasped at the words, and tears immediately rolled from the corners of her eyes, burning as it hit her cut skin. “I’m so sorry, Olivia.”

Olivia tied off the last stitch, looking down into her eyes. “We’re going to survive this, one way or another. Now, did you have a cut on the back of your arm as well? It was dripping.”

Olivia patched her up, even as the bombing continued. There was a spate of gunfire, then it sounded like a group of men yelling Pashtun that they needed to evacuate before they were killed. Then running boot steps were coming closer. “They’re coming this way.”

In unison, they lifted the weapons to their shoulders and aimed down the barrels. They had no ear protection in and she had no idea how many bullets were in the enemy weapon, but she would run the fucker dry.

A soldier burst into the room and Baylee squeezed the trigger, then Olivia. They shot several of the Taliban as they rolled through the door, and Baylee felt not a single microgram of remorse. The terrorists had killed so many good people.