Chapter 20
Carter held Cole upright and fought the rising panic.
They had waited outside the conflict zone for 72 hours while approvals and paperwork crawled through the system, and only then did they latch onto a supply convoy and roll in.
Once inside, they handed out aid from stop to stop and asked at every camp if anyone had seen Maya.
They made it to the second encampment before the shooting started.
Cole had taken a round.
There was no field unit nearby that could handle it, so they chased the medical convoy to the closest war hospital.
By the time they rattled through the gate, Cole was completely out.
Carter shouldered him through the crush of bodies, then looked up and saw Maya.
She stood a few yards away, looking calm and distant, with something complicated crossing her eyes.
Carter stopped in his tracks, joy crashing through him.
She was alive! She was right there!
The moment snapped as he remembered the man bleeding in his arms. He pushed forward, his eyes stinging. “Maya, Cole’s been shot.”
Maya glanced at Cole’s ashen face and said, “This way.”
冷必
*
She led them into the surgical bay, set up fast, and told Carter to pin Cole’s shoulders.
When she went in after the bullet, Cole, who had been out cold, gave a low grunt and jerked once, then went limp again.
The extraction went cleanly. Maya packed the wound, stripped off her gloves, and turned to leave.
“Maya!” Carter called after her.
She didn’t slow down. More patients were waiting, and she had no time for them.
Carter stayed by Cole and kept tracking Maya with his eyes whenever she crossed the ward.
He watched her move from cot to cot without stopping to breathe, and pride tangled with relief until his chest ached.
Gratitude flooded him that she was still alive. He marveled at her strength-at the way she had survived all they put her through and still refused to break.
Affection burned in his chest, tangled with regret, respect, and a shame so deep that it kept his eyes fixed
on her, unable to look away.
Maya finally secured a small vial of antibiotics and took it straight to Jasper.
His vitals were shaky, but he was awake now, worn thin yet steady.
As she pushed the medication, he said, “Dr. Reed, thank you for pulling me through.”
Maya kept her focus on the syringe. “You don’t need to thank me. This is my job.”
Then, she capped the needle and met his gaze. “Besides, you’ve saved me twice now, and I have yet to square that ledger.”
Jasper blinked, then smiled. “You don’t owe me. It was my job out there, too. And that ride to the hospital was just a passing favor.”
She shook her head and said seriously, “Thanks to you, I saw my grandma before she passed away. I’ll
always be grateful for that.”
Later, she even thought that if she hadn’t made it in time to see her grandmother one last time, and if not for her grandmother’s words urging her to live well, she might have already fallen apart.
She would have gone straight to her death, or perhaps lived only long enough to take her revenge before ending it herself.
When she got into the car that night, she had noticed Jasper’s original route. He hadn’t been headed her way at all. He changed his route just to take her to the hospital.
A small smile touched her lips. “Mr. Keaton, when we both make it out of here, dinner is on me.”
“Deal,” he replied, and the smile reached his eyes. “And please, just call me Jasper.”
“Maya, Cole’s awake.” Carter stood behind her, watching with a complicated expression as she spoke to Jasper, lying in the hospital bed.
Maya gave Jasper a brief nod, turned on her heel, and followed Carter back to Cole’s cot.
