Page 92 of Worshiping Faith

Trip underestimated the injuries. Or maybe he just didn’t care to spell them out for me. Probably the latter.

There’s more blood than I expected. Morepain.

The ship rumbles to life beneath my feet.

“Are we leaving?” I ask. My pulse jumps. “I thought you were the only one who knew how to steer it.”The only one we trust, anyway.

“Later,” he says, but there’s something there, something flashing in his eyes that I can’t quite place.Irritation? No. Something else.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because the men in this room need me.

My exhaustion slips away.

My doubts vanish.

There are no games here. No second-guessing. No right or wrong. There’sonly meand the lives in my hands.

I step forward.

Not as a prisoner advocate. Not as Dax’s woman or Zachs’ lover or the one Wilkes wants to bend until I break.

I step forward asa doctor.

They fought for this ship. For all of us. And now it’s my turn to fight for them.

I cross the room and kneel beside the first man, his face pale, his hand pressed weakly to his stomach. “Tell me what I’m looking for,” I say.

He meets my gaze, pain tightening his features. “Gut.”

Shit. That could be bad.

“I’m going to look now,” I warn him, peeling back the blood-soaked fabric of his shirt. “Sorry if this hurts.”

A shadow falls over me.

It’s Grip. “What can I do to help, Doc?” he asks.

I don’t hesitate. “Gauze, saline, betadine, clean sutures, scalpels. I need anything that can extract a bullet and everything I need to stitch him up after.”

Grip nods once, sharp.

A deep, rough voice barks from across the room. “You heard her, get the shit she needs.”

I glance up. Another man I don’t know.

Broad. Square-built. Like a goddamn bulldog.

His eyes lock on mine. “Tell us what to do, Doc,” he says. “We got you.”

And just like that, I realizetheyare mine, too.

Every last one of them.

And I won’t let them down.

After the first man is stable and moved to recover, the rest blur.