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“Everybody but Nolan and Brax, get out. You two stay with our wounded. I want this cleared ASAP.” Ryker was out of his driver’s side door before Kostya even finished giving his direction. Dammit . Kostya even had Gideon out there clearing the way, instead of continuing to gather intel. Brax sure would have liked to know how far away they were from Silchari. Even with the dry t-shirt, and the two of them sharing his poncho, Jenny’s slight frame was racked with chills, despite her skin being hotter than hell.

Nolan had left his thermometer, and the last time Brax had checked, her fever was up to one-hundred-and three point six. Not good. He would have thought with the antibiotics it would have gone down.

He looked at the water bottle in his hands and opened the cap. He felt powerless. But dammit, he had no other option, he had to get her to drink. What the fuck else was there to do?

“Nolan,” he tapped his mic. “Her fever’s going up. When are the antibiotics going to start working, man?”

“It’s only been thirty-five minutes. Give it time.”

“Does she have that much time? Either she’s coughing or groaning in pain.”

“Brax, those are good things. That means she’s still awake, right?”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “I guess. But still, is it going to be enough?”

“Even with the rain, and having to move the trees, we should be able to get to Chattogram by nightfall.”

He heard his friend's answer, but he couldn’t feel it in his gut. Not when he looked down at the wan features of the woman in his arms. They had to save her. She couldn’t die, not after all of this. She just couldn’t.

“There has to be something else I can be doing besides tapping on her back and waking her up to drink water.”

“She’s chilled, right?” Nolan asked.

“She’s shivering. I know it’s the fever, because her body is hot as fuck.”

“You got to get her temperature down. Take off her clothes and wipe her down with cold water. Even if she wakes up and tells you to stop, keep doing it. That should help.”

Now for the question he didn’t want to ask. “How’s Jase?”

“I’ve already given him blood. Linc’s his blood type, and you know Gideon’s O negative.”

Brax nodded to himself. “Is that helping?”

“He’s stabilizing.”

“Did it hit his bone?”

“Yeah,” Nolan answered.

That was it. Just the one-word answer.

“Brax, right now I’m focusing on keeping him in good enough shape for surgery. Yeah?”

“Gotcha.”

Brax understood what Nolan was saying. This was no time worrying about Jase’s future, they needed to take one bite of the elephant at a time. Anyway, he had Jenny to worry about. He still had her held close under his poncho with him, trying to share his body heat so that she wouldn’t be shivering as much. The idea of forcing cold water on her was anathema, but it had to be done.

He carefully moved her, so that she was laying down on the tarp, then grabbed two of the empty water bottles and sheared off the tops with his knife. He opened the tailgate of the SUV and saw her violently shiver. He filled up the two water bottles with rain, then closed the door. They really didn’t need the vehicle filled with water.

He looked at Jenny dispassionately and took off her boots first. It was a challenge that finally required him to just cut through her mud-caked shoelaces. As he peeled off her socks, he could see how swollen her feet were. It didn’t look like infection had set in, which was a good thing. Then he took off her cargo pants. They easily slipped off since they were so large on her. He would bet anything she’d lost weight since being captured. He left her panties on. Then he pulled off her sweat-soaked shirt.

He poured some of the water directly onto her sternum, and she cried out. He forced himself to ignore her, as he used the soft shirt to stroke the cold water all along her torso, her breasts, up and down her arms, along her sides, around her neck, then across her brow.

Jenny’s teeth were chattering and at one point, she attempted to grab his hand.

“Stop,” she slurred the word.

“I can’t. We need to get your fever down.”

“C-c-cold.”

“I know you are, Jenny. But this will help you get better. Trust me.”

He poured water along her concave belly, then smoothed it down her hips above her panties, then down her thighs, along her knees and calves, then back up again. She struggled against him. She whimpered, and he had to steel himself against her obvious distress.

For long minutes he continued, then he pulled her back up into his arms, as if he were holding a baby over his shoulder and began smoothing the cold water over her back.

“Please, stop,” she whispered into his ear. “Please.”

Had he ever had a harder mission?

Finally, he laid her back down on top of the cold tarp and got the forehead thermometer. One-hundred-and-two point six. Her fever had reduced by a point, but now silent tears slipped down each side of her face, down to her temples and mixing in with her mud-caked hair.

Jenny looked nothing like the woman he had seen in the picture. Nothing. Until those first few minutes when she had opened her eyes and shown her fighting spirit. What had they done to her? How had they hurt her? The fact that she had shown that fighting spirit instead of the hollow-eyed, empty look of women they had rescued in the past gave him hope she hadn’t been violated.

“Is there any rope or chains in the SUVs?” Kostya asked over the comm. “Two of these trees are still connected to the trunks and roots. We need more power.”

Brax covered Jenny with his poncho, then moved her so that she was pushed up against the two front seats and prayed that there was some concealed storage. When he spotted it, his heart sank. Looking at the lid, he figured it could house a couple of grenades and maybe, just maybe, a sniper rifle. Sure as hell not an automatic rifle. They were shit out of luck. He opened it up anyway, and his eyes bugged out of his head.

“Kostya, the God of War is on our side today. I’m counting three, no make that four, tow straps in here. Depending on the size of the trees, the Land Cruiser should have enough torque to move them. If not, we can attach them to the van.”

Before he was done talking, Kostya was lifting up the tailgate. He actually saw a grin on his lieutenant’s face.

“You done good,” he said as he grabbed the first strap and connected it to the hook on the tow hitch and started running with the others toward the trees. Ryker ran up to the tailgate. He stopped for a moment.

“How’s she doing?”

“Better. The fever’s come down a bit.”

“Good.”

He ran to get into the driver’s seat. Brax closed the compartment, then spread out the tarp and pulled Jenny back into a prone position. She was out cold again, and she was shivering.

Dammit!

He took her temperature. It had gone back up to one-hundred and three.

“Start moving, Ryker. Slowly,” Kostya commanded over the comm.

Brax shifted Jenny so she was sitting up, then cupped her cheek. “Jenny. I need you to wake up.”

Her eyelashes fluttered. Her long eyelashes.

He bent closer. “Jenny, honey. You need to wake up and drink some water.”

“Don’t wanna,” she slurred.

Good enough. He put the water bottle to her mouth and poured a trickle in. She shook her head and opened her eyes.

“I said no.” She was still slurring her words, but she said them with more force.

“You don’t have a choice. You want to get better, don’t you? You want to beat those bastards and show them how tough you are. Drink the water and get well.”

Her green eyes were glassy, but they still assessed him.

“Fine.”

He slowly tipped the bottle, and she took sip after sip until she gagged and turned her head away. “Enough.”

Her gagging precipitated a bout of coughing. It was a long one. She hadn’t coughed for at least fifteen minutes. He saw her tears as her weak arm slid slowly up to cradle her ribs. Brax carefully rolled her over so that she could rid herself of the sputum. When she was done, she tried to turn back, and he helped her.

“I hate this so much. It hurts, and I hate that you’re seeing me like this.”

“Do you know how many recruits I’ve had to clean up after they’ve puked during BUD/S? Do you know how many times we’ve been in a jungle like this one and one or two of us are almost incapacitated with the shits? Jenny, you having to spit up some gunk from your lungs is a walk in the park.”

“BUD/S?”

Good, she was tracking with him. That meant she was better, right?

“BUD/S stands for Basic Underwater Demolition SEALs. It’s the training every recruit has to go through to become a SEAL. In my class, only a quarter of us made it through.”

She looked at him with that glassy-eyed stare, and he thought he lost her.

“Why did so many quit?” she finally asked.

The SUV suddenly jerked and she let out a quick scream.

“It’s okay,” Ryker said from the front seat. “We just started pulling some trees out of the way. Everything’s good. I want to hear more about BUD/S. And shame on you for not using the term diarrhea. You’re going to go to hell for talking crass around a lady.”

Jenny giggled.

“Ryker, mind your own business and concentrate on driving,” Brax groused. He turned his attention to the woman in his arms. “Do you still?—"

He was interrupted by another bout of her coughing. This seemed even worse than the last one. He felt so helpless. At least with some kind of injury, he could do something.

Bullshit.

Brax thought about how Nolan must be feeling in the van with Jase. Jase, who had lost so much blood that he needed two transfusions and the bullet had hit his femur. Brax’s gut clenched. What was his teammate going to do if he ended up permanently injured?

Stop it!

One bite of the elephant at a time.

One step at a time.

He helped Jenny roll over so she could spit up in the towel. He did more percussion on her back to help her get up even more mucus. He kept the taps against the side where her ribs weren’t either broken or bruised. Finally, she stopped. He looked down and saw blood on the towel. As he rolled her over, blood had dripped from her nose, over her mouth, and down her chin. He spoke into his mic.

“Nolan, she has a bloody nose again.”

“Brax, I don’t know what to tell you. Put a cold cloth at the bridge of her nose; that will help stop the bleed. With everything else, she can’t afford to be losing blood. What’s her temp?”

Brax looked around and found the thermometer. “Same as last time. One-oh-three point six.”

“Wash her down with cold water again.”

Brax closed his eyes for a moment. “Will do.”

He felt the SUV strain as it pulled the tree. “How we doing, Ryker?”

“It’s not good. We’re over three and half RPM. Three RPM should be our max.”

“Kostya?” Ryker asked.

“The tree is moving. We’re pushing it out of the way as you’re moving it. It’s working. This is the biggest tree. After this one, it will be easy.”

Smart man, start with the biggest when the engine had the most power .

Brax moved and lifted the tailgate window, filling up the two water bottles he’d turned into cups. He moved back to Jenny and went back to the process of stroking the wet t-shirt over her body. Her shivering continued, but she never woke up to tell him to stop. At least that was something.

“Stop!” Kostya said firmly into the comm. “This tree is out of the way. We can move to the next.” Brax heard Ryker’s sigh of relief.

“How close?” Brax asked.

“We were at four RPM. I was afraid the tow hook might have sheared off,” Ryker answered. He started backing up so that they could play the game again. Brax played the same game and wiped Jenny down. This time she did wake up, but she didn’t plead for him to stop. He saw her close her lips so tight that they were rimmed with white.

“Almost done,” he promised her.

She nodded, finally letting her teeth chatter, but still no words.

“Jenny, you with me?”

The truck jerked again.

“Kostya, how many trees?” he demanded to know.

“Just three. We’re hoping when they’re moved the water will disperse.”

“How high is the water?”

“Don’t ask,” Kostya responded.

Fuck.

Stop it, Walker. Focus on the good. Nolan’s got Jase stable. Jenny’s fever has never exceeded one-oh-three point six and we’d found tow straps.

He looked down at Jenny. Her eyes were shut tight. “Jenny, you with me?”

She gave one sharp nod.

“Not good enough. I need to see those pretty green eyes.”

“She has green eyes? Damn, I love a woman with green eyes,” Ryker said from the front seat.

“Cut it out, or I’ll tell Amy you were flirting with another woman,” Brax called back.

Jenny opened one eye and her lip twitched.

She was here with him. He took the thermometer out and slid it across her forehead. One-oh-two point eight. He grinned. Definitely down. It was either the antibiotics working or the cold wipe-downs. He didn’t give a damn what it was, just so long as it was working.

“Ryker, you can stop,” Kostya said over the comm. “We’re onto the last tree. Water’s already dispersing. This is working.”

Brax felt his shoulders relax. “Gideon, what’s the ETA to Chattogram?”

“You mean Chattanooga?” Jase’s voice came over the comm. Brax could barely hear him.

“Nolan, is he delirious?” Brax asked.

“Nah,” Nolan said. “He’s attempting to be funny. As usual, he’s falling flat.”

“Am not,” Jase slurred. “Already flat… Can’t fall.”

Every single man on the team started chuckling with relief. It was clear that all of them had been scared to death about Jase.

Smiling, Brax looked down at Jenny and saw that her nose was bleeding again.