Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

Harry wasn't sure if it was the lack of air in the room or his punctured lung that made it so hard to breathe.

He was sweating, hot and cold, and could barely keep his eyes open.

He longed for sleep, but the idea of falling asleep now and not waking up scared the shit out of him. He'd seen a lot of death. His entire adult life had been a war game of kill or be killed. He'd taken more lives than he could remember.

It shouldn't have scared him to know it was his turn. After all, there could be worse ways to go...

But he didn't want to die.

Not like this.

Not without Asher.

Without seeing his face one last time.

He tried to regulate his breathing, slow and steady, minimal use of oxygen. Not that it mattered. Lucas was panting, rattling.

He couldn't fight his eyelids any longer.

Harry woke with a start, realising it was Lucas's cough that startled him awake. A wheezing rattle that surely meant Lucas's end was near.

Harry reached out for Lucas's hand. It was cold and unmoving at his touch. Jesus. Were his fingers broken? Fucking hell.

"I'm here," Harry whispered.

No one should die alone.

Harry couldn't join the dots between MI6 Lucas—who had lied to them and was probably half the reason they were in this mess—with the Lucas who had welcomed them into his home. Fed him, laughed with him, cared for Asher when he'd been kidnapped in Oman, helped them escape. Harry had seen the way Lucas looked at Yunho with nothing but love in his eyes. So pure it had made Harry blush.

How were these two Lucases one and the same?

Harry didn't know.

But he had considered Lucas a trusted friend. So it was that Lucas's hand he held as he sat there in the dark, his back to the cold concrete wall. He closed his eyes and listened to Lucas's breaths get weaker, further apart, slower.

Waiting for the silence to engulf them.

Harry stirred to find himself slumped to the side. Pain radiated through his neck as he tried to straighten up, through his whole fucking body. He was dazed, unsure if it was the lack of water or oxygen that would win the fight to take him out.

He couldn't hear Lucas breathing anymore.

He couldn't hear anything.

He thought he heard yelling and banging, but he was sure his mind was playing tricks. Everything was muted, far away. Even his thoughts.

His pain was still close though. Nestled in his chest, in his bones.

He could smell that acrid metal sulphur smell again. The same rank odour he'd noticed when he'd first come to.

God, his mind was really going.

He'd read once, a long time ago, that some people experienced aromas from distant memories as they succumbed to death. Things like sunshine or cut grass, or jasmine from a garden they'd grown up in.

Nice things.

He longed to smell Asher. Sandalwood from those terrible incense sticks, or spices from his delicious cooking. Or the smell of his sweat on his skin, lazing in their bed after a summer afternoon of fucking.

But no.

All Harry had was acrid burned oxide, and bright orange sparks dancing across the floor.

Harry could barely open his eyes. He couldn't move. Slumped on his side against the wall.

But there was light.

And boots coming into the room.

He tasted fresh air, even though his lungs couldn't inhale at first. His eyes unable to focus. He felt so unbearably heavy.

"We got them," a booming voice said.

Australian.

Then a face was in front of him. Black combat gear, the static of a radio was close by. "Can you hear me? Sir, can you hear me?"

Harry could hear, kind of. He just couldn't speak.

The man spoke into the radio at his shoulder. "We need a medic, stat. Repeat, we need a medic team in here."

Then there was a water canteen at his lips, pouring a few drops into his mouth. "Drink this," another voice said, accent English.

It registered then what was happening, that this was real, and Harry tried to sit up. Pain stabbed through him everywhere.

A black gloved hand pressed on his chest. "Stay there. Try and stay still."

"Asher," Harry bit out.

The door was open, he realised. Of course it was.

Why was his mind so foggy?

"Asher," he said again.

The man's eyes flinched, just as more men rushed into the room. They had medic packs. Harry realised far too late that there were two men kneeling over Lucas. One medic came to Harry, the other to Lucas.

"He needs help," Harry said.

The medic closest to Harry assessed him, worried eyes looking him over. "Yeah, mate. He's not the only one. Jesus Christ." Then he shoved an oxygen mask over Harry's mouth and nose and quickly rigged up a field IV. Saline, most likely.

Harry wouldn't have minded if it were morphine .

"We need to look at the abdominal stab wound," the medic murmured.

"Just cauterise it," Harry mumbled. "It'll be fine. I need to find Asher."

The medic looked kinda horrified but not altogether too surprised.

"We'll find him," the Australian voice said, patting Harry's leg. Harry hissed, looking down at his legs. He had patches of red and knife holes in the fabric, at his thighs, calves, and shins.

Fuck.

No wonder he hurt all over.

He remembered that sick fuck Radovic jabbing him like a fucking pin cushion. Maybe a knife block was more apt.

Now that there was light in the room, he could see he had blood over most of his body.

"We got a punctured lung here," the medic said.

"We've got two here," the other medic said, working on Lucas. Harry's gaze drew over to where Lucas was. He couldn't see much with the people crowded around him. Just his feet. And with the light coming into the room, Harry could see they were red with blood and dark purple.

They lifted Lucas onto a stretcher, carrying him out of the room, leaving a Lucas-shaped pool of dark blood, congealed and dried at the edges on the floor.

Jesus fucking Christ.

What had they done to him?

Then there were more men in front of Harry. The first man's face was back. "We need to get you up and out of here, sir."

"Need to find Asher," Harry agreed, trying to push himself up .

"He's not here," the guy said.

Harry's eyes met his. "Then I need to leave," Harry bit out, pushing himself up with more determination this time.

Then he had a man on either side of him, helping him. Harry wanted to shake them off, declare loudly he didn't need no help. But when he almost fell face first, his knee crumpling under his weight, the two men at his side held him up.

They ambled him out of the room, the medic alongside him, still holding the IV.

The air was cleaner out here, breathing easier. He'd never been more grateful for air. But he hurt. My god, how he hurt, every-fucking-where.

They got him up the stairs into the warehouse. Harry barely remembering them coming here. But the Jeep they'd driven was still parked by the large doors.

This place had been crawling with soldiers in army fatigues before...

And now... now there were different soldiers, dressed in black combat gear. Different helicopters. Wildcats.

Different accents.

Australian. English.

As they all but carried Harry a few metres from the stairs, one of the helicopter's rotors whirred to life in a familiar thumping sound but before it took off, a man came in to stop right in front of him.

He was tall, almost as tall as Harry but not as broad. He wore all black, from his helmet and face guard down to his boots. He had a EF88 strapped to his chest, his finger on the trigger guard. Harry could only see his eyes, nothing else. They were blue-grey, hard at first, then flickered with brief softness before hardening again .

"Harry Harrigan," he said. "It's an honour to meet you."

Accent Australian.

"He needs to be on the next chopper to a hospital," the medic said. Harry shot him a glare, but he glared right back, undeterred. Brave, for a medic. "You need medical?—"

Harry growled, wrestling out of the hold of the two men who'd helped him up the stairs. "What I need is to find Asher," Harry bit out. "And I need to know what the fuck's going on. What division are you?" He asked grey eyes. "And what the fuck are you doing here?"

Grey eyes stared at him, unblinking for a long second. "My name's Captain," he said. No names, and Harry understood that. He'd been lucky to get a rank. "And we are the Milvus Division."