Net Force--Kill Chain by Jerome Preisler (e book reader txt) 📕

were all enlarged and bent out of shape. She guessed at least three were broken.

She inhaled. The awl handle was flush against his skin. The spike protruding on the other side was slick with blood. She thought that might lubricate it and actually make getting it out a little easier.

She gripped the handle. He shivered again. She heard his sharp intake of breath.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

He nodded.

Natasha held his wrist steady with one hand and pulled out the awl. He shuddered and let out a long, low sound of pain through his clenched teeth. The shaft slid up through his palm and then exited below his knuckles.

Blood spurted onto Natasha’s sleeve. The puncture wound was roughly the size of a dime and welling up with red. She tossed the awl aside and reached for an antiseptic wipe.

Bryan shuddered again as she cleaned the lips of the wound. More blood rose up from it.

She uncapped the ointment, squeezed some onto a gauze pad, and wadded the gauze into the wound. It instantly soaked through with blood.

She glanced at his face, saw that it had beaded up with sweat.

“Stay with me, OK?” she said.

He nodded. Natasha could see his jaw muscles work as he bit down hard on the twig.

She got another pad and covered the wound. Then she reached into her kit for the gauze wrap and tape and dressed it, trying to avoid jostling his broken fingers.

“We’re almost there,” she said, and took the sling bandage out of its clear plastic pack. “This’ll keep it raised and slow the bleeding.”

Another nod. Natasha scanned the instruction diagram on the pack and got started wrapping the sling around his back, chest, and shoulder. Bryan shivered a couple of times but not as hard as before. When she’d put the arm in place and fastened the sling with safety pins, she sat back a moment on her haunches and took another long, deep breath.

“You alive?” she asked.

“Aliiiife.”

She smiled. He was still clamping the twig between his teeth.

“You can stop biting down on it,” she said.

He nodded and pulled it out of his mouth.

“So how’d it taste?” she said.

He gave a small, weak shrug.

“Like twig,” he said.

Natasha’s smile suddenly grew larger. She reached for the painkillers.

“Take these,” she said. “Then we’d better hurry out of here.”

Chapter Eleven

Chacagua Island

April 15, 2024

They were barely a quarter mile east of the tent when Bryan almost went sprawling onto his face. Beside him with the Mag, Natasha quickly shot her arm out in front of his waist, grabbing his left elbow with her free hand.

He steadied himself as they halted in the rain. She’d kept the flash on its lowest, narrowest setting, aiming at the ground so he would see any obstacles in their path. But he had already stumbled more than once, and his bandage was soaked with blood. She could tell he was fading fast.

“How’s the hand?” she asked.

Bryan gave her a vague look. He couldn’t hear her. The booming gusts had drowned out her words.

She moved up closer to him.

“Your hand!” she repeated, loudly. “Does it hurt a lot?”

He moistened his lips. “Not much,” he said.

Natasha reached into her coat for another packet of Tylenol, tore it open, and gave him the tablets.

“You’re a shitty liar,” she said. “Here, take two more. It won’t kill you.”

He popped them into his mouth, and she passed him her water bottle. The sleet had stopped, and the temperature had inched up a few degrees. But overall the weather had gotten worse. She could feel the wind rapidly gaining strength, blasting the island in violent crosscurrents, tossing heavy dollops of rain through the air.

“Can you make the beach?” she said. “Truth, Bry.”

He nodded.

“I can make it,” he said. “But it’s like I told you before, Tasha. I can’t paddle.”

She looked at him. “Listen. We can’t stay on the island. The guy at the creek. Ball Cap. I hit him hard. But I don’t know what happened to him. He could be back on our trail. And there’s still his evil twin.”

“We could hide until morning.”

“No. They’ll find us. One or the other. Maybe both of them.”

“Then, what do we do?”

“We get out onto the bay. Out of jamming range. So we can send out an SOS. That’s our best shot.”

“The water’s dangerous,” he said. “If something happens, I—I can’t help you.”

Natasha had heard his voice tighten. She took another step toward him, so they were standing barely two inches apart.

“Things are what they are,” she said. “I’m glad you’re with me. That’s help enough.”

He stood there with his hair blowing and wet, rain on his forehead, his eyelids, his face. His bandage was dripping, and it wasn’t all rain. Natasha knew they couldn’t wait any longer. He was losing too much blood.

“All right,” she said after a moment. “We doing this?”

Bryan nodded.

“Together,” he said.

Tai lifted his gun bag from under the controls and set it across his helm seat. The running lights were off. The Big Dipper’s pilot house was mostly dark, illuminated only by the faint glow of its overhead navigation screen and a few panel readout lights. He had cut his engine and dropped anchor and was rocking and swaying on the heave and hurl of the current.

Rain hammered on the cabin roof as if all the clouds in the heavens were emptying over the bay at once. And the storm had not yet peaked. Not even close. A bomb cyclone. A storm surge. He’d picked up the NOAA alerts with his onboard. It was dangerous to stay on the water much longer. Soon he would have to get clear of it. Get the job done and get out.

Opening the bag, he took out his rifle for a quick inspection. It was the best way to calm his mind. He had to block out everything unrelated to his preparations. The storm, Kai, everything.

He’d seen what happened to his brother. What the Mori girl did to him. Their neurolink had ensured that