“C-cold.” She turned her face upward, her head so heavy she could barely manage the feat.
He all but pushed Cole out of the way and took P.J. into his own arms, lowering her to the floor.
“Get me something to wrap around her,” he ordered.
“What about the cuts?” Cole asked hoarsely.
P.J. struggled not to succumb to the blackness surrounding her. “Where’s Nelson? Did you get the bastard?”
She’d never forget the look on Donovan’s face as long as she lived. It was full of regret, rage and guilt.
“He escaped. He had a car parked behind the house, and our first priority is you. We’ll find him, P.J. I swear to you we’ll make that son of a bitch pay.”
She closed her eyes, tears leaking down her cheeks in hot trails.
“We’ll get you to the hospital,” Donovan said. “You won’t hurt much longer.”
He was wrong. So very wrong. She couldn’t imagine ever not hurting. Some hurts were so deep, beneath the skin. Soul deep.
“Not here. Take me home. He owns this city. I don’t trust anyone here. Just take me home and find those girls.”
Cole leaned down as Donovan carefully arranged a blanket over her body. He smoothed her hair back and kissed her brow. “I’ll do whatever you want, P.J. Whatever you need, baby. I swear it.”
Steele knelt and framed her face in his strong hands. His blue eyes bore into her with burning intensity.
“We’ll get the girls, P.J. But right now we’re going to take care of you.”
She nodded weakly and closed her eyes, welcoming the yawning abyss where she floated free of pain and shame.
CHAPTER 12
THEY bundled P.J. into the back of the van, and Baker hopped into the driver’s seat while Cole and Donovan took positions by P.J.
Cole managed to pry the knife from her fingers without her protest this time, but he pocketed it because she’d been adamant about keeping it. Then he closed his hand around hers, unwilling to let her think even for a moment that he wasn’t right here, by her side. That her entire team wasn’t surrounding her.
“What do you think, Van?” Cole asked, trying to control the anxiety in his voice. “That bastard cut her up pretty bad. She’s lost a lot of blood, not to mention that he . . .”
He closed his eyes and looked away, unable to say the word rape. The bastards had raped her. They’d put their hands on her. They’d brutalized her. And he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it.
“I want to get her to the airfield,” Donovan said grimly. “The sooner we get her loaded and take off, the better. I’ll work on her while we’re in the air.”
“What about Sunday? What about those girls?”
“As soon as P.J. is stable, I’m putting a call in to Sam. He’ll have to call in Rio and his team. They’ll have to be briefed so they know what they’re up against.”
“I want those bastards,” Cole said through gritted teeth.
Donovan leveled a stare at him as they raced down the highway. “Make a choice, Cole. I won’t stop you. But you have to choose. You going to stay with P.J. or are you going in with the others?”
Put that way, it wasn’t even a choice. He belonged at P.J.’s side. He’d never want her to feel like her team had abandoned her. He didn’t want her to think he’d abandoned her.
Rio and Sam would exact justice. P.J. needed him.
“I’m not leaving her,” Cole said.
From the seat just in front of them, Dolphin and Steele leaned over the top, closely monitoring the conversation.
“None of us are leaving her,” Steele said tightly.
“Hell no,” Dolphin muttered.
“We live as a team and we die as a team,” Steele said. “I want to go kick the living shit out of those ass**les too, but P.J. needs us more than we need revenge. We’ll leave it to others in KGI to get justice for one of our own.”
Donovan barked up to Baker, “ETA?”
“Two minutes. Pilot is on standby.”
On time, the van pulled onto the dirt road to the airstrip on the periphery of the city. It was a regional airport, mostly used for cargo, and wasn’t a hub for passengers.
The plane was parked at an angle, ready to roll onto the runway. Baker roared onto the paved tarmac and slammed on the brakes.
The team sprang into action, opening the cargo doors to the van and making sure the hatch to the jet was open.
Donovan started to reach for P.J., but Cole brushed him off and gently gathered her in his arms, careful to keep the blanket around her to shield her nudity.
He hurried to the plane, carrying her up the three steps into the cabin.
“Bring her to the back and lay her on the couch,” Donovan said. “I’ll get my med pack, give her something for pain and then see what I can do to suture the cuts until we get her to a hospital. Tell the pilot to get us off the ground.”
To Steele, he gave a terse order. “Get on the horn with Sam and fill him in. Rio and his team need to be here in twenty-four hours and in position to intercept the shipment of girls.”
Cole bore his precious burden to the back of the plane and gently arranged her on the sofa so that she was shielded from the view of others.
The slashes to her body were horrifying. Two were deep and the flesh lay raggedly open. One carved a path down her midline between her br**sts. There were two just underneath her br**sts and one across her flat, muscled belly. And another two on the insides of her thighs.