Balken and his men fooled everyone, pretending to scatter around without direction. But they knew their ground. They let the Tacs push them into the woods and then retreated to the east, to converge at the same spot of the hill: a crest on the northern slope, with what looked like a bear cave at its foot.
Despite Gillian's warning to keep the hill out of the fighting ground, the Tacs swarmed after Balken's men, their raging adrenaline keeping their fingers on the trigger. Soon the fallen tree where Gillian had found Brock, and all that part of the hill, was plain war zone.
The helicopter had taken Russell to a hospital in Caribou and was back for Brock, but there was no safe way to extract him now. So it waited at the compound's yard, the paramedics ready to work as soon as it didn't mean crossing the line of fire.
Ron, Fred and Hank stayed with Gillian to keep that spot secured, while Tacs and militia played World War IV all around.
In the middle of the heavy fire, the shouts and even grenade explosions, Brock fell in an uneasy slumber against the tree. He leaned in slowly, his head down to his chest, and it caused him more trouble to breathe. So Gillian slid her arm between his back and the tree, and guided him gently to rest against her side.
Ron, crouched by the fallen trunk only a step away from them, narrowed his eyes at the way Brock sank his swollen face in the gap of her neck and stayed there, very still.
Gillian retrieved the folded blanket he'd used as a pillow and handed it to Ron. The night kept growing colder, and she knew one blanket wasn't enough to keep Brock warm.
Ron helped her to wrap it around Brock. "Need a room?"
"Shut up, Fifty Shades."
"That was low, even for you."
Gillian managed to slip her leg behind Brock and rest her back against the tree. That way, she made him rest his side on her chest, and put her arms around him. To keep the blankets in place, of course.
Ron trailed off on his turn to tease her when she rested her cheek on Brock's hair. Not a scene to joke about. So he looked away, into the woods.
Gillian made sure the IV bag wouldn't slip, then she put a hand to Brock's head and left it there, as if to cover him. "Hang on, sir," she murmured. "Just a little longer." He let out a shaky sigh at his words, as if he had actually understood her, which made her hold him tighter. "I know everything hurts like hell. But you just hang on. Promise it'll be okay, and you'll be fine."
An hour later, everybody had figured out that the hole under the northern crest was no bear cave, but some sort of shelter with an armory included, because Balken's boys seemed pretty comfy up there, with an endless supply of ammo and an amazing variety of weapons for a bunch of outlaws on the run.
By then, Gillian no longer felt her arms and legs, her back was a detailed map of every little bulge on the tree trunk, and her butt was a cold flat stone. But she still held Brock, with no intention of letting go.
Until her cheek touched his forehead and felt it hot, covered in sweat. She touched his back under the blankets, and one of his hands. Brock burned in fever.
Ron had traded places with Hank, to allow him to sit down for a while. So Gillian stretched her leg to touch him with her foot. "He's burning, Hank!" she whispered.
Hank hurried to her side. "Did you find any open wounds, other than his face and hands?"
"His knees, but I cleaned them. You're thinking an infection?"
Fred's voice startled them. "Incoming!"
Gillian turned as much as she could to cover Brock with her body, as Hank bent to cover them both. She heard shouts and shots a few yards up from where they were. Fred and Ron stepped back, still shooting. A man yelled an order nearby, followed by noises of running and fighting in the bushes.
"Got'im!" another voice said.
She waited until it was quiet again. Her arms still tight around Brock, she looked up with a determined scowl. "Enough of this shit. We need to get'im outta here. Fred, you stay with me. Ron, Hank, you clean our way down the hill and go fetch the medics. If they don't dare to come, bring what we need to take him to them."
Fred took Hank's place by her as the other two hurried away.
Gillian tilted her head against Brock's and felt him shiver. Once again, her eyes got full of tears, out of fear and impotence. She wished so bad there was something more she could do for him, because holding him was so not enough. She knew his life hung by a thread, and as he quivered in her arms, it was like feeling him die a little with every troubled breath. But there was nothing she could do. Her feelings couldn't make the fight stop, nor keep him safe, nor take his pain away.
"Don't you dare die on me, you hear me?" she muttered, her lips brushing his fevered skin. "Please, don't."
Only fifteen minutes later, Ron called on the radio to let her know they were on their way back with the only medic who dared to join them.
"Heard that, sir? We're leaving here," she murmured.
It took them another twenty minutes to reach the fallen tree, just after Fred had to shoot away two of Balken's men, who showed up out of nowhere on their way to the crest.
She was reluctant to remove her arms from around Brock, but she did it as soon as the medic reached their position. Ron and Hank helped the man to secure Brock to a stretcher, still wrapped in the blankets, and rested the IV bag on his chest. Then they hoisted the stretcher and hurried down the slope.
Fred had to help Gillian to stand up. She needed a moment to pat her numb legs and let them get some mobility back. Then she drew her Glock. So he grabbed his rifle again, and they followed the others toward the foot of the hill.
Hank had confiscated one of the militia's four-by-four pickups, and they loaded the stretcher to its back. Gillian, Fred and the medic climbed there with Brock. Ron got in by Hank and they drove away from the hill, where Tacs didn't seem able to reduce the last of the militia.
The helicopter was ready to take off. Brock was carried onboard and the medics climbed in with him. One of them turned to Gillian. "You coming?" he shouted, to be heard in the noise of the rotors.
To everybody's surprise, she shook her head. "Caribou?" she asked.
"Yes! Cary Medical!"
Fred made them step back as the helicopter took off, and they leaned forward so the wind wouldn't throw them down.
As they headed back to the command post, Gillian stayed there, alone in the cold night, until the helicopter carrying Brock was but a fading cluster of sparkling lights in the dark sky.