Colt was on the sand, Lucas over him, giving him mouth-to-mouth. Orion dropped to do compressions.

Colt’s entire body jerked with the force of them.

Please don’t crack his ribs. But Orion had been a pararescue trooper. He knew how to keep people alive.

In the distance, a siren whined.

A hand slipped into hers. Held. Noemi.

Tae stood there, wordless, as the guys started shouting at Colt.

“C’mon, bro.” Dodge stood over him. “Breathe!”

Ranger had walked away and stared at the dark wall of night that pressed in from the ocean.

“C’mon, Colt.” Ham hit his knees, grabbed his wrist, feeling for a pulse. “Not this way.”

“Not this way.”

Oh . . . no . . .

“Not this way.”

Noemi squeezed her hand.

Shouts and flashing lights—the EMTs had arrived.

Lucas and Orion kept working.

Don’t give up!

Tae stood there dumbly as two EMTs got out, as they handed Lucas a mechanism to administer bagged air. Then they patched Colt.

“Clear,” said the one, and Orion leaned away.

They sent a shock into Colt’s chest.

Nothing on the monitor.

She pressed a hand to her mouth.

“Again.”

Her eyes filmed as his body jerked.

“We have a v-tach rhythm.”

She thought the voice might belong to Lucas.

“Resume CPR,” said one of the EMTs, and Orion again began to pump as Lucas continued to squeeze the oxygen bag.

They got Colt onto a board, and then all the guys carried him up the sand, Orion still doing his work. They put him in the back of the ambulance. Closed the door.

And then she just stood there as the ambulance left her and his team in the parking lot, listening to Pete’s sad truth in her heart. “It’s not without costs.”

The darkness folded in around him.

Colt tasted the sweat running down his face, felt the terrible beat of his heart, and deep inside, he knew that he should wake up. Could wake up, if he wanted.

But the memory took him deep, swallowed him whole, and suddenly he was tucked into the grimy knot of a savanna woodland, overlooking the jihadist camp.

And it was happening all over again.

Around him, insects buzzed, the scent of a dung fire stank the air, and under his black BDUs, camo grease, and body armor, everything itched. He had burrowed under a tall Borassus tree, dug in, and waited for the go from his team lead. He was probably alerting every animal lying in wait by his smell, including a lion he’d heard roar in the darkness.

Still, the adrenaline, the buzz of these moments reminded him of stalking the bear, so long ago. The heat in his veins before the battle.