He was alive. Of that he was mostly certain.

His body was shocked into paralysis. But he could move his eyes. He strained them, trying to piece together what had happened.

If he’d taken a .30-cal to the shoulder, he’d be dead or missing the limb. His hand lay in view in front of his eyes. He believed it was still attached to his body. The fingers were smooth and pale, slightly curled. Concentrating with everything he had, he made them twitch.

Okay, then. Still attached.

His pupils moved to the Lapua and then to the tree beside it. A football-size bite had been taken clean out of the trunk, the raw inner wood exposed. Bits of bark swirled in the air, ignoring gravity.

The north sniper had missed him by inches, the round sending a hunk of tree shrapnel smashing through Evan’s shoulder.

Evan realized, almost secondarily, that he wasn’t breathing. His throat felt snarled, the airway knotted. His stomach lurched a few times as if in anticipation of puking, and then his rib cage released and he drew in oxygen, a primordial sucking sound as though someone had punched holes straight through his lungs. For a time he gasped into the pine needles.

Blood spread out beneath him, sticky on his neck. The warmth reached his cheek. If he didn’t stanch the bleeding—and fast—then this off-kilter view of the forest floor would be his final screen grab before he powered down.

Somehow he sat up, though he might have blacked out once or twice doing it. He found himself gaping down at his torn coat and the ball of his right shoulder, a scramble of pink flesh and shredded muscle. Shards of his clavicle glittered in the wreckage. Bright blood pumped through the wound at intervals, pushing rivulets down his arm and into the matted fabric. When the collarbone shattered, it must have lacerated the subclavian vein, causing a massive hemorrhage.

The damage was too close to his neck to tourniquet.

A wave of light-headedness passed through him, bringing with it the image of—

—arterial blood soaking the shoulder of the blue flannel. Jack’s hand, already wearing a glove of crimson, clamps the wound.

Evan blinked his way back to the present, lifted his left hand, and clamped it over the wound.

He forced breath into his lungs, tried to wrestle his thoughts into place through the swamp of sensations engulfing him. He’d been trained for this, to strategize under extreme stress and pain, to shield the pilot light and keep it from being snuffed out.

Candy and Orphan M were still a good ways downslope with plenty of steep terrain to make up. Since he held high ground, they’d have to move slowly, cautiously. But the north sniper could be anywhere. And he knew precisely where Evan was.