Obsession and Desire: SKULL Book One

Back To Base

    “Yeah…” She pulled some tweezers out of the first aid kit and carefully put them into the bullet hole. She pulled them out complete with the bullet. Damien dropped his head back. “Damien? Now what?” she asked. 

    “Put some of that clotting agent power into the hole. “Then apply the pressure bandage. But first… slowly release that tourniquet. If it starts to bleed out, leave me behind.” He stared up at the sun.

    “Shut up, you! No f*****g way, Sergeant Damien Shea! You don’t get to go out like that!” She did however loosen the tourniquet and thankfully there was no rush of blood from the femoral artery. She did all he asked and then grabbed the stuff and shoved it back into the backpack. 

    “You’re holding that, and here,” she gave him several guns, “you’re riding shotgun.” She jumped down, shutting the tailgate and climbed back into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition on. She floored it across the scrub.

    “Gabs, don’t forget I’m back here! Slow down!” Damien bellowed to be heard.

    “You need a doctor,” she yelled back. She got back onto the dusty road and had a gun slung across her shoulder ready in case they came across anyone. She didn't have a clue where they were or where she was going she just drove. Up in front she could see a dust cloud coming towards them.

     It stopped and she saw the men jump out the back of the vehicle and then start doing something to the side of the road. She could see a helicopter in the far off distance. She knew she just needed to get their attention as it looked like a military friendly. “Damien, look in front!” Gabrielle said. Damien twisted around as far as he could. 

    “The sneaky fuckers are planting an IED, we need to stop them, Gabs!”

    “Damien, we can’t, not on our own. They outnumber us” 

    “f**k! I hate it when you’re right,” Damien grumbled.

    “Oh crap!” Gabrielle gasped. “Damien, that look like a friendly convoy to you?” 

    He looked through a scope on one of the guns they had acquired from the last lot of terrorists they took down. “Sure is, honey, we’ve gotta warn them…”

    “But how… hang on, what about it we set the IED off?” she asked

    “Great f*****g idea, Gabs, let’s blow ourselves up...” he mocked her.

    “I meant blow this truck up, asshole! We could put a rock against the accelerator and one of those shot guns in the steering wheel to keep it steady. Bound to get friendly attention if they see a massive explosion happen.”

    “Yeah, suppose that could work...” he groused. Why  the f**k hadn’t I thought of that idea?

    “Come on. You’re gonna have to get off your back and walk!” She grabbed the guns she could carry and put the rucksack on her back silently screaming as a blister exploded under the pressure and under the seran wrap.  She helped Damien off the truck and sat him in a dry ditch out of sight. She picked up the biggest rock she could carry and put it on the floor of the truck. She placed the gun in the gap of the steering wheel and lined the truck up. When she jumped off the truck. She landed on the ground and the sound of her boots hitting the gravel made one of the insurgents look towards her. She eyeballed the guy. She  ran back to the ditch to and took cover with Damien. 

    As the truck sped towards the group of men, they started to fire indiscriminately at it. As it closed in on them they started to run away from the out of control vehicle. It hit the pressure plate of the IED and flew up in the air with the force of the explosion. The bomb went off and Gabrielle threw herself over Damien. A secondary explosion happened when the gas tank ignited. A mushroom of smoke and flames rose high in the sky. The remaining insurgents started to run in all directions as a helicopter flew in at speed and covered the area in a mini tornado of sand. 

    “Damien, you ok?” Gabrielle signed to Damien

    “Could be better!” he yelled.

    They heard vehicles moving and Gabrielle looked up to see the convoy had stopped the other side of the explosion. 

    A message came over a loudspeaker. “Come out with your hands up. We will not fire unless your hands are not in the air!” 

    “Damien, we need to get you up, we need to get you out of here!” She struggled to get him standing. He was so tall compared to her petite frame. She was small but she was mighty. “Lean onto me,” She put her arm around him to steady him and she walked up the bank and onto the road. The smoke was starting to clear.  “Come on, Damien, nearly home,” she encouraged.

    “Gabbie.. Damien?” Staff Sergeant Jace Corvino shouted over the noise.

    She struggled through the other side of the smoke and Jace started running towards her.

    “Ja-“ Damien started to yell and he collapsed to the floor. Gabrielle was pulled with him and she ended up on her knees beside him, his head in her lap. 

    “Jace! Medical Helo E-Vac! Urgent!” she screamed

    Jace radioed it through and the helicopter turned around in the distance and banked back in their direction.

    “He’s been hit near..” she started as Jace approached them. 

    “Gabrielle, are you hurt?” Jace said calmly. 

    She slipped her legs from under her and sat on her butt. Tears forming and ready to spill down her cheeks. Finally, this nightmare is over.

    “Gabbie you’re safe...” he put his arm around her as two USMC medics ran from the helicopter. “Tell them what you know about his injury and you’re going, too” Jace insisted. 

    She calmed herself. “This is Sergeant Damien Shea. O neg blood, shot in the right thigh approx 3 hours ago. Bullet extracted on site. Area washed and had a clotting agent pushed in before bandaging.” 

    “Very thorough…” The medic looked at her.

    “Corporal Gabrielle Armijo” she said.

    “Are you injured?” he asked.

    “I’ve got burns on my shoulder and neck from sun exposure not of the recreational kind.”

    The medic got on his radio and he looked up at her. By this point his colleague was stabilizing Damien and he already got him into a scoop stretcher. Jace helped some other medics to carry him to the helicopter.

    “Come on ma’am, let’s get you both to the base to be looked at.”

    “See you later, Gabbie, keep him out of trouble.” Jace called as the medic helped her into the helicopter. He handed her a headset to put on and Damien was loaded in beside her and strapped down. 

    Damien was starting to come around. She instinctively picked his hand up and held onto it. Her thumb rubbing over his knuckles the same way he had done to hers when they were shackled together.  “Come on, Coyote” she said over the headset microphone. Damien also had a headset on. “Don’t punk out on me yet, we’re supposed to have drinks, remember?”

    Damien remembered dragging himself up the bank onto the road and leaning on Gabrielle. Remembered seeing a glimpse of Jace before everything went blank. He could hear things around him. Heard the medics start examining him. Heard Gabrielle telling them all the vital information. Oh Gabs, you’ve remembered everything. You did a perfect medical handover, baby, he mused. His eyes wouldn’t open though. His limbs weren’t moving. He was fighting all he could. He concentrated on listening to Gabbie’s voice. Not...going...to...leave…

    Gabrielle started talking to him directly. “Don’t punk out on me yet, we’re supposed to have drinks, remember?”” 

    He felt her hold his hand in hers. The softness of her skin. He felt her lips on the back of his hand. He felt the shudder of the helicopter as it landed. The rotor noise becoming quiet. Then he was whisked away. Away from his Gabrielle. He suddenly felt movement and feeling in his arms and uninjured leg. I need to get up, I need to talk to Gabs. 

    “Sergeant Shea, do you know where you are?” a doctor asked. 

    “Yeah, I need Gabrielle, He started to kick and get off the stretcher. “Gabs!” he hollered.

    “Someone administer ketamine, please.” 

    “Ma’am, you can’t be here,” a nurse said, trying to move someone.

    “I’m Gabs,” he heard her say. “Corporal Gabrielle Armijo.”

    “Doctor Jackson, maybe let him speak to the Corporal and he’ll calm down?” 

    The doctor nodded and Gabrielle went to his bedside. 

    “Damien, please the doctors are here to help. Let them do their jobs. I’ll still be here when you come round.” 

    He reached out and his fingers brushed her cheek as he was wheeled off to theatre for emergency vascular surgery on his leg. 

    “Ma’am, let’s see what we can do for you...” a nurse smiled.

    Gabrielle was severely dehydrated and sunburnt. Her neck had 2nd degree burns and the doctors had said if she hadn’t have been found when she was she wouldn’t have lasted another 24 hours out in the elements. They put her on drips and slowly infused the minerals and salts she had lost back into her. They redressed the burns and applied natural healing ointments to it  to heal quickly. 

    Damien ended up being rushed in to have vascular surgery in his leg to repair a slight nick in his artery. The surgeons told him another 2mm to the left and he would have bled out in under a minute. They patched him up and ordered him to be on intravenous fluids to replace minerals and salts lost and there was also a strong antibiotic in his IV to fend off any potential infection as nothing had been sterilised out in the field when extracting the bullet. He kept asking the nurses when he could go visit his partner who came in with him. In the end the nurse said she would go and speak to the doctor.

    They both recovered, with Damien being discharged with honors and a Purple Heart. Gabrielle served three more months before also being discharged and her own Purple Heart.