Ethan was moving before the echoes of the gunshot had even faded, ducking through the trees at a dead run. "Carter, report!"

"I'm good. The shot came from south of my position."

"I'm inbound." He hurdled a narrow dry creek bed, boots thudding deep on the far side. "Dunn, can we get a sat view?"

"I can put one on your screens, but it won't be real-time. Too rural out here for a live feed."

"Never mind then." Ethan's legs strained, propelling him up a slope beyond the creek.

When no further gunshots followed the first, Jane rose to one knee from her flattened position behind the bridge abutment. She brought up the map on her phone's screen- road, stream, bridge, her current location, all sketched in lines and dots. The blue of the stream bisected the red road-line at the bridge and traced off into a featureless area before curving back in a wide arc to roughly parallel the road. Both then led down out of the hills toward the nearest small town at the foot of the river valley.

Will wouldn't know that, Jane thought, unconsciously echoing Ethan's earlier words. But he would know that following a river often led out of wilderness, that farms and towns were often built along their banks.

Ethan's dot was in a featureless area of woods between her position and the grey line indicating DiSabatino's fence, ticking slowly east toward the road. If she followed the stream, the two of them would eventually meet, somewhere near where the gunshot had been fired.

Somewhere along Will's possible route.

Decision made, Jane tucked away her phone. "I think Will may have been following the river. I'm heading that way."

She started downstream, leaping from rock to rock along the bank. She looked for more signs Will may have preceded her, but saw no overturned stones nor footprints in the softer patches. Nor, thankfully, any blood droplets.

Ethan's voice, now slightly breathless, came over the comm. "Lot of territory to cover- we could really use a helicopter with thermal, Dunn."

"State police dispatcher is telling me that in order to differentiate between the signatures of deer and bears in the area and humans, they'd have to fly low enough that they'd be in range of the rifles the hostiles have been confirmed to be carrying. Flying above range won't give the detail needed. IMF has found us a pilot, but he's in Albuquerque. They're putting him on a jet now."

A grunt exploded softly in Jane's ear as Ethan landed heavily somewhere. "Try Fort Indiantown Gap Army base. See if they have a National Guard unit who can help us out," he said when he'd recovered his breath.

"On it."

The stream narrowed, rushing swiftly through a gap in the rocky banks; Jane slowed so she could pick her way over them without losing her footing. The water's roar filled her head, growing louder as she moved further downstream so that she almost missed Ethan's sharp exclamation. "What? Ethan?"

"I think I just tripped over the recipient of that gunshot." Ethan grunted with effort, and Jane paused, hand cupped over her comm to block the ambient noise. "Not Brandt. You both copy? It's not Brandt. Male, thirties, wearing tac gear. Sending you a picture now, Dunn." He paused. "Shot at point-blank range in the back of the head."

"That's DiSabatino's second guard," Benji confirmed. "Name's Belardo, was a part-time boxer, full-time petty criminal and wheelman for the Mannino family."

"Carter, stay sharp. I don't think Brandt took this one out- he's still wearing his rifle and I just spotted his ATV up in the brush, and Brandt could have utilized both."

Jane took a long look around the surrounding hills. "Davison?"

"Has to be. And she's not that far ahead of me. I'm going to check the area."

The rapids spilled over a short falls, emptying into a deep pool below. Jane worked her way backwards down the cliff face, easing hand-over-hand down the crumbling slabs and avoiding the edges slicked by moisture and moss. The embankment at the bottom was overgrown with brush and saplings and she hopped down the last few feet to ground that was choked with bracken.

Will would have had a hard time hiking through it, especially if he were injured. She looked across the stream. The bank there was scoured flat and bare by years of spring floods, leaving a broad, rocky shore before the woods closed in again. Easier to walk there while still providing quick access to cover. Below the pool the bottom of the stream rose to scarcely knee-deep, and Jane stepped down into the water, feeling its cold bite through her boots. She waded across and climbed out, scanning for tracks.

A heap of tall, flat stones deposited on the shoreline by some long-ago flood offered up the first real sign Will had actually passed that way. "I found cloth," Jane reported, and then amended, as she snatched up the pieces from the sun-drenched rocks, "Clothing. A shirt, socks, what looks like a long piece of bandaging." She added grimly, "They're stained- completely blood-stained- and it looks like Will tried to rinse them out. I don't know why he didn't pick them up when he moved on."

"In a hurry and maybe not thinking clearly," Ethan said between short huffs of breath. "I've gone several miles down the road and I don't see anyone- I'm turning back."

"There's a hill ahead of my position," Jane said, turning in a slow circle, the ruined shirt dangling from one hand. "If I don't see him from the top, I can try calling for him."

"Don't!" Ethan said sharply. "Davison's not following the road that I can see; she must have gone back into the woods. Don't draw her to you."

Jane lifted the shirt, a frown gathering between her eyes. The front of it had be reduced to narrow ribbons, as if some fashion-forward teen had taken a razor blade to it. Its original olive-drab color was almost completely obscured by varying shades of dark rust-brown. Even rinsed out, the stains had soaked deeply into the fibers. "If we don't find Will soon- and I mean soon- we're going to have to risk the noise. There's a lot of blood on this shirt."

"If we take out Davison, we can get Search and Rescue..." Ethan broke off with a wheeze. "... in to help," he finished. "I'm trying to locate her now from up a tree. Carter, you keep tracking Brandt. Dunn, get us everyone you can muster, holding on standby if they won't engage."

There was no sign of Will from the hilltop, but the heavy tree cover prevented Jane from seeing too deeply into the forest. She stood listening atop the ridge, straining all her senses for any sign that someone was moving through the brush ahead of her.

Nothing. The only motion was in the leaves lifted by a cooling breeze; the only sound was the muted chatter of birds and the faint rush of the falls in the distance. She turned to orient on them, then swung slowly back, following the path of the stream with her eyes. A gap in the treetops revealed where the water flowed after it disappeared in the forest; a second gap, off to the west and slightly higher, was the road. The gaps ran roughly adjacent down into valley. Jane's gut feeling told her that was the direction Will would have headed. Gut feelings and instinct had served her well in the past, not always, but often enough that she trusted it now.

She moved off, sticking to the high ground for a better vantage point. Gnats swarmed up to sting at the corners of her eyes and she swerved into deeper shade; when she broke through a screen of brush, the hills in the distance were hazed by the rising heat and humidity. Jane swiped her arm across her face and ran her hand around the neck of her t-shirt and vest, wiping off sweat.

The trees thinned and the terrain grew rocky. A stony slope plunged down toward the stream, bare except for wiry grass and a few scattered pines. Knowing she would be all-too-visible on the open hillside, Jane drew back into a thicker stand of pines and followed the ridgeline from within their cover. It was hushed beneath their dense needles, sounds muffled and the breeze stilled by closely-spaced branches. Even her footfalls were deadened by the thick carpet of shed needles.

A shiver chased down Jane's back, icy beneath the sweat pooling along the dip of her spine. She stopped; the silence was almost eerie, smothering, and the back of her neck prickled. She eased sideways to put her back to the nearest tree and raised her gun.

Nothing moved. She touched a finger to her comm to switch it off and scanned in a long, slow arc, left, along the ground and foot of the trees, and then right, across the upper branches. Even in the full daylight it was dim in the pine grove, shadows pooling between their scaly trunks and under their deep branches. Far away, a mourning dove called, a low, melancholy croon that hung in the stifling air.

Jane wasn't superstitious, but another shiver skittered down her back at the mournful tone. She shook off a sudden clench of dread and slid down the trunk to her haunches, ducking low around the tree. Branches brushed her back with a soft sibilant; she gained the next tree and paused to strain for the slightest sound.

Only the whisper of fresh needles against her vest, the minute crunch of dry needles beneath her feet. A persistent gnat buzzed in her ear. She rose to a half-crouch and darted to the next tree, then cut to another, working her way down through the pine thicket.

The ground softened under her feet as the incline fell off to a hollow, and the pines gave way to leafy trees again, maple and ash and oak. More sunshine slanted through the leaves and weeds swished softly around Jane's ankles as she advanced cautiously.

And then she stopped and crouched, ghosting her hand across the ground. A line was flattened through the grassy weeds, stems bent and stalks crushed. She tilted her head- she could see where someone had recently passed by, probably with heavy, maybe dragging, steps. She touched her comm active and was immediately assailed with urgent hails- "Carter! Carter, respond!" and Benji, louder, "Jane! Come in, Jane!"

"I'm good," she murmured, so low her lips barely moved. "Think I found a trail. Stand by."

Ahead was a lighter patch of forest, and as she moved towards it she saw it was a small glade, ringed almost completely by young, slender maple trees, their trunks silver in the sunlight filtering softly through the leaves. Another step and the ground yielded; moisture welled around her boot sole. A spring bubbled up near the roots of the farthest tree, with dozens of oblong holes pressed into the mud alongside it. The bright green grass carpeting the clearing was thick, flattened in places and shaped into shallow, rounded hollows.

"Jane?" Benji's voice prodded at her ear.

She'd found a deer rest- a place where a small herd would take refuge during daylight hours, screened in and sheltered from weather and predators alike.

"Stand by," she hissed, and stepped sideways to a gap between the trees, the wet ground sucking at her boots.

No deer lingered in the rest, but there was something else visible in the flickering sunlight- a darker shape propped against a tree on the far side of the clearing.

Jane's breath caught in her chest, a sudden sharp inhalation that made her head feel light. "I found- oh god- I found him! Brandt- he's here- "

She jerked forward, ignoring the sudden clamor in her earpiece in favor of reaching her missing teammate; and then she froze, one step past the screen of maple saplings.

He had a gun on her.

It was wavering ever-so-slightly, clamped in filthy hands that shook despite the wrists braced on an up-drawn knee, but Jane had no doubt that even impaired, William Brandt could still acquire and drill his intended target- her.

"Brandt!" she rapped out. He didn't react beyond the gun steadying a fraction, zeroing in on her head. "Agent Brandt!" she tried, and she raised her hands away from her body, fingers spread, pointing her own weapon at the sky.

His eyes looked glazed and weren't tracking her motion. The tendons in his hands tightened and Jane took a swift step back and to the side, spreading her arms wider. "Will."

He blinked, a crease furrowing his brows, and she repeated, "Will, it's Jane."

"Jane?"

"Carter. Jane Carter. You're okay now, Will." The gun was still pointed at her, but it wavered again, enough that she thought if he squeezed the trigger now he had a good chance of missing her. She tried to tune out Ethan's increasingly frantic demands- "Carter? What's happening? Carter, report!" and said calmly and clearly, "Corellia."

Will's shoulders slumped at the safe-code. His knee toppled sideways, dropping his hands to his lap as if a string holding them aloft had been cut. His throat worked. "Jane. Jesus, what... How did you...?"

"It wasn't easy." She was across the clearing in a flash, tucking her gun at her back and dropping beside him. She took his shoulders in her hands to steady him, still hyperaware of the gun resting on his thigh. She aimed her voice toward her comm. "I've got him. I've got Brandt, he's here, alive."

"Ping her location!" Ethan was saying, but she'd stopped listening. Will was pushing at her shoulder, hard, even as she tried to check him over. She braced him on the tree with one hand while the other moved to the stained, shredded fabric over his belly.

"Let me..."

"Don't..." His voice was a dry rasp, and he coughed. "Don't turn your back. Got at least one on my tail." He shoved at her again. "Don't put your back to the open, Jane."

This time she let herself be turned aside, twisting to one knee with the back of her hips pressed to the trunk. "Okay, okay, easy. Now let me see. You don't look so good." She pulled up his shirt and ran her fingers over the sliced skin of his stomach. The cuts appeared superficial, already scabbed over. They didn't account for the volume of bloodstains on his clothing. "You hit somewhere?"

Will grunted an affirmative. "Got shot in the ass."

Jane had already moved her hands down his body and found the gash torn through the side of his pants. "Lift up."

"Don't turn your back. Swing around."

"I need to see."

"Then move so I've got a clear shot."

She shifted aside and Will licked his lips, squeezing his eyes closed, then open, to focus on the trees over her shoulder. He raised his gun in a clumsy grip with his elbows clamped tight to his ribs. Jane reached over and took his right shoulder and knee and pushed, tipping him up onto his left side. "The bullet wound is on your hip."

Will huffed out a thin laugh. "Yeah, well, 'I got shot on the hip' sounds like I'm embarrassed to say I really took a bullet to the butt." He made a small, choked noise as Jane lowered him back to the ground so she could shrug the pack of supplies off her back. "This way," he continued in a strained voice, "I say right off that I got shot in the ass, everybody says, 'Oh, no, it's not nearly that humiliating- it's just your hip.'" The gun wavered again as Jane seized the edges of the tear in both hands and ripped it wider, inching up the hem of his shorts beneath. "Saves me... being defensive."

It was bad. Will's whole flank was inflamed, the path of the bullet a black-edged furrow sunk in swollen, red-streaked flesh. Jane swallowed, grateful the angle she knelt at prevented Will from seeing her expression.

She turned and dug a small bottle of antiseptic out of the pack, injecting a light tone in her voice. "Very funny, Agent Brandt. You think that'll prevent the 'Hey I hear Brandt is a badass' jokes?"

"Gonna... try..."

She poised the bottle over the raw gash in his leg. "This'll sting."

"Yeah. Go."

She poured, and winced in sympathy as he jerked, breath hissing sharply between clenched teeth. "Sorry."

"S'okay. Watch... y'r back..."

Will's head had fallen back against the tree, his eyes clamped shut. He'd let the gun drop to his stomach so he could twist up handfuls of the canvas fabric of his pants, and he was breathing in short rasps.

Jane turned on the balls of her feet, scanning the surrounding forest. She spoke into her comm as her eyes kept moving. "Benji?"

"Here. What's Will's status? I can only hear your side."

Jane's gaze fell to the gouge carved through her teammate and her mouth twisted. Those red streaks... "We need a medevac," she said carefully. There was no way Will couldn't hear her, but she tried to keep her voice level. "He's conscious, mostly alert, but in a lot of pain. Gunshot to the upper right thigh- a graze, but a deep one. Significant blood loss. And..." Her voice faltered as she lifted her head.

Will's eyes were open, fixed steadily on hers. "Go on," he told her. "And it's infected, with likely blood poisoning. I tripped coming down the ridge and I got a good look at it when I checked to see if I started bleeding again. I already know the score, Jane."

She nodded mutely and leaned over, laying the backs of her fingers alongside his jaw and then on his forehead, feeling the heat radiating off him.

"Jane? You cut out there."

She cleared her throat. "And... the wound is infected, with onset of blood poisoning. He's running a fever. Get us a medevac, stat, Benji."

"I'll try." An undercurrent of worry threaded his voice. "I don't know if I can convince them to fly with Davison still on the loose."

"Lie to them," Jane said flatly. She picked up the antiseptic and turned back to Will. "Deep breath. Ready?"

His jaw knotted. "Go."

This time while he breathed in harsh hisses, she ripped open a field dressing and tucked it between the torn edges of his pants, sealing it over the wound. Will made a small noise in the back of his throat and he bumped his head back, grinding it against the rough bark.

"I know, Will- I'm sorry." Jane found his hand, white-knuckled on a fold of pants, and covered it in a warm squeeze. "I know it hurts, but we'll have you out of here ASAP."

He snorted out another of those thin laughs. "'Lie to them'," he repeated her own words back to her. "There are two armed hostiles running amok in these woods with high-powered rifles. EMTs won't fly into that situation."

Jane busied herself with the pack, locating and withdrawing a bottle of water. "Drink this. You're dehydrating fast."

He took a long, deep swallow, sighing gratefully as he lowered the bottle. "Don't change the subject."

"Okay, fine." Jane looked him straight in the eye, noting the glassy sheen still lurking there, the drooping lids, the deepening creases at the corners of his eyes. "There's only one hostile left, a woman, one of the hunters. She shot the other guard- Ethan found the body right before I found you. But until we take her out, no, medevac won't respond."

Will took another deep draught and swiped the back of his wrist over his mouth. "How far from the road are we? I got a little turned around when I fell in a river."

"Benji, where's the road relative to my position?"

"Just under five miles due west as the crow flies. Medevac wants confirmation from someone in the field that all hostiles are neutralized. I've got a state police S.W.A.T. unit inbound, ETA, thirty minutes. They'll spread out in the woods and do a sweep for Davison."

"We can't put civilian pilots at risk," Ethan broke in. "I'm almost to the river, Carter. Give me another fifteen or so minutes and I can cover you, if I don't find Davison first."

Jane turned back to Will. "Five miles. Ethan's on his way, and Benji's working on transport."

Will handed the empty bottle back to Jane. "I can do five miles, easy. Just get me on my feet and point me in the right direction."

"Just get you on your feet? Oh, it's that simple, is..."

The 'crack' of a rifle shot cut off her next words. Bark sprayed as a bullet skimmed the tree trunk, inches from their heads. They reacted at the same instant, Will lurching forward and planting his hand on Jane's shoulder to shove her down, Jane reaching back to Will's chest and knocking him sideways. They hit the ground together, flattening into the grass.

"Gunfire," Jane spoke urgently into her comm, "Shots fired, we're taking fire..."

Will hitched himself forward on his elbows, leveling his gun. "On our eleven! Jane, get behind the tree..."

"You get behind the tree! You're..." She ducked as another shot tore into the ground just before them, kicking up a spatter of grass fragments. "...wounded!"

Will fired, twice, three times, in rapid succession. "She's in motion. Move, dammit, move, move!"

Jane rolled right, throwing herself behind the nearest tree, her eyes racing over the brush to locate the shooter. From the corner of her eye she saw Will flip behind the tree he'd been propped on and raise his gun again.

"Ten o'clock, behind the rock overhang!" He fired, and Jane saw a pale flash of motion as Davison ducked back.

Jane tossed a quick look from behind the tree- the outcropping of rock and the trees between her and it were preventing her from taking a clear shot. "Ethan, where are you?"

"River! On my way, hang tight!"

"We're pinned down," she informed him, and then heard Will's gun 'click' on an empty chamber.

He shoved backwards on his belly, just far enough that he could look over his shoulder and meet her eyes. He could see her position- could see she had no shot. There was a soft, throaty chuckle from behind the rock formation and then another swish of pale hair as the hunter straightened and fairly strutted around it.

Will laid his empty Glock at the roots of the tree. "Go right and take her when I move."

"Will, don't!"

"Go right. and take her. when I move."

He reached up, a knife suddenly in his hand, and drove it into the tree above his head, drawing his left knee under him and using the handle to hoist himself to his feet. Jane cursed and gathered herself into a coiled crouch as Will wrenched the blade from the tree, measured distance with a glance, and dove to the left between the trees. A gurgle of husky laughter matched his movement.

Jane saw the knife fly, straight as an arrow despite Will's pain and exhaustion. She couldn't take time to admire the beauty of its trajectory- she was flying as well, sprinting to the right to bring Davison into her sights. She heard the knife strike, a sharp sort of 'thunk', metal on Kevlar, and she heard Davison's delighted crow, "Never give up, never surrender! I always loved..."

And then Jane's hands were snapping up, her gun cupped between them and Davison in her sights. The hunter came striding into the clearing with her rifle cradled lovingly in her hands. The muzzle angled down, honed in on Will where he lay tumbled onto the ground...

Jane fired, three tight, rapid shots- head, throat, head.

And Davison went down, snapping back violently and then crumpling, the rifle slipping from her grasp to fall across her body.

"Hostile neutralized," Jane snapped into her comm and she broke into a dead run, sparing only a glance and a kick to the limp body before throwing herself beside Will. "Agent down. Get me a fucking chopper, STAT."

He was breathing, shuddering gasps that shook his body. Jane slid one arm beneath Will's chest and got him by the shoulders, lifting and rolling him to his back. His face was grey, but his eyes fluttered open when she bent over him and called out. "Will. Will, come on."

"She dead?"

Jane laid a hand on his chest, over his racing heart. "Yes, she's dead! She was going to kill you."

"Oh, I'm not... complaining. Just... checking." A ghost of his crooked smile traced over his lips and then faded. He dropped one hand over Jane's and patted the back of her hand clumsily. "Don't think... five miles is going to be that easy anymore."

She had already seen that. A flood of red, glistening ruby in the blazing sunshine, soaked Will from waist to knee. She pressed on his chest, lightly but insistently. "Stay here. Do not move."

She crossed the clearing in rapid strides. "Brandt's alive, but barely conscious now. Neither of us is hit, but he's bleeding heavily from the previous gunshot wound. Davison is down- she's dead, and I want a chopper. You hear me, Benji? The threat's neutralized and they can send in EMTs."

"They're going into the air now, ETA, fifteen minutes. I'll keep you posted." Benji paused. "Jane? Is he okay?"

"Not really," she said shortly, scooping up the pack and spinning to retrace her steps.

The field dressing had torn loose when Will fell, and the gash split when he hit the ground. Jane ripped open a second; Will had his hand clamped over his hip, and she nudged it aside to slip the heavy gauze in under his bloodied fingers. "Stay with me. Can you do that, Will? Answer me."

"Sure... thing."

She peeled open another just as Benji hailed her. "Jane?"

"You better have good news for me."

"Mostly. Chopper's inbound, but... you're in deep tree cover, yes?"

"Yes, why?" Jane pressed her fingers to Will's neck, counting. His pulse was fast and thready, and when she glanced down, his eyes had drifted shut. She patted his cheek sharply.

"Because the chopper can't land in trees. Topographic map is showing a hilltop clearing less than half a mile uphill from your current position- they'll have to land there."

Jane looked down at her teammate; he had given up the struggle to keep his eyes open and was lying almost too still on the forest floor. "He's not mobile."

"You'll have to get him mobile. They can't land any closer. They can bring a stretcher down to you, but if he's as bad as you're saying, the faster he can get loaded, the faster they can start to stabilize him."

There was a crashing in the brush and Jane whipped around, snapping her gun up. Ethan staggered out of the woods, scratched, red-faced and dripping sweat. He was wet from the waist down and there was an L-shaped rip in the sleeve of his shirt.

"I'm here, Benji. I'll help get him to the landing zone."

"ETA, ten minutes."

"Where have you been?" Jane asked sharply. She slung the pack over her shoulders and moved to Will's head while Ethan gave a quick once-over to his downed agent.

"I hit rough terrain and had to scale a cliff, and then the river was swifter than I expected. Brandt? Brandt, wake up."

"C'mon, Will, sit up." Jane patted his face again and he blinked.

"Ethan?"

"You drag me out here in the boondocks on my weekend off, the least you can do is stand up and greet me," Ethan said lightly.

Will frowned, his eyes already sliding shut again. "Okay, sorry..."

"Will, you're going to have to get up. We can brace you, but you have to help us out. The helicopter's on its way, but we have to get to its landing site." Jane slid one arm beneath his back.

Ethan reached to steady his shoulders, and they both lifted, Jane pushing from the back, Ethan pulling from the front. They got him half upright, and then his waist bent. Will cried out, a harsh guttural sound that tore from his throat. "Stop! Jesus, stop." His hand knotted, bloodless, on the hem of Jane's shirt as he fell back to the ground, shuddering.

Jane's and Ethan's eyes met over his body as they sat back on their heels. Will wasn't huge man, but he was sturdy, and solid with compact muscles. Too heavy to lift dead-weight from a prostrate position. Ethan dropped his eyes away from Jane and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

"Agent Brandt!" His sudden bellow made even Jane jump a little. "On your feet, Brandt! Your mission requires you to be mobile and you will damn well be mobile! Now get on your feet!"

"Yes, sir." Will snapped out an automatic response, and he struggled to rise. Ethan shifted on his heels and pulled, and Jane wrapped one hand in Will's belt, the other still supporting his back, and somehow they heaved him to his feet. He hung between them, panting, chin dropped to his chest, while Ethan bent at the knees and ducked beneath Will's arm. He gave a little jounce, settling the other man's weight across his upper body. Ethan nodded to Jane. "Now you."

She twisted her hand tighter on Will's belt and looped his other arm over her shoulders, taking some of his weight. He swayed between them, balanced on his left foot with his right barely scraping the ground. Ethan squared his shoulders and his voice sharpened once more. "You're going to stay upright, agent, and you're going to walk. You go down and you will answer to me. Clear?"

"Clear, sir."

Ignoring Jane's outraged stare, Ethan tipped his head forward. "Move."

They stumbled across the clearing and through the trees. Jane's hands were full of slumping agent and so she could only jerk her head in the direction of the pine trees. "That way."

Step by slow step, they crept up the hillside. Will tried, he did- but he kept buckling, and one or the other of them would have to dip a shoulder and catch him, propping him up for another half dozen dragging steps.

A heavy, rhythmic beat filled the air, growing louder by the second. "The medevac pilot is telling me he's approaching the coordinates now," Benji told them, and Jane, breathing nearly as hard as her teammate, nudged Will sharply with an elbow. "Hear that sound, Will? Chopper's coming. Not much further."

"Do. Not. Stop. You will keep those feet moving, agent," Ethan barked, but even he had a rasp beneath his harsh words.

Almost. Almost to the top. Jane was concentrating only on the incline in front of her, gritting her teeth against the strain, but she felt a sudden wind rush past her and lift sweaty strands of hair off her face. The trees lashed in the downdraft and she raised her eyes to the most welcome sight she could imagine- the gleaming white-and-blue sides of the helicopter dropping swiftly behind the last row of trees, its blades lashing the air.

"Tell them we're on the hillside!" Ethan was yelling into his comm. "Send them down to meet us..."

And then they burst from between the trees, two figures in dark blue flightsuits with a stretcher slung between them and coming at a fast jog. Jane could have howled with relief and Ethan was shouting, "Here! Over here!", although really, how could the medics miss them, three bedraggled figures linked together, stumbling up a remote hillside.

She felt Will's arm go limp around her neck at the same instant his entire body suddenly grew astonishingly heavier. He slid from her grasp and she tried to catch him, snatch him back, but he slithered to the ground like his bones had gone liquid. Jane knew there was no getting him on his feet again...

And then the medics were there, taking Will's slack body from Ethan's faltering hold, rolling him onto the stretcher. Jane fell to her knees, aching arms braced on the ground while they buckled him in. One motioned sharply and Jane forced herself back to her feet and took one of the handles while Ethan took another and they race-walked up the last few yards, bursting out of the trees to duck beneath the wash of the rotors and slide the stretcher into the helicopter.

She got a last glimpse of Will's face before one of the medics clapped an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Ethan had his hand wrapped around her elbow and was starting to boost her up onto the step, but the other medic made a sharp side-to-side gesture with one hand, warning them off as she leaned out to slam the door shut.

They both backed away, faces twisted away from the wash of air and debris; when the pine branches brushed their backs, the helicopter's rotors picked up speed with a rising scream. Jane could see only vague shapes moving through the reflective windows before it lifted in a rush of wind, hovered for a split second, then turned west, into the dazzle of the lowering sun.

Benji's voice was in their ears, telling them he had armed police swarming the entry hall and that the helicopter was outbound to Susquehanna Trauma Center and should he pack up, because the state boys were going to want jurisdiction...

Ethan wrapped his arm around Jane, pulling her in for a rough hug.

"Come on, Agent Carter. I think we're hiking out."

I think that you don't mess with Jane, either, when one of her team is threatened. Hope you enjoyed, I know I had a ridiculous amount of fun putting the screws to Poor Will!