He'd been in the middle of jogging past an exposed graphite rock when Mike heard the unmistakable and sickening noise of bone snapping.
With his heart skipping a beat, he turned around mid-step, seeing Gifford right behind him, her sweat-soaked face and fearful eyes mirroring his own, Mike's senses instantly knowing that the noise had come from farther back.
Not long after, he heard Steve moan in pain, the gut-wrenching noise accompanied by that of cracking twigs around him.
"Steve…", Mike whispered and brushed past Gifford, shoving the .38 back into his belt as he slowly approached, watching his partner roll onto his back even from a few feet away.
"Stephen…", he tried again, hoping to soothe the pain and terror in the young Inspector's groans with the softness of his voice.
As he got close enough to see Steve reach for his right leg, his ankle twisted up in a rogue root sticking out of the ground, Mike muttered a curse under his breath, then sank down to his knees.
"Just relax…breathe…try to take it easy…", he said in trained professionalism, just like he'd done a million times, yet never losing the meaning behind those words, as he gently placed a hand on Steve's chest to keep him on the ground and out of the way, hoping it would also block him from seeing the actual injury and add to the severity to the situation.
"Something…caught my foot…", the young Inspector gasped between waves of pain, his face covered in a thick layer of sweat, his voice already beginning to tremble, his body following shortly from the onset of shock, that much Mike knew by heart.
"I can see that. Looks like a root. Hold still…let me take a look at it. Where does it hurt the most?"
Even before he received an answer, Mike carefully ran a hand across his partner's right thigh, trying to detect any bones being out of place, not finding anything above the knee.
"Calf area…", Steve said between rapid breaths and raised his head wearily, before dropping it back to the ground, "I think I…broke my leg…"
"I think you did too…", Mike added when his fingers detected the onset of significant swelling halfway between his knee and ankle, the slightest of touches sending his partner into another bout of agony.
Glancing up for a second, Mike met Gifford's worried stare, knowing that their escape plans had just gone awry, possibly even failed altogether.
"And I lost the scalpel when I went down…", Steve added woefully, trying to get control of the pain while covering his face with his elbow.
"Don't worry about that right now…"
Trying to keep his voice as calm as possible, Mike reached down to his partner's ankle, not entirely convinced that there wasn't a secondary fracture hidden beneath the leather boot, then slowly untangled the tree root.
By the time he carefully slid his hand back up his partner's leg, the initial swelling had doubled in size, stretching the material of the expensive dress pants, and answering a question his heart already knew.
"You gotta get out of here to get help…", Steve mumbled beneath the comfort of his curled-up elbow, his chest heaving under the strain from the injury.
"We're not going to have that conversation now, are we? You know I won't leave you behind just so Chong can get his hands on you."
"I…can't put any weight on that leg, Michael.", Steve argued and moved his arm, before glancing over at his partner in unwavering determination, "So, let's just cut to the chase. The moment I as much as try to walk, I am going to pass out. I'm not that far from it right now, trust me. And you can't carry me around like this and try to outrun Chong. Help me move around a bit and I can hide in some of the underbrush until you can come back. Besides, even if Chong finds me, he'll keep me alive because he knows it'll bring you back."
"That's a bad plan and you know it.", Mike countered stubbornly, completely unwilling to budge under the circumstances.
"And what's yours? You want all three of us to get recaptured and go through that nonsense all over again? Get killed without anybody knowing where we are? By now there's gonna be patrols out looking for us. We just need to alert them. Devitt probably has half an army swarming the area. But somebody needs to let him know where we are. And you need to be that somebody."