Chapter Text
…Middle of Nowhere Iran…
The sand came in sheets, sweeping low across the landscape like death on a whisper. Somewhere out there in the dunes, the wind moaned.
The sun had already started its slow descent, casting long shadows from the burnt-out vehicles and twisted wreckage scattered across the road. The air was thick with smoke—black, oily, choking. A convoy was gone. Just like that.
Jack Abbot blinked slowly, dazed, sweat and blood stinging his eyes.
He wasn’t dead. Not yet.
His ears rang in pulses. He could feel the sand stuck to his lips and face, gritty in his mouth. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
His back was against the crumpled side of the MRAP. The vehicle in front had taken the brunt of the first RPG—he remembered that now. There was yelling, the sudden swerve, then the boom.
Their own truck had hit an IED.
He tried to move. Pain screamed through his body, his entire left side a sunburst of agony. His leg—he couldn’t feel his leg.
Panic slithered in his chest. He looked down—his helmet was gone, his hands slick with blood, and—God. His leg was gone.
“Shit. Jesus—no. No, no—” Jack wheezed.
Dirt and ash fell in little puffs from the sky. There were voices outside. Rapid. Shouting in Arabic. Footsteps. A few gunshots—pops like firecrackers, distant and close all at once.
He couldn’t reach his weapon. He couldn’t even move his right arm properly. It flopped beside him like a doll’s.
The heavy door of the MRAP was yanked open with a shriek of tearing metal. Jack blinked through the dust and the blood. His hand twitched toward his thigh holster—but it was empty.
The man who stood in the doorway wasn’t holding a gun.
He had a beard, thick and dark, a buzzcut, his skin tanned and leathery like he’d lived in the sun too long. He was tall. Broad-shouldered. A vest hung open on his chest, pouches full of gauze, trauma shears, syringes. A red medical cross was scrawled across his shoulder, but beneath that, two flags—one American. The other Israeli.
Jack didn’t understand. Not at first.
“Hey!” the man shouted, already kneeling beside him. His accent was faint but sharp, quick. “Chaver, you with me?”
Jack’s lips moved but no sound came out.
The man slapped him—hard—but not cruelly. It forced Jack’s head to roll toward him.
“Good. Eyes open. Stay with me.”
The man popped the kit open. His hands were fast, competent, brutal with purpose. He yanked open Jack’s flak jacket and found the tourniquet half-assed on the upper thigh. “This won’t do,” he muttered. Blood soaked through the uniform, dark and spreading.
The medic re-tightened the tourniquet with a practiced twist, earning a grunt of pure agony from Jack.
“Vitals are thready,” the man muttered, maybe to himself. “Chest's okay. No obvious pneumo. Leg’s bad—really bad. You still with me, soldier?”
Jack coughed. “Who...who the hell are you?”
The man didn’t stop moving. “Name’s Michael. Robinavitch. Doc. I don’t leave anyone behind.”
Another explosion boomed somewhere nearby. The ground shook beneath them. Jack felt it in his teeth.
Michael didn’t even flinch.
Jack groaned. “They’re gone...my team...where...?”
“I’ve got two of them loaded already. Still searching for your driver.” He sliced the rest of Jack’s pants away. “You’re priority now.”
“You need to go,” Jack hissed, suddenly furious. “You can’t carry me. You’ll die.”
Michael looked up, his face calm, expression firm. “You really think I haven’t heard that before?”
Jack grabbed Michael’s wrist—weakly—but held on. “Go.”
“I don’t leave men behind,” Michael repeated, quieter now. “Not anymore. Not ever.”
Jack didn’t understand what that meant. But something in the man’s voice made his stomach twist.
Michael began pulling. He cursed under his breath as he tried to drag Jack’s limp weight through the crumpled metal. Jack screamed when his stump bounced off the edge of the vehicle. The pain turned everything white for a moment.
“You’re gonna pass out,” Michael warned him. “Stay with me. Talk. What’s your name?”
“Dr. Jack Abbot. U.S. Army.”
“Well, Dr. Abbot, you’re one stubborn bastard.”
Michael hauled him free—how he managed it, Jack would never know. But soon they were out of the MRAP and on the dirt, dodging small arms fire.
“Let’s go, let’s go—Hawk inbound, six minutes!” someone shouted from nearby.
Michael pulled Jack behind a blown-out Humvee and slapped a radio to his mouth. “Raven Actual, we’ve got wounded at grid seven-alpha-bravo. I’ve got three—no, four. Need dust-off now!”
The helicopter was coming. Jack could hear it. Whirring above like a giant insect.
He turned his head and saw his men being carried—two on stretchers, one walking with a limp.
“Where’s your gear?” Jack gasped.
“Lost it two days ago.”
“You—you’ve been out here two days?”
“Three,” Michael said. “Now shut up and stay alive.”
Gunfire cracked. Someone screamed.
The helicopter was hovering low now, wheels skimming the sand. Michael dragged Jack to the open door. A medic reached down, grabbed him—
“Wait!” Jack yelled. “Get him! Get the—”
But Michael had turned around, still looking for the missing driver.
“Get on the bird!” the medic yelled.
“No!” Jack tried to get up—couldn’t. “He’s still out there—get him back!”
Michael was disappearing into the smoke.
“WE GOTTA GO!”
The chopper lifted.
Jack’s scream was silent. His head hit the floor of the cabin. Blood seeped from his lips.
Michael Robinavitch didn’t come back with them.
Jack passed out with the sound of rotors in his ears and a single image in his mind—
The crazy Israeli medic who said, I don’t leave anyone behind.