“Trey. Trey, listen to me.” She did her best to press on his wound, feeling helpless. “The plan worked. She saw us.”
“She did?”
“Yes. So I need you to hang in there. Can you get up?”
He struggled to his feet, swaying with unsteadiness once he was standing. Catalina did her best to support his weight as much as she could.
“That chimp is the worst,” he said. “I don’t understand why they’re always shown to be nice and friendly, like they’re the comedians of the animal world. It’s such a scam.”
“Uh-huh,” she replied, wanting to keep him talking while brushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead. “Well, maybe some of them are nice. That one is definitely an asshole.”
He huffed a small laugh. “Oh my God. The biggest asshole ape there ever was. I bet the other chimps hate him. My shoulder really hurts.”
“I know, baby. But we’re going to get you fixed up. It’ll be okay.” She did her best to give some kind of signal to the woman, praying that she did have the ability to help them.
“What are we waiting for?”
“Hopefully, a ride.” She didn’t know how this was going to work, but they needed to get out of here. Catalina didn’t want her husband to keep suffering. Seeing him hurt and not being able to do much of anything was awful.
When a hand lowered beside them, palm side up, the biggest sense of relief passed through her chest. The woman hadn’t forgotten them, and they were rescued. Catalina helped push her husband ontothe palm before climbing up herself. She was so worn out, her emotions frayed past the point of caring about being in the air again. Her fear of flying was nowhere to be found.
During their ride, she noticed her husband had stopped grimacing and complaining about the pain, going quiet as he fell into one of the creases of the woman’s palm, his skin dotted with perspiration, becoming paler.
“Trey? Trey! You better talk to me!” His shoulder continued bleeding, and Catalina ripped off her cover-up dress. She cringed while pressing it to his wound, hating she didn’t have a cleaner option, but it seemed better than using her hands.
Her husband’s eyes cracked open. “Oh yeah, there’s that sexy bikini again.”
“This thing is probably the furthest thing from sexy right now.”
“Reason number twenty.” He winced before giving her a grin. “Disgusting or not, I’ll still find you sexy.”
“I feel like you’ve already used that one. But who cares because I feel the same way. Trey, you have to stick around because I’m going to marry you again, remember?”
“Uh-huh. Buddy is going to be my best man…ape…whatever.”
“Like hell he is. You’re not allowed to hang out with him anymore.”
“Would you say he has a bigchimpon his shoulder?”
All she could do was laugh through her tears. “I changed my mind. You’re the worst.”
It took forever to get to where they were going. Catalina was so focused on her husband she almost forgot there was a person on the other end of the hand. She jumped out of her skin when a booming voice echoed around her with the words, “Get on the table. I’ll get something.”
She dragged Trey up again, and they walked to the end of the hand before sliding off the edge onto a cherry wood-colored surface. He fell to the ground, releasing another pained groan.
Catalina motioned toward her husband’s shoulder. “We need help! He’s bleeding!” She pleaded with the universe that the woman would understand her.
The woman disappeared for a short time before returning. Catalina was relieved when she pulled out supplies, first snapping the lid off a water bottle, setting the cap nearby, and filling it with water. The woman set down a large folded section of soft paper. Catalina helped her husband so he could rest on it instead of having to lie on the hard surface of a table. Touching it and being able to rip off portions, she realized it was the same consistency as a paper napkin. Catalina could use this.
She wasn't able to drink directly from the water bottle cap easily because of the height, but she could reach into it. Using a torn off section from the napkin, she soaked up the water in order to squeeze the cool liquid into her mouth and then Trey's. Then she repeated this process to clean Trey's wound as best shecould, trying to be gentle as he groaned. "You're going to be okay now."
"It really hurts," Trey said, not bothering to hide the pain and attempting to breathe through it.
"As soon as we get you back to normal, we can get him help," the woman's voice echoed overhead. "But we have to travel. The equipment isn't here anymore. We have to go where it is."
"Go where?" Catalina shouted to no response.
At least they were safe, and they had someone looking out for them. After cleaning Trey's wound, a mass of some jelly-like substance was put on the table with the explanation it was first aid ointment. The giant woman then cut up a bandage with cuticle scissors, the pieces fluttering around the couple. Catalina gathered pieces of the gauze, wrapping Trey's shoulder and using a sticky portion of the bandage to hold everything in place. While he remained pale and in pain, the bleeding had slowed, and it was an improvement.
