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“Don’t touch it,” I cried.
“I think it’s broken,” Lorenzo said. His eyes moved to my hands. “Let me see.”
He studied my trembling hands, his lips curled back from his teeth as he winced on my behalf.
“Here,” he said. He took out a bottle of water. “It’s going to sting.”
“Please, don’t,” I cried, but he poured water over my palms anyway. It hurt like a bitch, and I cried out, but the water washed away a lot of the dirt, and it was better that way.
He unzipped his jacket and took off his T-shirt before he tore it into strips.
“Your shirt,” I said in a small voice, but Lorenzo didn’t answer me. He wrapped up my palms for me before he shrugged back into his jacket again and zipped it up with nothing underneath.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
I didn’t even want to try, but Lorenzo looked so panicked and scared, and I wanted it to be okay. I tried to stand, but it hurt like nothing I’d ever felt before.
Lorenzo squeezed his eyes shut.
As if on cue, thunder rumbled above and when we looked up, the sky had become overcast again. It had happened so fast. It wasn’t raining yet, but it would soon.
“We have to find shelter,” Lorenzo said. “I’m going to scout around, and then I’ll be back for you.”
“You’re leaving me!”
“It won’t be long,” he promised. “I can’t help you and look for shelter at the same time.” He put his hand on the back of my neck and pressed his lips against my forehead. “I promise I won’t leave you.”
I nodded, terrified of being left alone, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Here,” Lorenzo said, giving me the bit of water that was left after we’d rinsed my hands. “Drink this.”
I took the water and drank it, rinsing out my mouth. I tasted nothing but dirt and blood.
I drank more until the water was finished, and then I scooted back so that my back was against a tree. It hurt like hell to move—my hands were raw, and my ankle throbbed wildly. Tears streamed down my face, and I looked into the trees where Lorenzo had disappeared, willing him to come back.
It felt like forever before he did, but he came back eventually.
“I found something,” he said. “It’s not great, but it will have to do. Come on.” He helped me up, and with great effort and pain, he hoisted me over his shoulder. Our movement was slow-going—I had to hop on one leg, and my hands wouldn’t stop stinging and burning.
“It’s not completely a cavern,” he said, talking as we moved. I realized now why he wouldn’t have been able to take me with him to find shelter. “It’s not a ledge, though, and that makes it safer. You’ll like it; you’re not on the ground for a change.”
He was making small talk for the sake of it, but I barely heard his words.
When we finally reached the shelter he’d talked about it, I realized it really was on a ledge. It was a small space underneath an outcropping of rock.
“How are we getting up there?” I asked. The ledge was only a couple of feet high, but with a broken ankle, I didn’t know how to get up there.
Lorenzo nodded grimly. “We’ll figure it out.”
It took a lot of struggling. Finally, after Lorenzo tried to lift me up a few times to no avail, he climbed up first while I balanced on my good leg, and he pulled me up. It worked, although it hurt something awful.
When I lay on the ledge, I cried, trying to pull myself together again.
Lorenzo cradled me, and we shifted back against the rock. He held onto me, and I lay against his chest. My eyes grew gritty with all my crying, and my body started to shut down. When the rain started to fall, we were safe and dry, and the sound was soothing, although I knew more rain wasn’t a good thing right now.
“I can’t stay awake,” I said in a groggy voice when I felt myself slipping away.
“It’s okay,” Lorenzo said. “Sleep.”
