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“Good. After we’re at least a little settled we can worry about food. We’ll have to hunt.”
“Well, as it happens, that’s one thing I’m good at,” she adds smugly.
“We’ll see,” I chuckle, sending her silent dare.
She gives me a knowing look, a smile tugging at her lips.
We start slowly, and Noelle sticks a little too closely to me in case I might need support. The more we walk, though, the more I feel the effect of the pill I took, my pain numbing to a bearable degree.
“There,” she points to a clearing not too far away from us. “Do you hear?”
I nod. It is the sound of water, most probably a river.
Noelle turns giddy under my eyes, and she barely stops herself from running forward.
“You can go,” I nudge her gently, smiling at her.
She shakes her head.
“No. I’m not leaving you,” she says staunchly, leaving no room for discussion.
In no time, though, we reach a small river.
“We’ll need to boil the water,” I add pensively, already thinking how we could do that.
“Before that, why don’t we tend to your head injury?”
Noelle is already laying out our medical supplies, ready to clean and bandage my wound again.
“You first,” I give her a warning look.
“I thought you’d forget,” she mumbles under her breath.
Before she can make more excuses, I grab the hem of her shirt and pull it over her head. She squeaks in surprise, but she allows me to undress her until she’s left only in her black bra and underwear.
“Let me look at you,” I murmur as I circle around her, taking note of every little mark on her body.
Fuck…
Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how small and slight she is, and my chest constricts with a pain that has nothing to do with my injuries as I take in the gaping wound on her arm. The blood is mostly crusted, but some is still fresh. There are a few bruises forming on her body, but I’m relieved to see that’s all.
“Let me clean you up,” I say as I steer her towards the river, inviting her to sit on her blouse as I open up the first aid kit and remove some gauze.
At first, I simply clean the dried blood with a damp piece of material, trying to soak everything in.
There aren’t too many items in the kit, but we’ll have to make do with what we have.
“I’ll tie this up tightly for you but it’s highly likely you’ll need stitches when we get back to civilization.”
Noelle gulps down, her eyes on me.
“It will scar, won’t it?”
“Just a small hit to your vanity,” I joke.
“It’s not that. It’s just… I already have a lot of scars,” she whispers in a small voice. “I’d rather not get more.”
I stare at her for a moment.
