AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There’s a broken branch puncturing your shoulder. It’s not big. It’s just—” He aims a lethal scowl over his shoulder. “Damn her. I know she’s not in her right mind, but…”
“It’s okay.” I sound a lot calmer than I feel. “You said it isn’t big? No danger of bleeding out if I pull away from it?”
He shakes his head. “It’s just part of a branch. The rest must have already broken off.”
“So a sliver.”
“A big sliver, but yes.”
I nod. “I need to pull straight forward. Can you watch to be sure it’s not longer than we think?”
“That was my plan.” He manages a half smile. “Those first-aid courses are really paying off, huh?”
I return the semi-smile, but then my mind goes straight to Sadie. How the hell is a first-aid course going to help us with her? What ifit doesn’t? What if she dies because we don’t know enough to help her? What if she dies because we can’t find her? She’s long gone. Run off into the forest again.
When I glance around Kit, his thumbs rub my shoulders. “We’ll find her, and we’ll help her.”
How? Sadie isn’t on the mainland. She’s not sending a boat. We don’t have a boat. We’re trapped, and whoever hurt her could still be—
“Laney?” Kit’s face comes down to mine.
“Pull off carefully. Got it.”
He doesn’t say that wasmyinstruction. He just kisses the top of my drenched hair.
“Count of three,” he says. Then he positions himself where he can see the piece of wood. “Keep it slow. Three, two, one…”
I start to ease forward. Pain makes my knees buckle, and I throw myself forward instead. My knees do give way then, but Kit catches me and holds me against him.
“That wasnotslow,” he says.
“It hurt too much.”
He gently embraces me. “I know. Now keep still while I take a look.”
I do that. His fingers carefully prod where the branch stabbed me. Then he tugs the fabric from my skin. I feel heat, as if blood trickles down along with the rainwater. A dull throb of pain, but nothing more.
“Will I survive, Doc?” I say.
“In my nonexpert opinion, yes.” He moves back to look at me. “It’s a puncture wound, like a nail, and it’s hard to see how much it’s bleeding in the rain, but it doesn’t seem too bad. We need to get you inside, though. Get it bandaged. Make sure nothing’s left in there.”
I shake my head. “Sadie—”
“Attacked you. Grabbed you. Shoved you into that tree.” He lifts his hands. “I know she didn’t mean to, but she did it, and that makes her dangerous.”
“She’s hurt. Really hurt. Not just her face and shoulder. There’s bone sticking out of her leg, Kit.”
Kit rubs his beard. “Okay, that’s… I’m not even sure what to say. She wasrunningon that leg.”
“I definitely saw bone.”
“I’m not doubting it.”
There’s something wrong with her. That’s what I want to say, and it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?
Of course there’s something wrong. She’s badly hurt.
No, something’s really wrong.
