Chapter 3 – GLENNA #2
Cash frowns, taking my wrist and resting his rough fingertips on my pulse. Then he peers into my face and tucks a loose hair behind my ears. I have it back in a French braid.
He skims the back of my earlobe, and I shiver. His hand stays beside my neck, hovering, and his eyebrows knit, as if he’s waiting for something. Am I supposed to elaborate?
“Like shit warmed over.”
“You’re gonna be okay,” he says, and it’s kind and deep and almost a whisper. “I promise.”
A weird sensation blooms in my chest. Raw. Scary. Big.
I shove it deep, deep down. It’s just survival instinct gone awry.
I’m hurt and hours from civilization. That’s all.
Cash isn’t a friend. He isn’t helping me.
He’s helping himself. This is Stockholm Syndrome, and I should be scared.
I’m wounded, and three obviously frightened, blustering men are wandering around, periodically saying, “Holy crap. This is bad. This is really bad, isn’t it? ”
The plot to a dozen horror movies pop into my head all at once. “Don’t let them kill me to hide the evidence.”
His forehead furrows like I’m not making sense.
“Don’t look at me like I’m crazy.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
His eyebrows squinch even closer, and then, as if with Herculean effort, he wipes off the expression and pastes on a wide, ridiculous smile.
“That’s even worse.”
His fake smile morphs seamlessly into a genuine laugh. That’s one of the things I hate most about Cash Wall. No matter what he’s doing, he’s always having such a good time.
I’ve gotta get up. I’m looking at several hours in his company, and with my arm on fire, I don’t need to extend the agony any longer.
I struggle to my feet, wobbling and bracing on Cash’s shoulder for lack of anything else, but after a few seconds, I’m good.
“All right. Let’s go.” I clutch my wounded arm to my stomach and take an unsteady step.
“Whoa, Nelly,” he says.
Whoa, Nelly?
The men gather closer, focused on Cash, gazing anywhere but directly at me. They’re weekend warrior types. Brand new gear. Un-scuffed boots.
“What’s the plan?” the older one asks.
Cash ignores him. “You got a good hold on that arm?” he asks me.
I nod.
Without warning, I’m in the air. He grunts as he picks me up. I yelp. My upper arm pulses with pain. He shifts my weight and says, “Hush. I got you.”
He calls over to the men, “Grab her bag.”
Then he carries me across the meadow like a bride.
It’s not comfortable.
Every step makes my bicep throb. His forearm digs into my back, and the further we go, the harder he breathes. Apparently, carrying me is cardio.
“Put me down.”
“No.” He holds me tighter, folding me a little more in half. Does not help the stomach.
“I can walk.”
“You’ll pass out. You’re as gray as a ghost.”
“I was shot. Probably very normal under the circumstances.”
His jaw clenches. “It will never happen again.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird to be in a position where you feel the need to assure someone you won’t get them shot again ?”
He glances down, his face guilty as hell. I didn’t know Cash could look any way but cocky.
“Glenna, I’m so sorry,” he says.
I squirm. I don’t know what to do with an earnest Cash.
“Good thing your buddy has crappy aim. I assume that was supposed to be a headshot.”
He shudders, and it rattles my whole body. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be fine.”
I get the sense he’s talking to himself.
“Put me down,” I ask again, more out of principle than because I think he will. He’s panting like a dog on a summer day now, but he’s setting a brisk pace. The weekend warriors are having trouble keeping up.
“No. Quit asking.”
“I can do what I want.”
His lips curve, and I drop my eyes to the ground. He has the warmest, friendliest, feel-good smile. Like how a spider’s web mimics the nectar guides of flowers, luring bees to their doom. Nature is a bitch.
Cash Wall is only being nice and decent because he doesn’t want me to sue him. Defensive mimicry, that’s all this is.
He’s really huffing and puffing now. He’s following a deer trail through low brush. It’s a direct route down the mountain, and the grade is getting steep.
“Don’t drop me.” I clutch Cash’s T-shirt like that’d save me from taking a spill if he loses his footing.
“Trust me,” he says.
“Nope.”
He snorts and presses his lips quickly to the top of my hot head.
Huh? What was that?
It sure felt like a kiss. Maybe his chin hit me by accident. And maybe his chin feels like lips?
“Did you just kiss me on the head?” I peer up at his scruffy, sweaty face.
“Why would I kiss you on the head?” He keeps his eyes straight ahead on the trail, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
What is happening here?
Suddenly, Cash hollers over his shoulder, “Catch up! I’m not waiting for you. Double time. Hup, hup!”
It sounds like a stampede of rhinos behind us, not three average-sized guys.
Cash lands on a rock funny and his ankle slides. He keeps hold of me, but it’s a bump, and I can’t stop myself from crying out, mostly in surprise, but also pain.
“Shit. I’m sorry.” Cash slows his pace. “Almost there, baby.”
We’re not. We’re at least two miles from the ridge, and if he calls for help, it’ll take rangers the rest of the afternoon to gear up and hike to meet us. They can’t do much more than he did by wrapping my arm. We’ve gotta go back to the parking area. Cash has to know that if he’s thinking clearly.
“Where are you parked? I need you to drive me to the hospital.” He’s the last person I want to ask, but the dude shot my right arm and I have a manual, so there’s no way I can drive myself there.
“I’ll take care of everything. Don’t worry. Just rest.” It’d be more reassuring if he wasn’t wheezing so hard.
Also, my arm is starting to hurt worse. I think the shock’s wearing off, and it’s finally registering. I can tell Cash is trying to hold me securely, but there’s no avoiding the sharp stabbing pain each time his boot hits the ground.
I don’t realize I’m moaning until Cash says, “Hush. It’ll be okay. We’re getting close.”
Again, we’re not.
Even if I’m hauling butt, it takes me almost three hours to hike the lower peak. We weren’t all the way to the top, but still, at the speed we’re going, it’s going to take about that long to get to either parking area on this face of the mountain.
This is gonna suck even more than it currently sucks.
“Do you have any aspirin?” I ask.
“Shit, baby. No.” He hollers over his shoulder again. “Do any of you have aspirin?”
The younger guy who didn’t shoot me trots up. “I have ibuprofen.”
“That’s fine,” I say. Cash mutters under his breath—something like “do you really think she gives a fuck about the brand name,” which is both a very wrong and a very Cash thing to say—but I don’t think the guy hears him because Cash is huffing and puffing like he’s running a marathon.
While the guy digs the pills from his pack, Cash stops and sets me down gently. He presses the canteen into my hand and watches me drink.
He won’t let the guy hand me the painkillers. Cash takes them and hands them to me so they’re coated in the greatest possible amount of palm sweat.
He has that same intent expression, guilty and something else, and for some reason—probably the throbbing pain where a bullet tore off a hunk of my flesh—the guilt pisses me off.
“You didn’t shoot me. You can stop looking so sorry.”
“It’s my fault.”
“Did you point at me and tell the guy, ‘Look. A deer.’”
He sniffs. “You know what I mean.”
“If you’re gonna be sorry, be sorry for all the things you did do to me.”
He gets really quiet.
“Like when you drew mustaches on my independent study photography project.”
“You’d already got an A,” he says. His voice is low.
“Or when you told that sub in history class that she had to let me go to the bathroom because I had female problems.”
“You did.”
“ You’re a female problem.”
His lips twitch, and it pisses me off even more. My face is hot now, not just sweaty from the sunshine, but from the inside.
“Or how about every time you hassled me at work. I don’t go to your work and act like a dick.
” The weekend warriors are clustered behind us, taking a hydration break and fretting.
“What is it you do again? Teach people to hunt? Is this like ‘The Most Dangerous Game?’ I hope you remember the end of the story. The bad guy gets fed to his dogs.” I make a show of looking around. “Where is Granger?”
And for some reason, like I haven’t been ripping him a new asshole, Cash breaks out in a huge grin. I forget to breathe for a second, and then I see red. This is funny to him?
“Why are you smiling, you idiot?”
“You know my dog’s name.”
What?
“Everyone knows your dog’s name,” I sputter.
“Do you like dogs?” he asks.
Has he gone nuts?
“Of course.”
“How come you don’t have one?”
“How do you know I don’t have a dog?”
“Everyone knows you don’t.” He smirks when he says it.
“Well, it’s none of your business.”
“You allergic?”
I ignore him and take another swig of water.
“Nah, you used to play with our dogs,” he goes on. “Are you not allowed to have one at your place? Don’t you rent from your dad?”
“How come you know everything about me?”
“Not everything. I don’t know why you don’t have a dog.”
I’m not telling him either. I had a dog growing up, a chubby bulldog named Hairy Barrell that my mom named after her favorite 90s singer.
We called him Hairy B. for short. We had to put him down when I was in sixth grade.
After Mom passed, Dad said we could get another one, but I said no.
I’m not good at losing and letting go. I’m not bouncy. I’m the kind of person who goes splat.
Anyway, it’s none of Cash Wall’s business.
I duck past him and start down the hill. The deer trail has intersected an actual marked trail, and the going is smoother.
“Hold up.” He bends as if to pick me up again, and I back away.
“No. Let me walk. It doesn’t hurt as bad.”