Chapter 18
“Levi’s hurt. Repeat, Levi’s hurt,” I said into the radio I didn’t remember grabbing.
I was moving, a dead sprint, as my heart slammed against my ribs. The metal stakes remained, blocking my access to Levi.
“Levi, Levi, talk to me,” I shouted as I skidded to a stop outside the trap, Levi’s body strewn out between the projected pieces. The puddle beneath his right side was growing. The blood wasn’t spurting but heavily leaking. He hadn’t hit an artery. I had time but not long.
Levi groaned, his body shifting.
“Say something.”
“I’m okay,” Levi said. His airways were clear. I needed to get to him. I needed to stop the bleeding.
“I can’t—” I pushed against the immovable metal pieces.
“I can’t get to you. I can’t—” My mind spun like a top as my assessment, knowledge, and probabilities played out, lighting up different courses of action—of treatment.
My eyes found the puddle of blood once more.
None of them would matter if I couldn’t get to him to stop the bleed.
“Where are you bleeding from?” I demanded, tossing the radio and shedding my bag as I began wedging myself between the stakes, their sharp edges slicing through my clothing.
“Shoulder,” Levi called, shifting more. I kept moving toward him as the blood—his blood—kept coming. I was going to get him. I would not be the reason Unit Seven lost someone else. I wouldn’t. My shirt ripped on one of the metal stakes, stinging my skin.
“Stop the bleed, Levi. Get the tourniquet. I’m coming.
Hold on,” I told him, pushing my panic away until it was this distant thing outside of me.
I had to reach him. I had to stop the bleed, the thought merging with the drumming of my heart until it was all I could hear.
Levi didn’t make a sound as he shimmied the bag off, each movement sending more blood to the ground.
I was wasting too much time. He was bleeding too much.
“I’m almost there,” I reassured him, the blood now inches from my boots. Levi moved, his teeth gritted as he finally pulled out the tourniquet. A low moan escaped him as he worked the tourniquet up his blood-soaked arm, distended at an odd angle. It was dislocated.
A loud grinding noise began beneath our feet as the ground shook. “Sasha, don’t move,” Levi bit out. I froze. It was taking too long. He was losing too much blood.
The metal spears slowly sank back into the earth into metal boxes concealed in the ground. The moment they were down, I was moving as fast as my body allowed. I crashed into the earth, rocks biting into my knees as his warm blood seeped into the fabric of my pants.
I pushed away the memory of Eli bleeding out in the pantry. Eli was gone—he was dead. I couldn’t help him. I let the memory go, clinging to the person alive right before me.
Levi had the tourniquet pulled up as far as he could manage, the strap in his mouth as he used his other arm to position it.
I half sobbed, my fear winning as I saw his right shoulder.
His deltoid lay ripped open, deep into the muscle, his bone visible.
Deeper than I had ever attempted to repair.
I needed to get him to Haven. My heart found my throat as the bleeding continued.
I grabbed the strap from his mouth. I pulled the tourniquet around his arm up to just below the dislocated joint. I didn’t apologize. I pulled as hard as I could as a strangled, weak “fuck” escaped Levi. Warm, thick blood ran over my hands.
My father’s patient instructions in those woods filled my mind—all his field knowledge.
I didn’t push it away. I didn’t run from the pain of his memory.
It mixed with Kumar’s lessons. I sank into them until everything settled, my breathing evening out.
I wouldn’t be the reason another member of Unit Seven didn’t make it. I would not fail.
“We have to get out of here. It could go off again. Help me up,” Levi said, already pushing to his feet.
“Just over there,” I said, pointing to a spot ten feet from us.
He swayed violently. I held the bag in one hand as I ducked under his good arm, helping him away from where the trap had retracted.
I got Levi to the ground, his breaths uneven and too quick.
I glanced back at the pool of blood. How many liters had he lost?
Blood dripped from his mutilated shoulder. The drip was slow.
I was cutting his shirt off, without remembering grabbing the rip shears from the bag.
I tore the fabric from his chest. There were no lacerations or contusions on his chest. His skin looked fine.
I knew it would be too soon to diagnose an internal bleed; it’d be difficult to even see with his dark skin.
Hypothermia. He had lost too much blood. He needed fluids and blood. I was moving again without a thought, pulling Levi onto the tarp I had laid out.
“I need the others’ help to get your shoulder into place. I don’t think I can do it alone. I can try,” I said as I moved, grabbing everything I needed. Levi’s eyes closed, opening too slowly. “Talk to me, Levi.”
“I’m…” His eyelids fluttered closed, his breaths too quick as his head lolled to the side. His eyes opened, something like panic there. I laid him out. His arm was gruesome, but I couldn’t focus on it right now. It wouldn’t matter if I fixed it if he wasn’t alive. Later, I vowed, and moved on.
I didn’t flinch as I placed the catheter in my arm, performing what Kumar had shown me. I attached a bag to it, and red began to spill into it, collecting my blood. I placed the bag between my knees as I cleaned Levi’s arm, placing a catheter there as well, attaching a bag of fluids.
Levi’s eyes closed and they didn’t open. It was the blood loss, I told myself. It was just the blood loss. I could fix that. I could. I would. Manage the bleed. I had done that. Airways were clear. Respiration, his chest was clear. Circulation, he had fluids. Hypothermia.
I needed to get him somewhere warm. Then I needed to clean the cut and pack it.
I was moving again, my brain informing me of decisions it had made with my body without my consent.
We weren’t too far from Outpost Three. The bags were between Levi’s legs, my layers shed as I wrapped them around Levi the best I could.
I wrapped the tarp around him. I tucked the bag of my blood in my waistband, securing it with a section of tape.
With Levi’s bag of fluids held between my teeth, I started to pull the tarp.
“Cadell, update” came from the radio, but I didn’t stop to answer as I moved.
Time was against me. Every second counts, I had said that.
I pulled harder, my breaths bellowing through my nose.
I bit down harder on the bag. The sun moved as I pulled.
I didn’t stop. We had only walked about four miles.
I could make it there. I pulled harder, ignoring the pain in my chest. I didn’t know if Tristian was okay. I tucked the fear away.
My thoughts were an endless loop. Hold on. I’ve got you. You will be all right. Hold on. The fear I had boxed up began leaking out. My enemy was now time, and I knew, too well, who usually won that battle.
I pushed my body like I had when I carried my sister to Haven. Sweat drenched me, chilling me, as faces swarmed before my eyes until I swore my family’s ghosts walked the gray earth with me. Were they haunting me or escorting me?
You have to survive now, little flower.
My father was wrong. I didn’t need to. They did. I had needed them to survive, and they hadn’t. I couldn’t help them now. They were all dead. I didn’t need to survive.
Levi did.
Was this why I was spared? Was I destined to break myself apart as I tried to keep everyone else going?
I glanced over my shoulder, ensuring I was going the right way.
I had to be getting close. I stared down at Levi.
He was still out, and the bag of fluids was empty.
I stopped, swapping the bags quickly before attaching another bag to myself.
It’d be my last bag I could safely give.
I would feel this one. I needed the unit.
I hit the radio. “Go to Outpost Three. Outpost Three. Hurry.” I attached it to my hip, placed the bag connected to Levi in my teeth, and began moving again.
I pulled as my back ached, my arms straining. I didn’t stop, didn’t pause to catch my breath. I pulled and walked, walking and pulling, praying someone would come. I shifted and began to walk backward, tugging the tarp until my legs screamed, only turning back to drag the tarp over a shoulder.
“Hold on. I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” an endless stream stumbling from my lips around the bag between my teeth as the mound came into view. My limbs were shaking. Dizziness threatened to pull me under. “Hold on, you’re almost there,” I whispered. Was it for me or Levi?
I chucked the bags and layers down into the outpost before positioning Levi’s legs together and bent his knees, bracing my foot against his as I grabbed his arms, hating myself for tugging his injured arm.
I pulled, bringing his body over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
I grunted from his weight as the world spun, but I held my ground.
The edges of my vision blurred as I got Levi down into the outpost.
Several minutes later, the tarp was on the mat.
Levi was on it in nothing but his underwear.
His drenched, blood-soaked clothes lay in a pile.
They’d keep him cold. My second bag of blood I had collected on the way was attached to his line.
The bag was pinned to the wall using Unit Twelve’s insignia nails. Their flag hung pathetically.
The med bag was open, the bottle of antibiotics I had given Levi on top.
The gauze, disinfectant, and iodine I had used to clean and pack the wound lay next to them.
A pressure dressing now secured his shoulder and part of his pec.
My own pile of wet, blood-covered clothes lay next to it, the blood staining the tourniquet I had removed.
The bag of blood I had collected with Dr. Kumar sat in the middle of my fully built suit—the heat on, warming it in case the others weren’t back soon enough.
I could collect blood from everyone but Damien for Levi.
I started making plans based on who made it back first. Small dots danced across my vision.
I was lightheaded, my body trembling from the physical exertion and the blood I had given to Levi.
I should drink water. Eat something. But I didn’t move.
Levi needed my body heat. He shifted beneath me, a low groan leaving him.
I held him tighter, wrapping as much of myself as I could around him.
I dropped his wrist; he had no radial pulse.
He was in shock, I told myself again as I pressed my blood-crusted fingers against his neck.
His pulse was too fast. His breaths were rapid and shallow.
His organs were working too hard. What if he was bleeding internally?
Let the blood work; he needs time.
It’s what I told myself over and over again as the seconds stretched on too long, buried under all the blankets and edges of the tarp. The metallic smell of blood—Levi’s blood—hung in the back of my throat. Impossible to get rid of. My skin stuck to his where the remnants of it had begun to dry.
That’s your call, Medic.
What had I done?
We go out as one.
What had I done?
“Hold on, Levi. They’re coming. I’ve got you.”
They would come.
We come back as one.
“I know you do.”
What had I done?