Chapter 23
AERIN
“Falco!”
His eyes close and they don’t reopen.
“Falco! Oh my god what the fuck is happening?”
There’s blood everywhere. It weeps steadily from a large incision in his abdomen and my stomach rolls at the sight.
A smattering of smaller cuts cover the rest of his torso, but none of that compares to his arm.
Deep, thin lines wrap around his arm like ribbons and blood pours from them like he’s nothing more than a juice box sliced up by a knife.
My hands stain quickly and they slip as I touch his chest, then his neck and back to his face.
I’ve never seen this much blood before.
“Falco! Please wake up, please, what am I supposed to…”
He told me to call someone but who? An ambulance? Could they even get a helicopter this far up the mountain in time? Should I call my dad? My brother?
Oh god.
My stomach tightens and rolls as I scramble to my feet and lunge over my bed to where my phone rests between my pillows.
I’m going to be sick.
I’m going to throw up and make this mess a hundred times worse.
Back at Falco, I cover his abdominal wound with one hand while fighting through sobs I’m no longer in control of.
Unable to breathe and struggling to think, I call the only person I know for sure will help.
Pidge.
He slipped his number into my phone under a disguise, with a whisper to call him if I ever felt like I had no one. This is definitely that time.
He answers immediately. “Pidge!” I scream around my sobs. “I need help. Falco needs help. I don’t know what to do but there’s so much blood and I’m panicking and I think he’s going to die!”
“Holy shit,” comes Pidge’s response. “Talk to me, Aerin. Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know! I was asleep. There was all this yelling and crashing so I woke up and there was a man over my bed.
I h-hit him with the lamp and I panicked then I was screaming for Falco and this man was just laughing.
He was just laughing and saying it was my time and then—” I choke and cough as Falco’s blood spurts against my palm.
“Then?” Pidge sounds breathless.
“Then Falco came in and shot him, but he’s hurt, Pidge. He’s so hurt. There’s so much blood and I don’t even know if it’s safe, I don’t know what to do! He’s going to die, oh my god.”
“Aerin. Listen to me. I need you to turn on your camera and let me see.”
“What? Shouldn’t I call an ambulance?!”
“You already know the answer to that or you wouldn’t have called me.”
He’s right. These people found us and the only people who knew we would be here were my own family.
No one can be trusted.
“Okay,” I gasp. “Okay. Okay.” My fingers tremble like someone else is in control of them and it’s a struggle to activate the camera.
Finally it clicks into life and my own tear-stained face stares back at me for a second, then I flip the camera and do my best to show Falco’s condition.
“Shit,” Pidge breathes. “Do you have any medical training?”
“No,” I gasp. “What do I do?”
“Okay I’m going to talk you through some very quick and dirty ways to help him, but you need to act fast, Aerin.”
“J-Just tell me what to do. I can do it.”
“Do you have a belt? We need something tight that can loop around his shoulder and be pulled so tight that he’ll stop losing so much blood from his arm.”
“Okay. Okay. A belt. A belt?” My mind goes blank for half a second, then I remember the belt included with a pair of shorts I brought with me.
Leaving Falco’s side is terrifying, but I’m away just long enough to haul open the drawer in my dresser and find the shorts.
I slide to my knees back beside Falco, rip the belt out of the shorts, and thread it under Falco’s limp, bloodied arm.
“Tie it high up near his shoulder and pull it as tight as you can. Even if you’re scared it’s too tight, just keep pulling okay?”
“Okay,” I gasp, glancing at where my phone rests on Falco’s slow-moving chest. “I’ve never been more grateful for extra holes in a belt.
” The leather slips against my bloodied palms. I grit my teeth and sniffle, threading the leather through the clasp and throwing my weight backward to pull it as tight as I can.
“You’re doing great,” says Pidge, raising his voice over a hum that rumbles in the background. “Can you secure it?”
“Y-yeah, let me just…” I loop the belt twice, pull it as tight as I can, then force the clasp closed. Thankfully, it stays. “I got it!”
“Okay, next I need you to find gunpowder.”
“What?” Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I return my palms to the heavily bleeding wound on Falco’s abdomen.
“We need gunpowder or anything that will burn hot and fast. Do you have any guns in the house? Shotguns, preferably, but we can make anything work.”
“Uh… I think there’s an old hunting shotgun, but I don’t think it works anymore.”
“That’s fine. Any ammo?”
“I don’t know!” I cry. “I haven’t been here in years!”
“That’s fine.” Pidge vanishes from the screen for a second, leaving me staring at the reflection of myself in darkness while Falco bleeds out beneath me.
“Pidge!”
“I’m here. Falco will have ammo. He’ll have brought a bunch with him. Do you know where he stored it?”
“No!”
“Where are his bags?”
“Next room I think. The next room.”
“You need to get to his bag and find shotgun ammo.”
“I can’t leave him!”
“Aerin, you have to if you want to save his life.”
“What if there’s more out there?”
“You said Falco shot the man in your room. Where’s the gun?”
“Uhhh…” I wildly scan my surroundings until I spot Falco’s fallen gun a few feet away. “I have it.”
“Take it. Use it if you have to. You need that ammo, Aerin. It’s the only way you and Falco will survive.”
“Shit. Shit. Fucking…okay. Okay.” Abandoning Falco feels wrong but with no other choice, I force myself to pick up his gun and stumble out into the hall. At the far end near the living room, two bodies lay motionless on the floor.
My heart pounds so fast that I can barely feel it.
Each step is like I’m fighting for control over my own body.
As the hallway remains empty, I grow more confident and, in a surge of strength, sprint into Falco’s room.
His rucksacks sit in a pile near the window, so I grab the first one.
Just clothes.
The second has more guns and boxes of ammo than I can count, so I upend it onto the bed and watch them all pour and clatter onto the sheets.
“Shotgun,” I mutter, panting. “Shotgun… aha!”
Snatching up the green box, I sprint back to my room and trip over myself, landing hard on my knees next to Falco’s body. “I’m here!” I yell at the phone. “I’m here. Tell me what do I do?”
“Listen to me carefully, Aerin,” says Pidge as my hands return to Falco’s abdomen. “You need to crack open the shells and pour the gunpowder in Falco’s wound.”
“What?”
“I told you it would be messy and dirty, but it’s the only way. From the look of the amount of blood, we need to cauterize the wound as quickly as we can. It’s an old army trick. You need to pour it in his wound then light it.”
“Will that work?”
“Sure.”
Pidge’s reply is too casual. “Tell me the truth!” I yell as I throw my weight behind stemming the blood flow with my hands.
“If the wound is too deep or it tore something important then it won’t work and he’ll bleed out internally. But there’s a chance that hasn’t happened, which means this will stop him bleeding out until he gets real help.”
“Oh god. Oh god I hate my life. I hate my life so fucking much!” Setting the phone down, it takes several long seconds for my blood-soaked fingers to open the shotgun shell box. They scatter to the floor around me, tinkling against the wood. “How do I even open one of these?”
“Pliers,” comes Pidge’s distant voice from the phone. “Or pressure. Anything that will pop the cap off the end. Then to light it, you’ll need a flame of some kind. You can do this, Aerin. I know you can.”
I can do this.
I repeat it over and over as I slam the butt of Falco’s handgun down on the end of the shotgun shells, over and over again. Every ounce of panic and fear I feel floods through me, fueling my strength until finally one of the metal caps pops off the end of the shell.
“I got it!”
“Good, now pour it into the—” Pidge’s voice cuts off. My eyes snap to my phone where the dead battery symbol flashes once, and the screen goes black.
“Oh my fuck…” This is actual hell. It has to be. There’s no way this is my real life.
With trembling hands, I tip the shell and pour the gunpowder over the bleeding wound on Falco’s abdomen, half expecting him to wake up because there’s no way this is pain-free.
He doesn’t move.
Not even a sound.
“Light it,” I repeat, glancing around the room. “With what? What do I light it with?” Cursing my lack of planning, I desperately scan the room and then surge to my feet. “Stay there!”
I sprint out of the room and down the hall, then slam into the room my parents usually sleep in when they stay here. My mom used to be obsessed with candles, which means there has to be a lighter around here somewhere.
Each second I spend tearing through drawers and cupboards is a second too long away from Falco, and fear grips my heart like my ribs have turned into claws and are squeezing down against every painful heartbeat.
Finally, a lighter skitters across the bottom of a bathroom drawer. I snatch it up and sprint back to my room, tripping over myself in my hurry.
Once inside, I drop to my knees, flick the lighter and…nothing happens.
“No!” Again and again, I drag my thumb down the edge of the lighter as sweat beads at my brow and mingles with tears I don’t even feel anymore. Again and again and again until finally a flame chokes into existence. It’s weak but it’s there.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I’m so so sorry. I’m sorry!” Following Pidge’s instructions, I lower the flame to the gunpowder trail near Falco’s navel. I’ve barely reached it when the gunpowder ignites, sending me scrambling back against the dresser in fright.
The gunpowder fizzes and hisses, glowing a bright orange while the flame sweeps across the messy gunpowder path and burns over the weeping wound.
Falco suddenly shifts, groaning despite being unconscious, so I abandon the light and clutch at his cold hand, watching in horror as the gunpowder burns.
The most sickening burnt smell fills the air.
As quickly as it starts, it’s over and there’s nothing but silence and the gross stink of singed hair and burnt skin.
There’s no more bleeding.
“Falco?”
Reaching for his face, I pet his cheek and chin, but he doesn’t respond.
Not even a flutter of his eyes. Just as I move closer, a sudden crash sounds from deeper in the cabin and my heart leaps into my throat.
Another crash, followed by a third and a fourth.
I kick the bedroom door shut with my foot.
Terror grips me so tightly I can’t breathe. Grabbing Falco’s gun again, I clench it in both hands and face the door, raising it and positioning myself between Falco and the door.
He protected me.
I’m protecting him.
Even if we both die here, I’ll die protecting him like he’s protected me.
The gun rattles in my trembling grip even as I clench my teeth. The loud banging suddenly turns into rhythmic pounding and then…a voice.
“Aerin?”
It draws me instantly to my feet and I wrench the door open. “Pidge?”