Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
I found Hunter in the icy lake. His head rested backward against the flat rock, eyes closed, skin pale. Something was wrong—very wrong. A panic coiled around me like an anaconda. I dropped to my knees next to him and placed my hand on his wet forehead. It was like touching hot coals in the firepit.
“You are burning up,” I whispered. “You should be in bed, not here.”
Hunter rolled his head to face me, grunting, his jaw clenched, teeth grinding together. After a long second he exhaled, the contour of his face altered by agony. “I need to bring my temperature down,” he said, and a shiver ran over his body either from the cold-ass water or it was fever chill.
“What do you think is wrong with you?”
He drew a sharp breath. “Just an infection.”
Hunter brought his left arm out of the water, and horror drained the blood out of my face.
Last night, the bite on his hand had been red and slightly swollen, but now his hand was brick-red and three times its usual size.
The punctured holes were penny-sized and ripped at their edges, the skin around them blackish-blue.
The gruesomeness of it wasn’t easy on my stomach, and it roiled with nausea.
I clamped a hand over my mouth and took a deep breath through my nose.
What did people do in the movies in this situation?
In Outlander, Claire Fraser amputated someone’s leg or arm to stop infections from spreading.
Fuck. I twisted back, launched to a nearby bush, and threw up.
I would make the worst nurse. I groaned, embarrassed by my weakness, and wiped my mouth with a shaking hand.
“So sorry,” I said, swallowing the foul taste down my acid-burned throat, and returned to my original spot. “What can I do?”
My eyes welled up, and my heart drummed with worry that if we didn’t get Hunter’s infection under control, he might die. I scrunched up my face, trying not to sob at that thought. I couldn’t lose another person I deeply cared about. I wouldn’t allow that.
“Wonder Woman.” Hunter a weak smile pulled at his lips. “Don’t cry. I’ll be okay.”
The medical field was an unmapped territory for me. I cared for my father close to two years, but he wasn’t physically sick, he had no open wounds that I had to redress. My tasks were ensuring he ate, drank, took his medications, and I changed his diaper and bathed him.
“Didn’t you put antibiotics on it yesterday?” I asked. Last night, Hunter rinsed his wounds with an antiseptic solution, and I used the remaining on mine. I was fine today. Why wasn’t he? Sure, the spots on my arm were sore, but they looked fine.
Seeing my strong and energetic Hunter like this was unreal. And nerve-racking. My breath hitched.
“Tell me what I can do?” I said, my voice wobbling with emotions.
He sighed. “Just sit with me for a while and don’t let me drown.”
I folded my legs under myself next to Hunter’s head and sat quietly, gently running my fingers over his scalp and trying to remember if we had a first aid book.
In the hut, I helped Hunter get into the bed, gave him acetaminophen pills, and covered him with all our towels and blankets, which wasn’t a lot because no one needed covers on a tropical island.
For an hour, every five minutes I changed a wet washcloth on his forehead, careful not to wake him up.
Hunter’s chest rose and fell with shallow and rapid breaths.
Every so often, a soft whimper fled his lips.
All-consuming panic spread like a poison within me, and a lump formed in my throat.
I didn’t want Hunter to be in pain. I would give anything to help him.
Stepping away from the bed, I ferreted the medical box out again but found nothing useful.
I located the book on first aid, studied the sections about open wounds, and snake bites, and read a chapter on natural antibiotics: garlic, honey, ginger, goldenseal, and myrrh.
What the fuck was that? It didn’t matter.
We probably didn’t have it on the island, just like we had nothing else on that list.
Sometime during his sleep, Hunter pushed off all the coverings, allowing me to check his exposed body for anything else that could have been infected. All the other cuts and wounds looked fine.
Seeing Hunter frail and vulnerable threw me back to the last days of my father.
My throat constricted as my mind pivoted back to that dark place, and I couldn’t let it drag me down.
I fled to the beach, stopping when my bare feet reached the hot, soft sand.
Closing my eyes and lifting my face skyward, I concentrated on the constant soundtrack of waves rolling onto the shore, birds chirping, and bugs buzzing.
For every time my mind shoved aside a morbid thought, another would take its place.
What if Hunter dies? No, not thinking about that.
Would he suffer long before his last breath? Fuck. My brain was persistent.
An animal-like growl erupted out of me. “He’ll be okay,” I said out loud so I could hear myself.
Everything would be okay even without garlic or ginger.
Hunter was a healthy man who had me to help him.
I wouldn’t let another man I cared about die.
Not on my watch. I wiped my wet cheeks and repeated the breathing exercise: breathe in through your nose for four seconds, hold breath for seven, and then exhale through your mouth for eight, repeat three more times.
My heartbeat slowed down, and so did my thoughts, pausing on the image of the shed and the pile in the far corner of stuff Edward’s girlfriends left here.
I went over them weeks ago, pulling out some clothing, a hairbrush, and dried-up body lotion (I diluted it with coconut water and it lasted me for a few days).
There was also a small bag with some boxes and pills.
I shied away from it, uncertain what it was, fearing it was some illegal drugs, something I shouldn’t have discovered. But now I wasn’t scared.
Before sprinting to the shed, I checked on Hunter. He was asleep. The washcloth on his forehead slid sideways, and his damaged, blazing-red hand rested near his hip.
I kissed Hunter’s brow just as he did when I was sick. I replaced the dry washcloth with a new, cold one and left the hut.
In the shed, I found the suitcase and opened it.
A musty smell wafted in my face, and a few bugs darted away.
Unbothered by the spiders, I rummaged through the luggage until I dug out the small container I had come for.
Inside, it contained multiple blister packs filled with various pills.
There were no long-ass paper instructions on how to use any of these medications, and most of the names were unfamiliar to me.
One of them, though, was Penicillin 250 mg.
Besides the tablets, there were also tiny glass bottles.
Penicillin G Benzathine and Tetanus Toxoid.
“Thank God,” I said, keeping my happy tears at bay.
When I was in high school, I brought a stray cat to our house as a gift for my mom.
The surprise cost my parents over five hundred dollars when something spooked the cat, and he bit my father’s forearm.
The following day, he had to go to the urgent care because his arm ballooned with an infection overnight.
The doctor gave him two injections, Penicillin and Tetanus, and sent him home with some painkillers and more antibiotics.
I could do the same for Hunter. Only after further inspection, the container had no disposable syringes or needles.
Damn it. The medical box in the hut had antique-ish-looking glass syringes probably used for who knows what but I could work with that.
Stuffing everything back in and taking the entire box, I hurried to the hut.
How long medication could last in the hot tropical weather and what dosage to give were good questions, and I had no answers.
I could poison and kill Hunter, but there was also a greater chance the infection would spread and eventually kill him.
I decided to take my chances with medication.
A rescue boat or plane would be very much appreciated right now.
I flipped the first aid book to the part where it talked about doing injections. Vein. Nope. Not doing that. Muscle. Yes. I could do that one. It had a warning about some patients’ allergies to penicillin. I glanced at Hunter, and pity coiled inside me. I had to wake him up.
“Hey,” I said in a low voice, running my hand over his hot face.
“Hunter, look at me, please.” After a few tries of me talking to him, his eyelashes fluttered, then he opened his eyes.
I smiled. “Hi,” I said. His eyes rolled, and his eyelids started to close.
“No, Hunter, wake up. I need to know if you are allergic to Penicillin?” He opened his eyes again, some sharpness that had always been in them returning for a slit second.
“Penicillin. Are you allergic?” I said words louder this time.
He shook his head, closing his eyes, his lips moving. He was trying to say something, but I couldn’t hear. I leaned closer to his face. “What?”
He swallowed, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I’m right here. You don’t have to yell.”
Unclear why it made me laugh, but it did, I started crying. It was a good sign that Hunter was joking, wasn’t it? I wiped my nose on my shoulder.
“What about tetanus? When was your last shot?”
“Don’t know,” he rasped, then swallowed.
“Water?” That put an end to my giggles and set me into action.
Supporting his head, I helped him drink.
Then I made a fire and boiled water with the glass syringe and needles.
I washed my hands with the same water, burning my skin, but it was the only way to sanitize them.
“I need to give you two shots. Okay? I’ll explain later where I found it.”