Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
I’ve already got dirt inside my socks and gloves, making me itchy, and sweat is trickling down between my breasts. Now this?
I reach for the coiled-up fake snake Linden must have put here so I can throw it at his head when it moves.
The strike comes so fast I don’t have time to do anything but scream. And then I’m stumbling backwards, the blue sky and puffy white clouds filling my vision while a searing heat explodes from my shin.
“Meg!” Linden lunges, catching me as I flail.
“Oh my god!” I manage, panic spiking hot under my skin while sudden tremors fire through my muscles. “It bit me.” The words skip over my tongue. I sound so stupid.
“Where?” he asks in a firm voice.
My leg is on fire. I try to reach for it but I’m shaking too bad. A wave of nausea rolls through me and the sky spins. “My leg,” I manage.
He kneels with me still cradled in his arms and peels back my pant leg. Already there’s a lump with twin fang marks in the center of my shin. Blood is trickling from the bite and my leg has flushed a deep pink.
This time the nausea wins and I barely manage to lurch away from Linden to puke up the last of my breakfast all over the dry ground.
“Let’s go,” Linden says, rocking to his feet.
We’re moving, but everything is a blur. I cry out as the burning pain in my leg makes my entire calf muscle cramp. It’s like someone’s running a blow torch against my shin bone. My kneecap is going to burst.
“I thought it was fake.” I’m tensing my body, like I can keep the burn from spreading.
“This is my fault.” He’s focusing on where he’s going, and he’s moving fast. “I’m going to get you out of here, okay?”
“Am I going to die?” My lips feel tingly and I’m shivering so bad my teeth chatter.
“Absolutely not,” he replies as we get to the trail. He calls out to someone. “We’ve got a medical emergency. I’m taking her down.”
There’s a commotion from the other volunteers but I’m in too much pain and too panicked to try to understand what’s happening. And Linden’s already moving down the trail, with the Forest Service Ranger following along, barking into her radio.
“Did you identify the snake?” she asks in a rush.
“Don’t need to. The anti-venom isn’t species specific.”
“I thought we’re supposed to cut and suck.”
“No,” Linden barks, curling me tighter against him.
My face is hot and tingly and panic has my lungs in a vice. “Linden,” I whimper.
“Listen to me, Meg.” Linden shoots me a steady glance. He’s barely breathing hard. “The best thing you can do is try to stay calm, okay? I’m going to get you to help as fast as I can.”
I gulp a breath but my lungs tremble. “I’m scared. ”
“It’s going to be all right,” Linden says in a firm tone, shifting my body and increasing his pace.
Every time his foot lands, a spike of heat shoots up my leg. I start to cry. Coupled with my shaking limbs, I feel like I’m going to crack into pieces.
Behind us, the ranger’s radio crackles. She’s breathless while relaying information.
“The ambulance is en route,” she says to Linden as we reach the parking lot.
“I’ll meet them,” he says, sprinting for his truck.
The ranger opens Linden’s passenger side door, and he sets me gently on the seat. His face is flushed and sweat beads at his temples.
He’s wearing an expression I can’t read, but he’s moving too fast for me to try very hard.
He slings the seat belt across me and clips it in, then takes my face in his hands so we’re eye to eye. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Okay,” I whimper as another nauseous flicker sends a pulse of unease through me.
He dashes to his side and jumps behind the wheel.
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?” He accelerates down the gravel road, kicking up a plume of dust.
“Eight?” I manage as a sudden jostle loosens my stomach.
“Are you still?—”
“Stop!” I scrabble for the door handle.
The truck slides to a stop and Linden lunges across my lap to open my door just in time for me to hurl into the dirt.
“I’m sorry,” I rattle off, teeth rattling.
He rests his big hand between my shoulder blades. “Fuck, Meg, you don’t need to apologize.”
“Your seats,” I manage, the nausea ebbing, making me feel exhausted and weak.
He heaves a sigh. “I don’t give a fuck about the seats. ”
Woozy, I lean back, the movement sending a fresh pulse of pain up through my kneecap.
He grabs a handful of fast-food napkins from the glove box, then accelerates again.
The dry, stiff paper on my tingling face feels like sandpaper. I manage to roll down the window, the cool breeze on my cheeks the only thing keeping me from vomiting again. Linden rounds a tight switchback, the planes of his face hard and his fingers clenched around the steering wheel.
“Can you pull up your pant leg?” he asks, shooting me a glance.
I tug the fabric up with my fingertips but I can’t look. It’s turning my stomach to noodles.
“Okay,” he says, sounding satisfied. “Is the pain getting worse?”
“It’s getting—” I pause as my throat tightens even more “—hard to…swallow.”
“Fuck.” He reaches behind his seat with one hand while he keeps his focus on the road, retrieving that first aid kid I remember from the night at The Limelight. He flips the clasps and with a quick glance at the contents, snatches up a yellow box with EPI-PEN written down it in big black letters.
“Oh God,” I say as he uses his teeth to rip open the box.
Of course I’ve been trained to use one of these, but I’ve never seen one in real life. One with a real needle and real epinephrine spring-loaded inside it to save a life.
“I don’t think we’ll need this,” he says, glancing at me. “But I want it ready in case we do.”
I whimper, staring at the thick injection pen clutched in his fist.
As we round another curve, the flashing lights of an ambulance fills the view.
“Finally,” Linden says, yanking the wheel to the side. We lurch to a stop and he jumps out then races around the hood to my side. I think I’m going to be sick again. The shivers are violent but I can’t control them. My wheezing breaths hurt my throat and chest.
Linden gathers me in his arms and hurries toward the ambulance. I’m jostled and the sky whirls above me. My leg is on fire and my stomach is cramping. Please don’t let me be sick again .
I’m lifted into the back of the ambulance and then I’m on my back blinking back tears at the metal ceiling.
“Take my hand,” Linden says.
I grip it and squeeze as sobs rattle through my frame.
“Luck’s on your side, shortcake, because Hutch is the most skilled medic I know,” Linden says, giving the medic a quick glance. “He’s going to take excellent care of you, okay?”
I swat tears from my cheeks. “Okay,” I manage.
“Little poke,” Hutch says before a cool flush races up my arm. Linden and Hutch banter back and forth, their voices tense. Closing my eyes, I try to tune them out. The ambulance rocks and sways as we descend the washboarded mountain road.
Linden covers me with a warm blanket from knees to my chin. The weight of it alone helps soften the shivers rocking through my muscles. Then Linden takes my hand again.
Hutch is talking into a radio while examining my lower leg. Drawing on it with a Sharpie, tickling my tight skin. Then he’s back at my side, peeling open a vial.
“I’m gonna push fifty milligrams of Diphenhydramine.” Another cold flush up my arm.
Hutch returns to the foot of the bed, relaying numbers and shorthand into the cell phone while working on the bite wound.
Though the ambulance sways, I feel less and less like puking and the searing pain in my leg is more diffuse, though it’s spreading into my thigh and hip.
Like the poison from the bite is seeping into my bone marrow .
“We’ll be at the hospital soon,” Linden says in a low tone. “They’ve got the anti-venom ready. Do you have any allergies?”
My molars clatter together. “No,” I manage.
“Okay,” Linden says. “When we get there, they won’t let me go back with you, but you’ll be in good hands. The team at Evergreen is top notch.”
The thought of him leaving my side makes me start to cry again. It doesn’t make sense, but I can’t fight it.
“It’s going to be okay,” Linden says in that soothing, calm tone. “I know it hurts, and it’s scary, but they’re going to take the best care of you.”
The ambulance pulls to a stop and the back doors fly open, flooding the space with bright light and a gust of cool air. Voices from outside the back doors filter in. They sound tense, and another wave of fear spikes inside my chest. Linden said I’m not going to die, but how would he know for sure?
I’m lifted down, then wheeled into the hospital by two men in dark blue scrubs.
Inside, the space is flooded with bright lights and the rapid movement of doctors and nurses.
Packages rip open and my pants are cut from me and whipped off.
Next come my boot and sock. A fresh blanket is laid over my right leg and upper body while a nurse rattles off my vital signs and another staff member peppers me with questions.
“Get me a blood sample!” someone barks.
The nurse who took my vital signs goes to work on my arm. “Quick pinch,” he says right before the needle pricks at the crook of my elbow.
“Vitals are elevated,” someone out of sight calls out.
“How’s your pain?” the nurse asks.
My head feels thick and the lights are so bright. “A little better.”
I close my eyes and tune out the chatter and the beeps and clicks coming from the machines. My body feels heavy and I’m not shuddering out of control now but there’s a sickly, dark dread creeping in.
“Linden’s trying to get a hold of your dad,” the nurse says.
I blink in surprise. During the ambulance ride, Linden and Hutch asked me a bunch of questions. Did I ask someone to call my dad?
“Anyone else we can call for you?”
“No,” I reply. A year ago, I would have begged for Russel. I shut that thought down.
They keep me in the triage bay but the activity slows and there are fewer people. I get several doses of anti-venom. Each one makes my muscles quiver and my pulse throb in my throat, like there’s a war going on inside my body. The pain comes in waves, ebbing only to strengthen again.
Finally, I’m wheeled to a room. The lights are dim but there’s a big window that looks north, giving me a partial view of the green valley and the edge of the foothills. I try to drink it in but anxiety consumes my thoughts. How long will I be here? What happens next?
The drugs in my system and the adrenaline crash after the time in the emergency room make me drowsy. A nurse hooks me up to monitors and adds more artwork to my leg. It’s swollen and numb and sensitive all at once.
A shadow washes over my face, and I open my eyes to Linden gazing down at me. Seeing him again makes me want to cry again, but I blink the tears back.
The nurse shuffles from the room.
“How you doing?” Linden asks. Compassion and a stoic calm dominate his expression. It’s comforting in a way that overwhelms me and confuses me at the same time.
“Thank you,” I say.
His expression darkens. “I’m so sorry this happened.”
“I’m glad you were there. ”
If only I’d stopped for one second. Used my freaking head instead of being so quick to show him he wasn’t getting to me.
I so wish it were true. This past week, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Linden’s cocky smirk and the way he so easily gets me riled up. Knowing he’s been able to hear me in bed at night makes me want to claw my face off in embarrassment.
Linden sighs. “I wish I’d gotten to you in time.”
Yet he still caught my fall. And carried me down the trail in record time.
“Your dad will be here soon,” he adds.
“Is Russel here?” I finally ask.
His eyes tense. “I don’t know. Do…you want him to be?”
“I don’t want him to see me like this.” My voice cracks and emotion stings my nose.
“Hey,” Linden says in a soft voice. “Don’t you worry about that. You focus on resting and getting better. If you don’t want him here, I’ll make sure he stays out.”
“Okay.”
His lips twitch with the hint of a smile. “Rest, shortcake.”