Chapter 28 Bennett
BENNETT
One moment, I was fiddling with one of my triggered traps, trying to reset it, and the very next I heard Charlie yelling my name. I whirled around and didn’t see her anywhere. She’d been over by the fir tree a moment ago.
“Charlie!” I yelled, but the wind ripped my words away. I covered the light on my camera, letting my eyes adjust to the dark. There. Off to the side, I saw a light shining against a tree. I picked my way toward it, watching my steps carefully.
Charlie’s crumpled form lay not far from the tree, and I nearly threw up into the gnarly root system at my feet. Forget caution. I jumped over the roots to kneel at her side. She was curled into a ball, breathing fast, her hand over her side. “What happened?”
She blinked, her brows scrunched with confusion. “Nothing.”
“You’re hurt.”
Her nose crinkled as I pulled her hand gently away from her side. We both looked at her ribs, where a dark stain was spreading. “I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Oh.” She looked surprised as she turned her bloody hand back and forth in the light. “Do you have a bandage?”
I held the light up to her eyes, and she squinted away, but not before I saw her dilated pupils.
She was in shock. I’d seen this before when people were injured on a fishing excursion, generally when it involved a lot of pain or blood.
Luckily, it was rare for someone to get hurt, but it still happened often enough that I could recognize the signs.
I needed to get Charlie back to our shelter and get her warm.
“Can you walk?” I asked her.
She slowly got to her feet but remained hunched over her side. “I think so,” she said, but I’d already made my decision.
I picked her up and carried her like I had on our wedding night.
“The cameras.” Her cheek rested on my shoulder, her clammy forehead buried into my neck.
“Okay,” I said, leaving them behind. We had our chest cams, and a camera set up back at the shelter, but honestly, they could get washed away for all I cared.
Although it went against every instinct, I walked slowly and carefully back to the shelter in the almost pitch dark.
I cradled Charlie in my arms and tried to take the brunt of the elements assailing us.
Normally I could carry Charlie with ease, but with the lack of nutrition, the exhaustion, and the incessant onslaught of tempestuous weather, I had to focus on one foot in front of the other to keep going.
It was how I’d lived my life until now, so I was good at it.
I couldn’t walk for miles, but I could take one more step.
My legs wobbled with relief when our shelter came into view. I gently laid her under the tarp. “I need to get a fire started.” I brushed some of her plastered hair from her face. She nodded, I think. But her shivering was constant, so it was hard to tell. I had to stay calm. Think.
“I don’t think I told you about the cute thing Hansel did right before we got married,” I said as I tried to light our fire. My trembling hands were making it hard to strike the flint with enough accuracy for a spark.
“What was it?”
Hearing her voice was a relief. Injuries out here could quickly turn serious. The crew probably couldn’t get to us until tomorrow, especially with how bad this storm was.
I spoke quietly, hoping it would help her relax. “I couldn’t find Hansel anywhere, but I knew he had to be in the house. I was searching and calling his name when I went into my closet. Did I tell you he loves my closet?”
“No,” she said through chattering teeth.
The spark finally caught, and I nearly fell back in relief. I blew on the tiny flame in my kindling, then set it under the frame of logs Charlie had built before we’d gone out.
“It’s his favorite place to be. I’d looked in there twice already but hadn’t seen him.” I squatted in front of Charlie. “I’m going to get your coat and shirt off,” I told her.
She nodded and helped as I tugged both items off, leaving her wearing her dark gray sports bra. A dark stain covered her side and stomach.
“I need better light. Can you scoot toward the fire?”
As she did, I retrieved the first aid kit with shaking hands. I stopped to take a deep breath. Charlie was going okay. I needed to take my time and not lose my head.
“Tell me more about Hansel.” Her voice sounded a little clearer. Hopefully removing her clothes and sitting by the fire was already working. And I’d learned over the years that distraction in a crisis could not be overrated.
The firelight flickered across her pale skin, illuminating a small, jagged tear in her side.
I knelt beside her and shined a flashlight on it.
She’d cut herself maybe one inch lower than her bra band, and it was the length of my thumbnail.
I opened a package of clean gauze and pressed it to the wound.
“Another one of his favorite places is my bed. I don’t want a dog in my bed, even Hansel, so I keep having to kick him out. ”
“Aw,” she said, with a pitiful frown.
“Can you hold the gauze here?” I asked. I shrugged off my coat and soaking wet shirt, then shucked off my shoes and pants, not wanting to drip filthy water onto her.
Then I grabbed our bucket of washing water and scrubbed my hands and arms clean.
The last thing I needed was to introduce bacteria to her cut and cause an infection.
“Don’t feel too bad for him,” I said as I returned to her side. “I ordered one of those huge dog beds online for him and put it right next to my bed.”
“You did?” She blinked at me, and I assessed her pupils. Still dilated.
“And a cozy blanket. And a little doggy cuddle toy. He’s living the life of luxury. In his own bed.”
I slipped my fingers under Charlie’s cold ones and eased the gauze up from her silky skin. The blood was still coming out in a trickle, and the area around it was looking darker. She hissed in pain when I helped her turn onto her side so I could get a better look at the gash.
“So finally,” I continued, “I looked in my closet a third time, more carefully. And I found him fast asleep, not a care in the world, inside one of my shoes. Curled up like a little baby shrimp. He has a whole luxury bed, and he chose to sleep in my shoe.”
I ran the pads of my fingers along the ridges of her ribs, feeling for anything jutting or out of place. Goose bumps erupted along her skin, and Charlie shivered. I glanced up to find her watching me. “Thank you.” I didn’t know if she meant for helping her here, or for taking care of Hansel.
I swallowed hard and continued with my assessment.
Her skin was smooth against my touch. Focus on feeling her for injury, not on how this feels.
It was a good, productive command, but one that was hard to follow, as I slid my fingers along the edge of her rib cage.
I could see her heart beating against her chest, and her breathing grew rapid.
I did the same along her other side, making sure to feel along every ridge of her rib cage until it met in the middle at her sternum.
“Your ribs aren’t noticeably broken,” I said, my voice a little husky. “Which doesn’t mean they aren’t fractured.”
“I know,” she said too breathlessly for my sanity.
Our gazes met, and I exhaled slowly before forcing my attention to her injury. “I’m going to clean this out and get it bandaged.”
“Alright.”
I got our freshly boiled water from dinner and poured some over a fresh package of gauze. I dabbed at the jagged cut. She must have landed on a branch or something that stabbed into her. It probably needed stitches, something I was definitely not equipped to administer.
I riffled through the first aid kit for antiseptic.
“This is probably going to sting.” I sprayed her cut, and she hissed, her eyes watering as I met her gaze, but she didn’t move.
Charlie trusted me, and I wanted to do everything I could to be worthy of that gift.
I found a butterfly bandage and put it on next, before covering it in fresh gauze, and taping it on with the medical tape.
“Do you want me to help you take your pants and shoes off?” I asked. It was a bad idea for me to help her undress. A really, really bad idea. If there was any time I needed to call her buddy, scout, or pal, now was it.
But she couldn’t undress herself without pulling at her new injury.
I attempted to put on my sister’s best friend blinders I’d somehow managed to wear from the moment I met her until our wedding night.
I tugged off her shoes, and then we stripped her soaking wet pants off next, leaving her only in her gray underwear. Focus on her face.
Her legs were chilled and shaking. If only we were anywhere but out here, in the cold. But if we weren’t out here, we wouldn’t be together. And I was having a hard time imagining a life without Charlie in it. It was dangerous, and I needed to keep focused on the real reason we were here.
I brought the sleeping bag closer to the fire and unzipped it all the way. “Get inside.” I changed into my long johns, then climbed in behind her and zipped us up.
I pulled her icy cold, shivering body into mine. I woke up with us tangled in each other almost every morning, but I was usually half-asleep then. Now, I was fully awake and aware of every place our bodies touched.
“Bennett? You’re really intelligent,” she said through chattering teeth. “Getting a high school degree isn’t a measure of that.”
“We don’t have to talk about this.” I’d hoped she’d forget about our earlier conversation.
“I just wanted you to know. That’s how I feel.”
I bit my cheeks to keep from getting emotional. Charlie was sincere, like always. One by one, she was knocking down the barriers I’d erected to keep myself from falling in love with her.
“We still have to find the last plant,” she said after another long silence where I hoped she’d fallen asleep.
“No.” We were done with that challenge. I couldn’t even say where the pail had landed in my race to make sure she was okay.
“But the punishment.” She took a shuddering, emotional breath.
“We have to go home tomorrow. You need real medical attention.” I spoke softly, knowing that me saying this was going to kill her.
“No.” She tried to sit up, but we were too tight in the sleeping bag, and she eased back down. “We can’t. I’m fine. I swear.”
“We’ll have to see in the morning,” I said, noncommittally. No money was worth getting permanently injured.
“We’re not leaving,” she said firmly. “No matter what the punishment is.”
I sighed. No punishment they’d give us could be worse than seeing her hurt. “We’ll deal with whatever it is together.”
“I’m serious. Greg never listened to me. I need you to listen to me.” The pleading in her voice made my heart ache.
It was a bad idea to stay out here with an injury. A bad idea to put my hand behind her head and hold her as close as I dared while we were both emotional.
But I couldn’t steal her autonomy the way Greg had. I wouldn’t.
“Okay,” I promised. “We’ll stay.”