Chapter 26
Something woke her. Lark didn’t know what. For several seconds, she lay on the floor, staring into the darkness, disoriented. The fire had burned down to glowing embers, and rain still hammered the roof hard enough to make the entire cabin seem to tremble.
Then she remembered. Cormac.
She scrambled upright. He was still on the couch. But something was wrong. His skin glistened with sweat, his hair damp against his forehead. Even from where she stood, she could see the flush on his face.
Lark pressed her palm to his forehead. “Oh, God.” He was burning. Not warm. Not feverish. Burning.
“Cormac.” He didn’t respond. Her panic surged.
She grabbed the water bottle and crouched beside him. “Come on. You need to drink.” She lifted his head carefully and pressed the bottle against his lips. “Just a little.”
Some of the water went in. Some dribbled down his chin. “That’s it. Come on.”
He swallowed weakly. Lark breathed out. “Good.”
She gave him another small sip before setting the bottle aside.
Her gaze dropped to his wound. The makeshift bandage was soaked.
“Not good.” She peeled the fabric away. The sight beneath it made her stomach roll.
The wound was ugly. An angry and swollen kind of ugly.
The skin around it mottled with bruising. Blood still seeped from the opening.
Lark swallowed hard. She had no idea what she was doing. But doing nothing wasn’t an option. She carefully touched the skin around the wound. Cormac didn’t react.
She pressed a little farther. There. Something hard. Her breath caught. “Is that...”
She touched it again. Hard. Solid. The bullet.
Her gaze flicked toward his face. “I’m sorry.”
She grabbed the flashlight and held it over the wound. “God, that’s disgusting.” But there it was. Something metallic glinted deep inside. The bullet appeared to be close enough to the surface that she could see part of it.
Lark sat back on her heels. Every rational part of her brain screamed that this was a terrible idea. She wasn’t a doctor. She wasn’t a medic. She wasn’t even particularly good with blood.
But Cormac was getting worse. And they were stranded in the middle of nowhere during a storm. She had to try.
Her eyes landed on the old washbasin beneath the cabinets. There was a battered bar of soap beside it. Lark grabbed it and poured some of the collected rainwater over her hands. She scrubbed. And scrubbed. Until her fingers were raw.
“Okay.” She stared at her trembling hands. “You’re really going to do this.” Her voice shook. “Yes.”
She went back to Cormac. His knife lay nearby. So did the lighter. Lark picked up the knife. She’d seen something like this done on television. That counted for something. Probably not much. She flicked the lighter. The flame caught.
Holding the blade over it, she waited until the metal was hot. She knew enough to understand that this wasn’t actual sterilization. But it was the best she had.
When the blade cooled, Lark took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. “Please let me not make this worse.” A tiny but very much needed prayer.
Then she opened her eyes. “Okay, Cormac.” Her hands trembled. “Here goes nothing.” Or everything.
She worked slowly. Carefully. Painfully. It was awful. There was blood. There was tissue. There were moments when she thought she was going to be sick. But somehow, the bullet shifted. Just enough.
Lark’s breath caught. “I see you.”
She repositioned her fingers. Her fingertips found metal, and she grabbed it. Pulling as gently as she dared, the bullet came free. Lark stared at it in disbelief. “Whoa. Did that just happen?” She dropped it onto the floor. “I actually did it.”
The wound remained open and ugly. And now it was bleeding harder. “Oh, crap.” She grabbed the cleanest towels she could find and pressed them firmly against the wound.
Cormac groaned. Lark froze. “I’m sorry.” She pushed harder. “You’re going to hate me when you wake up.”
The bleeding gradually slowed. She kept pressure on it. Minutes passed. Or maybe longer. Time had stopped making sense.
After a while, the bleeding became a slow ooze. Lark sagged with relief. “Okay.” She looked at him. “You really need a hospital.”
Outside, thunder rolled across the mountains. Rain continued pouring from the sky. There was no way out. No phone. No vehicle. And she had no idea where they were.
Lark picked up the water again. She carefully coaxed another few sips between Cormac’s lips. “That’s it.” His throat worked. “Good.”
She touched his forehead again. Still burning. She looked toward the cabin door. Surely his team was looking for him. They had to be. She knew enough about Cormac to understand that people didn’t simply disappear from his life without someone noticing.
Maybe they’re at the island. Maybe they’d found the boat. Or the crates filled with who knows what. Maybe they’d seen the men. Maybe they’d figured out she’d been taken. Maybe they were already searching the river.
But what if they weren’t? What if the storm had made everything impossible? What if they didn’t know where to look?
Lark looked back at Cormac. His face was pale beneath the flush of fever. “You have to wake up,” she whispered. He didn’t listen. Typical man.
She reached out and brushed damp hair away from his forehead. “They’re coming.” She didn’t know if it was true. But she needed to believe it. “They’ll find us. Right?” She couldn’t help the note of vulnerability in the last word. She was scared as hell and had no idea what to do next.
Lark curled up beside the couch, keeping one hand over his. The fire had nearly gone out again. She was too tired to care. Her eyes drifted shut.
And somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, she imagined the sound of engines. Boots outside. Voices calling her name. Cormac’s teammates bursting through the cabin door. A rescue. Safety. Home.
She held onto the dream as tightly as she could. Because when she finally slipped into sleep, she had no idea whether anyone was coming for them at all.