Chapter 12 #2
He couldn’t tell anymore. Couldn’t distinguish up from down, couldn’t focus his eyes.
“Noah!”
Meg’s voice was close now. Her hands were on his shoulders, trying to hold him up. Small hands. Strong. They tried to keep him from hitting the ground.
He wanted to tell her to run. Wanted to tell her that none of this was her fault, that Ryan was wrong, that she’d done everything she could for Lydia. That she was the best doctor he knew. That he loved her.
“Explosives…One hour…or less…Get out…” He needed to say more but his tongue was thick in his mouth. And his vision was narrowing to a pinpoint with its edges going gray. Tunnel vision. The sign of shock, of blood loss.
The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was Meg’s face, pale and terrified, with her blue eyes wide. Her hands pressed against his side where the blood wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t slow. Just kept coming.
He’d failed her.
He’d promised they’d get out of here, promised they’d figure this out. And instead, he was leaving her alone in a cave rigged to explode, with an unconscious boy and two bodies and no way to call for help.
And there was no way out. The shaft was too steep. The entrance was blocked. The explosives were everywhere. Who knew how Ryan got in or how he planned to get out? But with him dead, they would never find it in time.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Or maybe it had.
Because the darkness was swallowing him whole and pulling him down. And he couldn’t fight it anymore.
Couldn’t hold on.
Couldn’t—
“Meg.”
Liam’s voice cut through the roaring in her ears—a sound like standing under a waterfall.
“What happened?”
She looked up, and the sight of him—solid, real, alive—nearly broke her. The edges of him wavered and went in and out of focus. “How did you…?” She kept her hand over the wound, her fingers slick with Noah’s blood. Warm. Too warm.
It wasn’t helping.
Blood kept seeping between her fingers, hot and relentless. She pressed harder. Her hand cramped from the pressure.
“We came down the shaft and followed Noah’s trail of fabric. We heard the shot. Who is that?” Liam motioned to the body slumped against the cave wall.
“Ryan Bradley. Lydia’s father. He had a gun. He blamed me for Lydia. Noah tried to stop him and they fought and—” The words tumbled out too fast. Her hands still pressed against Noah’s side and felt each weak pulse of blood that meant his heart was still beating. Still trying.
“The gun went off. And he had a knife. Ryan’s dead. Noah’s…” She couldn’t say it.
Couldn’t even think it. Couldn’t form the word dying because saying it out loud might make it true.
“There are explosives.”
Her breathing was coming faster—short gasps that didn’t bring enough air. Maybe there wasn’t enough oxygen in the cave. Maybe the rock walls were sucking it all away.
“Where are the explosives?”
Liam’s voice sounded distant and muffled. Like she was underwater and he was calling to her from the surface. He was kneeling—she could see him moving, blurry at the edges of her vision—next to Noah. Next to the knife still sticking in Noah’s side. Black handle protruding from red flesh.
“I…I don’t know.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own. Someone else was speaking through her mouth. The cave was getting darker—her headlamp still on but everything fading around the edges—and there was definitely not enough oxygen.
“Are you okay?”
Teague.
That was Teague’s voice, far away. Like he was shouting from the rim while she spiraled down into the canyon.
“What is wrong with her?”
“She’s having a panic attack.” Liam’s hands were on her upper arms—warm, steady, grounding. She tried to focus on them, but her vision kept tunneling. “My sister, Libby, used to get them. Stabilize the wound and I’ll help Meg.”
Movement in her peripheral vision. Shapes shifted. Teague moved toward Noah. Toward the knife.
Don’t touch it.
But the words were locked behind her teeth and wouldn’t come. Her chest was too tight, her ribs compressing her lungs like a vice.
“What do I do?” Teague’s voice was uncertain and scared.
“We need to keep the knife from moving.” Liam’s thumbs pressed gently against her shoulders and tried to pull her back from the edge. “See if you can find fabric. We need to pack around the base to immobilize it.”
Her vision cleared.
Not completely. The edges were still gray and fuzzy. But enough.
Teague stripped off his jacket. Then his shirt. The movements seemed jerky and stop-motion. He was tearing the fabric—long ripping sounds that echoed off the limestone and filled the small space until it felt like the cave itself was tearing apart.
“Come on, Meg, breathe with me.” Liam looked at her, then back at Teague. “Good, now roll some of those into thick pads.”
Liam’s face came into focus again and blocked her view of Noah. Of the knife. Of the blood pooling beneath him.
“Meg, I need you to breathe with me.”
She couldn’t.
She was drowning on dry land. And Noah was bleeding—dying—and she was supposed to be helping, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Her medical training scattered like dust. All those years of school and residency and practice, and when it mattered most, she was useless.
“You can do this. You are strong. Noah needs you. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.”
She did as he said and dragged air in through the tightness. She held it even though her body screamed to expel it.
And again.
The roaring in her ears quieted. Not gone. Never gone. But it receded to a dull hum instead of a scream. She could still feel every heartbeat—too fast, hammering against her ribs—but the world around her was coming back into focus, with sharp edges instead of blurred shapes.
Teague was positioning something—rolled strips of fabric, thick cylinders. He placed them carefully around where the knife entered Noah’s side. His hands shook slightly.
More fabric.
He was packing it around the base and building up both sides. He created a cushion, a donut of material to immobilize the blade, to keep it from shifting, from tearing through more tissue.
That was right.
That was what he was supposed to do. Textbook procedure for an impaled object.
The information was there in her head, clinical and clear, but it was separated from her body by a wall of ice. She could see it and could understand it. But she couldn’t reach it through the cold to act on it.
“You are doing better, Meg.” Liam’s voice remained calm and steady. His face still blocked her view and kept her grounded in the moment instead of spiraling. “Keep breathing.”
“It’s stable. But we have to lift them through the shaft. And movement could—” Teague’s gaze flicked to hers just before he left.
Could kill him.
That’s what he wasn’t saying. What he didn’t need to say.
Any movement could kill him. The knife shifting. Tearing the iliac artery. Puncturing deeper into the peritoneum. A dozen ways for Noah to bleed out before they reached the surface.
Liam stared at her again, those steady eyes holding hers and keeping her here. “Think, did he say how much time we have with the explosives?”