Chapter 12 #3
“I don’t know.” Meg’s voice cracked. Raw. Like she’d been screaming even though she couldn’t remember making a sound. “He said an hour or less. It all happened so fast, and I’m not sure how much time between then and when you showed up.”
How long had she been kneeling here? Minutes? Hours? Time had lost all meaning.
Teague stepped into the chamber then with a radio in hand and static crackling. “Medical is on the way. Ten minutes out.”
“Did he say an hour before or after the shots?” Liam handed her a water bottle.
“He was dying. So after the second shot, I think.”
Meg swallowed a gulp of water—lukewarm and tasting of plastic and cave minerals—then looked over to where Alex lay. His chest rose and fell. Alive. Still alive.
“He needs help too. I had to do a fasciotomy. He’s stable but…”
But he needs a real hospital. Real doctors who aren’t broken.
“We’ll help him.” Liam pushed the water back toward her mouth with gentle insistence. “Keep drinking. You are probably dehydrated too.”
Teague set a narrow yellow backboard beside Noah. “We can get a basket down the shaft, but not around some of the turns of these tunnels, so we’re going to have to lift him onto this.”
“The knife.” Her stomach plummeted.
“We’ll be careful, but we have to get moving.”
The two men’s hands worked in rhythm—Liam at Noah’s shoulders, Teague at his feet—but every movement made Noah’s body shift and made fresh blood seep from around the packed fabric.
Dark. Too dark.
Too much blood.
He couldn’t survive losing this much blood. The human body only held so much. Five liters. Maybe six for someone Noah’s size. And how much was already soaked into the cave floor? Into his clothes? Staining her hands?
They all walked him to the base of the shaft—each step measured and careful but still jostling—and lowered the backboard into the waiting orange basket.
They secured the yellow plastic board to the metal frame.
Layer upon layer of protection that suddenly felt impossibly inadequate for seventy feet of vertical lift.
Noah moaned with the movement—low and pained. The first sound he’d made since collapsing.
“Meg.” Teague’s voice broke through the fog—sharp and demanding. “I need you to come talk to him. Keep him calm while we get him strapped in.”
She couldn’t respond.
Couldn’t move.
Her legs wouldn’t work. Wouldn’t carry her the ten feet to Noah’s side.
Noah was dying.
Because Meg couldn’t function. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t help.
She was failing him.
The thought sent another wave of panic crashing over her. Her vision tunneled further. The cave walls pressed closer. She was suffocating.
Drowning in the darkness and her own inadequacy.
Liam was back in front of her with his hand on her arms. His face filled her field of vision.
“Breathe. Stay with me. Good.”
Was she doing it?
Light was returning again with colors bleeding back into the gray. She must be breathing. Must be getting oxygen somehow.
Liam guided her over to Noah, his hand firm on her elbow. “Kneel and talk to him.”
She knelt. The stone bit into her knees through her pants. She focused on Noah’s face. His eyes were open—those beautiful deep-brown eyes—but his gaze was unfocused.
She could do this.
She had to do this for Noah. Had to be strong for him when she’d been weak for everyone else.
“Don’t fight them,” she finally squeezed out as she brushed a shaking hand across his face. His skin was cold. Too cold. Clammy with shock. His short hair was soft against her palm. “Try to stay still. They are getting you to a hospital. It’s going to be…”
She couldn’t say it.
Couldn’t form the word okay because it felt like a lie. Because right now, nothing felt like it would be okay ever again. The word stuck in her throat.
“Secure.” Liam guided her back—hands gentle but insistent. “You have to back up, Meg.”
“Clear,” Teague shouted just before the rope went taut. Noah’s board lifted, his body sliding toward the shaft opening. Teague was ascending with him—one hand on the rope, one guiding the basket—making sure he didn’t catch on the rough stone. Making sure the knife didn’t shift.
Then Noah disappeared into the vertical darkness above and was swallowed by the shaft.
Gone.
Meg’s vision blurred with tears—hot, tracking down her cheeks and mixing with the cave dust and blood spatters on her face.
She hadn’t told him it would be okay. She hadn’t even told him she loved him.
When Noah had said he needed her—I need you—she’d been too shocked, too overwhelmed to say it back. She had kissed him, but she hadn’t said it. Hadn’t given him the words he deserved.
And now he was dying and she’d never get the chance.
He’d risked everything down here to protect her—thrown himself between her and a gun, fought a grieving father, and taken a knife meant for her—and when it counted, when he needed her, she’d failed.
Failed like she’d failed her father. Like she’d failed Lydia. Like she failed everyone who needed her when the pressure was too much and her body betrayed her and the panic swallowed her whole.
The pattern of her life carved in stone and blood and darkness.