13
TIME MOVES SLOWLY WHEN you’re scared.
It’s as if the universe wants you to live in that moment, to feel it and breathe it for as long as possible. Perhaps a twisted lesson. I don’t know.
All I know is I want it to stop.
Tatiana’s blood is coating my hands as I put as much pressure on the wound as possible.
Zeke, the level-headed and calm one, swings right into action.
He won’t allow anyone to move her, and instead we make a clear area for her to lean while he takes a closer look.
She goes in and out of consciousness, not from blood loss, but mostly shock.
Zeke said the blood loss isn’t as bad as he thought it would be, and that has to be a good sign, right?
But that doesn’t stop the broken shard of wood protruding from her stomach.
Everyone is moving, and yet it feels as though everything has stopped.
Ace is calling out to Kellen, Aggie is keeping it together but staring at Tati with fear in her eyes, Rachel is by her side, holding her hand and Adrian has gone on a hunt to wake Kaylee and see if they can find anything we can use.
Me, I’m just standing, numb, staring down at my best friend and wondering if we are about to lose her.
“Hey,” Ace says, stepping in front of me, hands on my shoulders. “Goin’ to need you to keep it together. We gotta help her, you hear me?”
I nod, shaking my head. “Yes. What do you need me to do?”
“Sit by her, she’s scared.”
I do as he asks, carefully climbing down next to Tatiana and taking her other hand.
Rachel looks at me, and I can see the fear and uncertainty in her eyes.
She’s scared. We all are. I squeeze Tatiana’s hand, not sure if my warmth is what she needs or if it’s the only thing I can offer.
Her eyes flutter, and her lips move, but she doesn’t wake up.
“Zeke,” I whisper, staring at him as he inspects the horrific situation. “What are we going to do? Do we pull it out?”
Zeke’s voice cuts through the air. “Nobody moves the wood.”
Kellen glances over at Zeke. “We can’t leave it in there. We need to pull it or she will die, Zeke.”
“No,” Zeke says, not even turning his head. “If it is blocking an artery, or a bleed, and we pull it, she will die in minutes. We can’t risk that. I’d rather a small chance than none at all.”
Kellen throws his hands in the air. “So what, we just let her sit here with a fucking fence post sticking out of her? What if we’re out here for fucking months, Zeke? There is no way that is logical. We have no idea where we are, or what is going to happen.”
“I fuckin’ hear you,” Zeke barks. “But we have no idea how much damage this thing has caused, and every fuckin’ rule book says you don’t pull out an impaled object so we just have to fuckin’ pray we find somewhere to get her help.”
Kellen’s mouth moves, but he has nothing, he knows Zeke is right, we all do. If we pull that wood out, we could kill her. An infection, internal bleeding or anything else could kill her too, but at least it gives us time. Time to try and find help. Time to pray for a damn miracle.
“We’ve got antibiotics,” Zeke goes on, still inspecting the wound, “it might buy us a little time.”
Aggie is standing beside Zeke now, her face pale with a mix of guilt and fear as she looks down at Tati. “This is all my fault.”
“It ain’t,” Zeke mutters. “It was a freak accident.”
“She was trying to stop me and Rachel fighting, and now...”
Her voice breaks and Zeke stands, turning to her. “We can’t be feelin’ sorry for ourselves right now, Aggie. We gotta fuckin’ do what we can to save her life. I need you to be strong, yeah?”
She nods, but tears are rolling down her cheeks.
Ace steps in, his eyes swinging to Zeke, then to me.
“If we can get close to shore, maybe she has a chance, but for now, we cut the stick, pack it hard, make her warm and keep her still. Then we look for help. We do what we can, as fast as we can.” He looks at Zeke, a thread of hope in his tone. “Right?”
Zeke nods. “Right.”
I wonder if anyone actually believes it, or if we just need to pretend for Tatiana’s sake.
Adrian comes up with Kaylee, both of them carrying an armful of towels, bandages, and a bottle of vodka. Kaylee passes them to Zeke, hands shaking. “This is all we could find. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I say, because nobody else will. “It’s perfect.”
Tatiana’s eyes open, unfocused. Her lips are dry, and her voice is hoarse when she looks at me. “It hurts.”
“I know, honey,” I say. “We’re going to fix it up, yeah.”
She looks over to Zeke, her breathing shallow.
“We got this,” he says, nodding in her direction. “Close your eyes, kid, because this is goin’ to hurt but we have to do it.”
She croaks, a tear runs down her cheek and she closes her eyes. “Doesn’t matter. Do it.”
Zeke signals Ace. “I need you to find a saw. We cut the wood as close to her belly as we can without risking it disappearing when she swells. Then we do the best we can to clean and stabilise, before getting her downstairs and on the ground so she isn’t rocking too much with the ship.”
Ace doesn’t ask questions. He’s gone, running down the steps. Adrian offers to go and boil some water. The deck is cold and sticky with blood and the only sound for a moment is Tatiana’s breathing, tight and shallow.
Rachel wipes her own face and says, “We got you.”
We all just fall silent while Zeke works. Kellen is standing, hands in his hair, staring at Tatiana. Aggie is still in the same spot near Zeke, just crying and Rachel holds it together, just like I am trying to do.
Ace returns with a hacksaw and sets it down so Zeke can take it.
“Ready?” Zeke asks Ace. “I need you to hold pressure on the wound, keep it as still as you can, we do not want to have any piece of this flake off inside her.”
Tatiana doesn’t move, but I know she’s listening, because there are tears running down her cheeks, and she is squeezing my hand so tightly I know she’s scared.
Zeke takes the saw and Ace does his best to stabilise the wood using his hands and the towels we packed in around the wound.
“Rachel, Grace—hold her as tight as you can.”
I release her hand, and carefully hold her shoulders down.
Rachel moves to her legs, keeping them still.
Zeke is slow and careful as he brings the saw to the wood.
Carefully, he moves it back and forth, back and forth, until finally, with a splintered thunk, it breaks off.
Tatiana doesn’t make a single sound, but I can see the fear and agony twisted in her face.
“We gotta do the back,” Zeke says, staring at me. “You’re goin’ to have to sit her up, slowly, carefully.”
With shaky hands, I carefully, millimetre by millimetre, bring Tatiana up until Zeke can access the wood from the back.
That’s when I notice it is attached to the side of the ship, like an old paddle or pole.
It has broken down, and is just sticking right out, and we just piled all the other trash wood around it, not realising that it was so fucking dangerous.
The cutting of the back is very similar to the front, and when it’s done, Zeke drops the saw which is now covered in blood, as are his hands. “We need to get her inside and stable, then we can clean it. It isn’t sanitary out here.”
“How?” Rachel whispers.
“With all of us,” Aggie says, stepping closer. “We move slowly, all of us supporting a part of her body, that way we move the wood inside her as little as possible.”
Zeke nods. “Everyone find a spot, Grace, you are going to hold the stick as still as possible while we move.”
I stare at him, eyes wide. “Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
There is no time to argue, so I nod.
We all take our position, and carefully and slowly, lift Tatiana up.
I am using both of my hands to keep the wood as still as possible, even though my heart is racing and my legs are trembling.
I won’t let this go badly for her, I won’t.
We move, step by slow step, until we’re inside.
Then down the hall we go, moving at a pace that makes it feel like it takes hours, even though it’s only minutes.
We lay her on the mattress in her room, that Kaylee has put onto the floor. Every towel, t-shirt, and spare sheet gets piled around her so she doesn’t roll around. Zeke and Ace clean the wound as best they can, and we take any soiled sheets and towels away so we can attempt to clean them.
We need everything clean, and we need a lot of supplies.
Ace, who is covered in blood, walks over to me and takes my face in his hands. “You good?”
“Is she going to die?” I whisper, my bottom lip shaking.
“We’re goin’ to do everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen, yeah?”
The worst part about that sentence, is that he didn’t say no.
No she won’t die.
She will be fine.
Everything will be fine.
Because the truth is, we don’t know if it will be fine.
We don’t even know if she will make it through the night.
How the hell are we going to fix this?
“SHE’S STABLE, I THINK,” Zeke says just as the morning sun cracks over the horizon.
It has been a long night.
“The bleeding has slowed down,” Kellen says, wiping his hands with a rag. “But we need to find help, as soon as possible.”
“How are we going to do that?” Aggie croaks, her face red and puffy from crying all night. “We have no way of communicating with anyone.”
“I found a radio.”
The voice comes from behind us, and we turn to see Adrian holding up what looks like a broken object with wires hanging off it.
My heart skips a beat.
“That’s a radio?” Ace asks, turning towards him and frowning. “Looks like a piece of broken plastic with a lot of wires.”
Adrian rolls his eyes. “That’s because you don’t know what you’re looking at. It is a radio, and yeah, it’s a mess, but I think I can get it working if I can find some things to fix it with.”
A flash of hope fills me, but only a flash.
I know better by now, than to hold onto hope.
“Where the hell did you get a radio?” Zeke asks, voice tight.