CHAPTER 58
He was looking weak as they pulled up to the dock.
She tied up the boat as fast as she could manage with the current, but even once she was finished, with the way the boat bobbed and rocked, she wasn’t at all sure how she was going to get him out and onto the dock, especially if he had become a dead weight.
From his current lack of movement, it was hard to tell.
“We here?” He lazily opened an eye.
“Here,” she said, offering her hand. “If you hold onto my shoulder, will you be able to make it over?” The dock was currently a foot higher than them due to the tide.
“Look, I—” he said, standing. He swayed and she caught him; his weight pairing with a tricky wave almost sent them both overboard. His face was close, as close as only Kallias had ever gotten, and he seemed to notice it too for his face turned red and he yanked away. “Excuse me.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” she said, taking his arm over her shoulders without his explicit permission and looping hers around his waist. The amount of contact was surely improper, especially between a man and woman, but what was such a ridiculous thing in a situation like this?
“I was just saying,” he continued as though he had never stopped, “that I’ve been on boats since I was four and never have I needed the help of a woman.”
“And never before have you been bleeding like this, I’m sure,” she said easily. “Pride is worthless when you’re dead.”
“It’s not pride!” he protested, but he followed her over the edge all the same, and even on land, he wasn’t quite ready to let go.
She could tell he started to—that he felt he should—so she said, “Today I’m your rescuer. Nothing more. Propriety doesn’t matter when lives are at stake.”
His head leaned against her then, as if only pride had been keeping him upright and he murmured, “Are you always this…definitive?”
She had no idea and so chose not to answer.
Instead, though the wind seemed to fight them at every step, they staggered their way to the lighthouse, and after a tricky pass over the stairs leading up to it, she got him through the threshold of the door.
In this first room was her grandfather’s red velvet sofa.
It was the only place for him to lie without climbing more stairs—and given how difficult it had been to go over the wide clusters of steps outside, she could not imagine how it would be possible to help him through the narrow, circular stairs of the lighthouse.
Instead, she sat him in a wooden chair by the door and then lit a candle and ran upstairs to get her bandages, thread, and linen. With a quick check out the window, she saw no sight of the ship, so for now, it was her duty to save this one man. She could search for them later.
Hurrying back down, she only then realized that she had left him in the dark, and quickly apologizing—without stopping her flurry of activity—she then flung the linen sheet over the sofa and bade him lie with his left arm on the outer side so she could get to it.
She was sure the sailors were right: the second she removed the wood, whatever blood it had been damming would gush forth.
She vaguely remembered her father mentioning tourniquets and her mind started searching through her memories for the methods of how to do them or if they should be used for such a thing.
At the worst, she knew she had a medical book that listed things alphabetically. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
“Do you wish to take off your shirt or shall I rip the sleeve?” she asked.
His face cried ‘How improper!’ but he did not say it, instead saying, “As it is just my arm, please rip the sleeve.”
She nodded, quickly cutting it back with a knife.
The wound itself was repulsive—she noticed the man did not look. It was deep, it was angry, and it was gaping. The shard had created a channel as it shot through, like the mast had wished to be an archer, and the blood seeped around the shard of wood and down through the recently dug trench.
The man was already wincing.
“Can you read?” she asked. He nodded.
She went to the shelves and plucked out the book and handing it to him, said, “Find tourniquets. I think it’s in alphabetical order. If not, it’s probably with the wound care.”
He nodded, but he looked at her apprehensively as if he was afraid of being abandoned.
Which made her next words unfortunate but she had to do it. “I’ll be right back,” she said, lighting a second candle.
“Where are you—”
She pointed to the book. “Tourniquets.”
He clearly didn’t appreciate her bluntness, but that was fine. She didn’t appreciate him either.
Quickly, she went into the cellar and grabbed a bottle of whiskey.
And when she returned, he glared at her. “Found it. Do you read or do I need to do that too? I thought you said you know first aid.”
“I do,” she said, swiping the book from his hands and ignoring—she thought quite graciously—the comment. “But I’ve never applied a tourniquet before. You’ve already lost a lot of blood. I can’t get this wrong. Here. Drink.”
That softened his expression, as if he were shocked by her thoughtfulness. With how much of an ass he was, she was a bit shocked too.
Still, she took the book and began reading, skipping over the tourniquet’s ancient beginnings and all the variations used by different cultures until she found what she needed.
Reading through three times, it certainly sounded easy enough.
Her goal was to tie it so when she removed the wood and began stitching, he wouldn’t lose what little blood he had left.
But if she didn’t tie it tight enough or in the right place, it would essentially be useless.
Whatever. If she took too long, all her efforts would be useless too. So grabbing her supplies, she handed him a small block of wood from the medical bag. “Bite on this if you wish.”
He looked at her in horror, but she didn’t have the time to pay him any mind. Instead, she pulled out his arm and started applying the tourniquet. “Just know I’m going to be as gentle as I can.”