Chapter Six
Abigail
Morning arrived not with a gentle awakening, but with a sharp, insistent throbbing that pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
Abby groaned, her eyes fluttering open to the bright, diffused yellow light filling the dome of her tent.
She tried to shift her weight, and a blinding spike of pain shot up her right leg, stealing her breath.
Memory rushed back: the slick moss, the brutal impact against the shale, the agonizing limp back to camp.
She peeled back her sleeping bag. The makeshift bandana bandage was stiff with dried blood and dirt. Her knee was swollen tight, radiating a localized heat that made her stomach drop. If infection was setting in, her wilderness escape was about to turn into a life-threatening emergency.
One problem at a time, she told herself, gritting her teeth. Get up. Assess.
She dragged herself toward the zippered door, her arms doing most of the work to spare her injured leg. She unzipped the flap and pushed it aside, fully expecting to face the daunting reality of boiling water, scrubbing the wound, and “covering” it with a useless cartoon bandage.
Instead, she froze.
Sitting squarely on the lid of her cooler was a heavy-duty, olive-drab waterproof pouch. Resting on top of it was a thin plastic stick emitting a faint, dying blue glow.
Abby’s breath hitched. Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
She wasn't alone. Someone had been in her camp. Someone had stood inches from where she slept.
Instinctively, she reached for the bear spray at her hip, her eyes darting frantically toward the dense wall of pine and spruce surrounding the clearing. The woods were perfectly still, bathed in the golden, innocent light of early morning. Only the distant rush of the creek broke the silence.
Her gaze dropped back to the cooler. A predator would have torn the camp apart. A threat would have opened the tent. This... this was careful. This was deliberate.
Trembling, Abby reached out and pulled the pouch into her lap.
She unrolled the waterproof seal. Inside, meticulously arranged, was a medical arsenal: a pressurized can of sterile saline, iodine-soaked cotton swabs, a sheet of professional-grade butterfly closures, waterproof bandages thick enough to withstand the elements, and a foil blister pack of heavy-duty antibiotics.
She stared at the supplies, her mind spinning.
The woods up here don't care how many badges you have.
The stranger from the general store. The man with the steel grey eyes and the steady, scarred hands. He had known she was heading into the deep woods. He had seen the pathetic first-aid kit she had bought.
Had he followed her? Was he the one who gave this to her? Was he watching her?
By all the rules of her old life in Los Angeles, she should be utterly terrified.
A strange man tracking her into the isolated wilderness was the premise of a horror movie.
But as she looked at the antibiotics perfectly tailored to stop the infection brewing in her leg, the terror simply wouldn't take root.
Instead, an overwhelming wave of relief washed over her, so potent it made her eyes sting.
"Okay," she whispered to the empty clearing, her voice thick with emotion.
She didn't know who was helping her, but she desperately needed the help.
Working methodically, Abby cut away the dirty bandana.
She used the pressurized saline to blast the remaining dirt from the gash, wincing at the sting but marveling at how clean the tissue looked afterward.
She swabbed it with iodine, pulled the edges of the laceration together with the butterfly closures, and sealed the entire thing under a thick, waterproof dressing.
Finally, she dry-swallowed one of the antibiotic pills.
When she was finished, she leaned back, her hands propping herself up behind her. She looked up at the towering ridge line that ringed her small valley.
"Thank you," she called out softly. The sound was swallowed by the rustling pines, but perhaps, her guardian angel had heard.