Sting

“Don’t talk to me!”

“Why aren’t you running for the road?”

She stopped what she was doing and looked into his face. He could tell from her expression that the idea hadn’t even occurred to her.

Her naked bewilderment lasted for several heartbeats before she set her jaw and said, hoarsely, “It’s raining,” then bent back over him and resumed her effort to stanch the wound.

She found several batteries in the sunken compartment of the trunk where the spare tire was stored. When she put them in the spotlight, it came on. She used it to search the car thoroughly—glove compartment, under the seats, even under the hood. But the search didn’t yield anything.

Since the dome light was growing steadily weaker as the car battery drained, she shut the doors and the trunk, but not before collecting a whole bottle of Advil and anything else she thought would be useful toward saving Shaw’s life.

She carried the tarp over to where he lay. He was conscious, because when she shone the spotlight on him, he snarled and told her to turn the effing thing off.

“I’ve got to see what I’m doing.”

She set the spotlight on the floor beside him but out of his reach and made two other trips to the car, carrying back with her items she’d taken from the trunk. When she’d assembled everything, she spread the tarp out on the floor near him. “Do you think you can move onto this?”

He looked at it, then at her, and shook his head.

“This floor is filthy.”

“So’s that tarp.”

“I made sure the clean side is up.”

He harumphed. “Like that matters.” Weakly he gestured toward the bloody piece of metal she’d stabbed him with, now lying on the floor a few feet away. “That thing has enough bacteria on it to kill an elephant.”

“Then let me call 911.”

“No.”

“Do you want to die?”

He gave her a hard look, then made an effort to scoot onto the tarp. He clenched his teeth and growled in pain.

“Here, let me help.” She moved to his side and slid one arm beneath his shoulders, the other beneath his waist. “I’ll support your upper body while you use your feet—”

“Just do it.”

It took three tries, which must have been agonizing for him, but she got him onto the tarp. By the time he went limp, he was sweating from every pore, and his lips were compressed so tightly they were rimmed with white.

As gently as possible, she began removing the blood-soaked bandanas from the wound and when the last one came away, she had to swallow her gorge. The open gash was four inches long and about three-quarters of an inch wide at its widest point. The flesh inside was an angry red.

He came up on his elbow only high enough to assess the damage. He took one look, then lay back down. “Your bad. You missed the artery.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know how to kill a man.”

Even though she’d missed a major vessel, the wound was quickly filling up with blood. She pressed another folded square against it. He spat an obscenity, then clamped his jaw so tightly the bones stood out. She guided his hand down and placed it over the cloth. “Keep pressure on it.”

Moving hastily, she retrieved the pocket knife and opened the blade, then doused it with water from one of their remaining bottles. They were down to only three bandanas. She used the knife to cut one of them into strips.

“What are you doing?”

She begin tying the ends of the strips together. When she was done, she pulled all the knots tight, then gauged the length of the strip she’d formed against his waist size. “It helps that you’re slender. Raise up.”

He must’ve realized what she had in mind. He lifted his hips high enough for her to thread one end of the strip behind his back. Pulling it taut, she tied the two ends over the square covering the wound.