“Here I come,” I tell him, and then feel stupid again. “Not that anyone else would be coming after you with a hot knife. Then again, you seem to have as many enemies as I do, so hey.” He doesn’t chuckle, but talking makes me feel better, so I keep babbling as I pull his blood-soaked shirt away from his back. “I don’t know how to break this to you, Mr. Mendoza, but I think Darwinism is trying to vote you out of the gene pool.”
The cut looks awful. It’s deep and bleeding a slow trickle of thick, dark blood. It doesn’t look like it’s anywhere vital, but I’m not a doctor. I’m a freaking hand model. Even as I gape at the wound, a fly buzzes nearby.
Right. Cauterizing time.
I suck in a deep breath and don’t even bother with a count of three. I push the flat of the red-hot blade against his wound. The sizzle of skin, like a frying egg, hits the air, and then the smell of burning flesh. I gag, and press the blade harder, because I don’t know how this shit works. I don’t know how long I need to leave it, or if I even did this right.
Mendoza’s gone limp. He didn’t even scream, which is pretty badass of him. I pull the knife away and study the wound. There’s a big, blistering mark where I pressed the knife, but the wound is ragged on one side and the knife I have is tiny.
“I think I’m going to have to cauterize it twice. I’m so sorry. It’s the knife. It’s so small.”
He doesn’t answer me.
Panic hammers my heart, and I shove the tiny knife back into the coals of the fire and then bend over Mendoza. “Rafe?”
He’s still breathing. Passed out, then, either from blood loss or pain. Or both. Well, that makes this easier for him. I finish heating the knife and press it to his wound again, wincing only a little this time as it cauterizes his flesh. The skin is blistered and purpled, but it’s sealed. With that, I take my shirt off, wet a clean corner, and bathe away the dirt and blood from the rest of his skin. Once his back is cleaned, I roll him onto his side and examine his eye, peeling back the bandages. It looks awful, worse than before, and that worries me. We don’t have antibiotics, but we have water purifiers now, at least, so I can at least bathe it with clean water.
Over the next few hours, while Rafe sleeps, I keep myself busy around camp. It’s either that or go crazy with worry. I keep the fire going, hauling in more wood every time I venture out. If the wood’s wet, I create a pile on the other side of the fire, hoping that the heat will eventually dry it out more. I get more water, use the tablets, and wash Rafe’s eye and rebandage it. I wash his other wounds, too, since he’s covered in scrapes and scratches. I clean up the cave, get fresh leaves for a bed, and gather things that look useful. I find a sturdy vine hanging from a tree, and after I make sure it’s not a snake, I bring it back with me. Since it’s not long enough, I get more vines, and then spend a good hour or two braiding my finds together to make a makeshift rope.
I also find wood that will make a decent spear, and make a few more of those. You can never have too many weapons in the jungle, and I keep seeing wild animals. Night is coming on, and the fire won’t keep a determined predator away.
Which means I need to get rid of the body.
That takes up a good chunk of the afternoon. I keep Afonso facedown so I don’t have to see what happened. Rafe said it wasn’t good, and I trust him. I tie the rope around his arm and loop it around my torso like a harness so I can drag him through the jungle, but he’s heavy, so I don’t make it as far as I want. I have to settle for letting the body slide off of a rocky precipice and into jungle vines below. Good enough. I give the body a salute. “Not gonna miss you, Afonso.”
Rafe wakes up at sunset, when I’ve stoked up the fire and put another damp, hissing log onto the flames. He groans and cusses in Spanish.
I immediately go to his side, bringing the bottle of water with me. “How are you feeling?” I want to kiss him all over his banged-up face for rejoining the land of the living, because I don’t know what I’d do if he went to sleep and just never woke up again.
“Like hell,” he says, and tries to sit up.
“Stay off it if you can,” I tell him, pushing a hand against his shoulder. “Give it time to heal. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”
He nods and lies back on his side again, then touches the bandages on his face. “Eye feels like hell, too.”
“I cleaned it while you were out,” I tell him. “Sorry if I made it worse.”
“Is it bad?”
“Let’s just say you’re not going to win any beauty contests with that look.”
He nods.
I pass him the water bottle.
He takes a small sip, then tries to pass it back to me.
“Drink the whole thing,” I tell him. “You need to replace the blood you’ve lost and I’ve been drinking water all afternoon.” River water, but hey. Today it didn’t rain too much, and that means the wood was drier than usual, so I’ll take it.
“I should get up and get rid of the body—”
“Taken care of,” I tell him, and I feel a little bit of pride at the surprise on his face. “I’m not totally helpless you know.”