The second time I woke up, Raine opened her eyes as well and made me roll onto my stomach so she could change the dressing on my leg. I got a bit of a look at it since the moon was nearly full and bright in the clear sky. It looked pretty gross, but it also looked like it was starting to heal. She did a neat job of covering the poultice she made by pulling my folded-over boxer shorts up my leg, then wrapping a piece of rope around it so it was just tight enough to keep it from slipping while I slept.
Of course, that also meant Raine was going around completely bare. I wasn’t sure what had happened to my shirt, but she hadn’t bothered to put anything on since I came to my senses. Not that I was complaining, though I wasn’t so sure most of my body was ready for that sort of activity.
The last time I woke up from the same nightmare, the sky was starting to brighten and a cool breeze rustled the palms all around us. I looked around our little shelter and growled at myself. I hadn’t made it structurally sound enough, and it was starting to fall apart already. I needed to get working on the new one. I’d apparently lost three whole days where I could have probably gotten at least half of the new one done. Now I was going to have to get my leg in better shape before I could make much progress. Or…I could push myself until I dropped. That was probably the better option.
“You have to be hungry.” Raine’s soft voice came from under me. I had pinned her down in my sleep again. It felt better that way – knowing she was safely under me. I rolled to my side and let her up.
“Yeah,” I said. “Got any pancakes?”
Raine laughed and shook her head.
“I’ve got fish and a couple of the roots I found in a pile in the sand. They taste like sweet potatoes. I figured you found them, and since we’ve both been eating them the past few days, they must be safe. Oh – and there are some almonds left – they are almonds, right?”
“Yeah, they are.” I smiled. I didn’t even think about what she would have been eating the last few days. Apparently she was a lot better at taking care of herself than I thought she would be – and me too, apparently. “And the roots taste like sweet potatoes because they are sweet potatoes. There’s more not too far off – maybe a fifteen-minute walk from here. I’ll show you.”
“Why don’t you give yourself a few days, hmm?” Raine smiled at me. She walked to the other side of the shelter, and I watched her hands reach behind the palm-frond wall. When she brought them back, my shirt and her other pair of shorts, the ones made out of that stretchy material that had chaffed her before, were in her hands. She slipped them on, so I couldn’t watch her walk around naked anymore.
“No fucking way.” I scowled. Fuck, if I couldn’t watch her naked, I sure as hell wasn’t just going to sit around all day. “I’ve had worse than this, and I’m not going to sit around and wait for it to be all better. It’ll feel better when I get moving on it, anyway.”
“You’ll just make it worse,” Raine said. I started to hoist myself up, and she actually came closer to me to put her hand on my shoulder and try to hold me down. As if. I stood up anyway, even with her hand pushing all of her weight down on me and wobbled a little. It hurt, no doubt about that, but like I had already told her, I’ve had worse.
“See?” I said when I managed to steady myself a bit.
“I see you barely standing on a leg that really shouldn’t be holding your weight yet,” Raine argued back.
“Bullshit,” I responded. I took an unsteady step forward, and my leg buckled, but I didn’t fall. Raine’s arm went around my waist, but I pushed it away. “I don’t need any fucking help!”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Bastian!” Raine yelled. “You most certainly do!”
“I do not,” I growled back. “I don’t need it, and I certainly don’t fucking want it!”
We argued for another ten minutes before she finally gave up on my stubborn ass and went over to the fire, muttering to herself about unreasonable idiots. I hobbled around the area right outside the shelter, making sure there was something at least somewhat sturdy near me at all times so I didn’t fall over. I was fucking pissed, though I wasn’t exactly sure why. There were too many things in my head for me to sort out. There were the dreams, being out of it and useless for three days, and my failure to completely protect her. I should never have left her alone. I should have been back to the beach faster. I should have…
My mind continued to list all the points where I had fucked up.
As I walked…well…limped around on my leg, Raine shot looks of death over at me every couple of minutes, but I pretended not to notice. It really, really, fucking hurt to walk, but damn if I wasn’t going to do it anyway.
“Get up, you son-of-a-bitch! You aren’t hurt that bad! Fucking GET UP!”
I shook my head to free it of Landon’s echoing words and settled myself down on the opposite side of the fire, smiling up at Raine with a self-satisfied grin. She rolled her eyes and used two blackened sticks to pull cooked sweet potatoes from their resting places on top of hot rocks.