He says nothing. He’s in so much pain. I can see it. I can hear it in his labored breathing.
I wrap my hands around the bandage and hold firmly. Blood soaks my hands, but I don’t care. The thought of losing Noah far outweighs my fear of gruesome things. I’m not sure how long it’s supposed to take for blood to stop flowing, but this seems to be taking longer than I thought it would. I need more pressure. I release my hands, tear off the shredded remains of his shirt, and tie it tightly around his wound.
I pull the fabric as hard as I can to make it even tighter. It takes a few minutes, but this seems to help. I need to figure out how to clean this up, to try to prevent infection. God, what if the bullet is still in there?
His leg is covered in blood. I’m going to need to wash it before I can see anything. The good news is, where the thickest of the blood is, which is where I’m assuming the wound is, seems to have no fresh stuff. Which means we’ve stopped the bleeding.
“I’m going to rinse all of these in the stream. I need to clean you up.”
I stand and gather as many bandages as I can, running toward the stream. I’m thankful for the stream, because without it we’d probably be dead by now. I fall to my knees when I reach it, leg screaming at me to stop, and wash the clothes until the blood has run free and they’re as clean as I can get them. I don’t wring them out, just carry them back dripping. I need as much water as I can get.
I kneel before Noah when I return, and his beautiful, tortured eyes find mine. “Look at you go,” he croaks, his voice so pained it hurts me to hear it. “You’re handling this like a pro.”
I smile weakly. “I guess he underestimated me, huh?”
“Guess so.”
I stare down at his leg again. I take the first soaked item and start wiping. He doesn’t make a sound as I clean, but his hands are curled into tight fists beside his body and his jaw is so tight the muscle is bulging out the side. I keep working. I clean away as much blood as I can and then gently place a wet piece of my shirt against his wound. He hisses through his teeth and I look up, feeing awful. “Sorry.”
He doesn’t speak.
I don’t blame him.
I lift it off and study the wound. Thankfully a clean bullet hole.
“I need you to lift your leg. I have to see if the bullet went straight through.”
“It did,” he grinds out. “Felt it drop when you rolled up my jeans.”
God, I know how much that hurts. But it’s for the best.
“I don’t know if he’s hit bone, but it’s awfully close to your shin. I can’t tell, I can only hope it’s just muscle like mine. It’ll hurt like hell, but if I can do it, so can you.”
I smile pathetically at him. He nods, stiffly.
“I’m going to clean this up as best I can. Then I’m going to wash these again and dry some out. I’ll wrap it up. It’s the best I can do.”
“Make sure you put one back on your leg. It’s bleedin’ again.”
I glance down and sure enough, my leg is bleeding. I must have upset the wound running around like a crazy person. No matter. “I’ll sort it out,” I say, reaching for the damp cloth and continuing the cleaning.
Then I go and fetch some more water and squeeze it over his leg, washing the rest away. I do this until it’s as clean as I can get it. I lean down, gather our clothes, and once more rush back to the stream. I wash them all again. There is a heap less blood this time.
I hang them up when I reach Noah and hope they dry soon. I don’t know how long we’ve got until Bryce comes back, but we need to find somewhere to hide or we’ll get killed. Noah can’t run; there is no way he has it in him to fight right now. If we don’t get secure, we’re going to die, it’s that simple.
“We need to find somewhere to hide as soon as I’ve wrapped your leg.”
He looks up at me. “Not fucking hiding.”
“Noah…”
“That fucker wants a fight, he’ll get a fight.”
“Noah…”
“We’ve spent most of our time running and look where it’s gotten us.”
“But your leg is bad, Noah. You need to rest it for as long as you can or you’ll be of no use to either of us.”
“So you want me to fucking hide while he comes and hunts us down?”
“Yes, actually,” I say.
“Well, I’m not doin’ it.”
“Noah, Jesus!” I yell. “This is not a time to bring your pride into it.”
“Pride?” He laughs bitterly. “You think this is about pride?”
“Isn’t it?” I growl, crossing my arms.
“No, it’s about surviving, Lara.”
I shake my head, looking away.
“I’m down, Lara. He shot me down,” he says, voice low. “And if I’m not here to protect you…” His eyes take on a faraway look.
“Don’t talk like that,” I warn. “We’re going to get through this, but only if we keep fighting. Those clothes should dry out soon. Then we’ll go.”
“You need to put your pants back on.”
“No, they’re a good wrap for your leg. I’ll survive without them.”
“Lara…”
“I’m not having this argument, Noah. In the scheme of things, how important are clothes, really?”
His jaw tics.
I say nothing more about it.
“How did you know his name?” I say.
“He came into the station asking for a job a few months ago. God, I thought he was fuckin’ shady back then. Too perfect, you know? There was something phony about him, and the way he was staring at me felt … menacing somehow. I should have known.”
“He’s been here all along. He was the man who called nine-one-one the night Nan died, he went out with Rachel, and I remember him speaking to me in Starbucks one morning. He’s just been here all along, watching us without us even knowing.”
Noah looks angry, perhaps mostly that someone could have been so close to us all that time without us realizing.
“I should have known,” he growls.
“It isn’t as if he said anything threatening, Noah. Neither of us knew.”
I find a tree and sit down, leaning against it, trying to ignore the pain in my own leg. Last night we were so sure we had the upper hand. Now we just have to figure out a way to keep it.
We have to.
We will.
EIGHTEEN
When the clothes are dry, I secure Noah’s leg as best I can. Then I re-cover mine after gently washing it. It’s a little red and inflamed, but I pray that’s only because I just ran around in the forest and irritated it. I can’t deal with infection right now. I help Noah to his feet, and his body stiffens in pain after the first step.
“Come on,” I say as he takes another step. “There has to be somewhere we can find that’s hidden and secure.”
“Won’t matter. That fucker will know every hidey-hole in this place. Every spot that’s cleared, every track, everything is made by him. Even without those cameras, he knows we can’t get far off these created tracks, so he’ll find us eventually without looking too hard. He knows it. I know it.”