“Duke!” Georgia’s voice cuts through the rush of the water. I twist in time to see a coil of yellow rope flying towardme. The rope lands within reach. I grip it in one hand, Roxanne in the other.
“Got it!” I bellow.
With Topper still guiding, the raft veers clumsily toward the bank, bumping hard against a shelf of rocks. Once it’s steady, Topper jumps out and rushes to help with the rope.
Topper and Georgia pull. They drag us in, step by step, grit and adrenaline powering each strained heave.
I stumble on the rocks, knees slamming down hard, but I keep my grip on Roxanne though my arms are cramping. She coughs once, and relief floods me. We’re hauled to dry ground, and I collapse with Roxanne on the shore. Everyone’s around us, but I only see her.
“Give us some room to work,” Georgia says calmly, but with enough tension in her voice that Allie, Leo, and Rusty take a step back.
“C’mon, Allie, dear, let’s get these wet things off you too,” Rusty says.
Topper and I shed our vests and helmets, slipping into the rhythm of medics who’ve done this a hundred times.
“Stay with me, Trouble.” My voice breaks. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Roxanne’s lips are blue, her shivering violent. I gently brush her sopping wet hair out of her face. She weakly tries to push me away as I reach for her soaked shirt.
“Topper, grab me the foil blanket over there,” Georgia commands.
Topper says nothing, grabs it, and starts to shake it out.
“No.” Roxanne’s voice is faint, fractured.
“Roxanne, we have to get you warm,” Georgia says.
“Stop,” Roxanne insists, her eyes slamming shut.
“Roxanne?” Allie calls to her. She and Leo are standing to the side watching with expressions of fear held tight on their faces.
“Roxanne, we have to get this wet shirt off you,” Georgia says in a stern voice.
She stops fighting, her arms going limp as the shaking intensifies.
Georgia pulls out a pair of trauma shears and looks at me for approval.
“Do it,” I say, voice raw.
The shirt falls away in ragged, soaking pieces.
Georgia, Topper, and I, all trained to keep moving, go still. What I’m looking at now, I’ve only seen in photos of victims and survivors.
“Holy shit,” Topper says.
“Is … what is that?” Georgia asks.
My eyes trace the jagged lines that start at the base of Roxanne’s neck and stretch out like the creeping roots of an oak tree down her right arm.
“It’s a scar,” I say.
I can barely get the words out. Now everything starts to come into focus. This woman … she’s lived through the kind of storm that can kill a person.
And she still got in that raft.
“What causes a scar like that?” Topper asks.
I gulp. “Lightning.”
