He tries to push himself up and immediately collapses back against the tree, his face going gray. The movement makes fresh blood seep from a cut above his temple.
God help me.
I shove the knife into my belt and hook my arms under his shoulders. He's heavy—pure muscle and dead weight—and it takes everything I have to get him partially upright. His head lolls against my shoulder, and I can feel his breath, hot and ragged, against my neck.
"Come on," I grunt, pulling him forward. "Work with me. I can’t leave you here."
Somehow, he manages to get his feet under him. We stagger together, more falling than walking, across the dusty ground toward the barn. Each step is agony. His weight drags on me, threatening to pull us both down. Blood from his head drips onto my shoulder, warm and sticky.
The barn door is open, and I aim us toward the pile of old hay bales in the corner. We collapse together, and I barely manage to roll away before his full weight pins me.
He's on his side now, breathing hard, his one good eye sliding closed again.
I sit back on my heels, gasping for air, my arms trembling from the effort. My shirt is smeared with his blood. My hands are shaking.
What am I doing?
I grab an old blanket from the shelf that smells like dust and drape it over him. Then I run back to the house.
Elena is pressed against the window, her eyes wide. I unlock the door and pull her into my arms.
"Is he dead, Mama?"
"No, baby. He's hurt, but he's not dead."
"Are you going to fix him?"
I close my eyes, pressing my face into her hair. "I don't know."
But I do know. I already made the choice when I dragged him into the barn instead of leaving him outside.
I get Elena settled with her coloring books and strict instructions not to leave the house. Then I gather what I have—clean rags, water, the ancient first-aid kit my father kept, a bottle of grappa for disinfectant and head back to the barn.
The man hasn't moved. His breathing is still shallow, his face slack. I set my supplies down and get to work.
The blood has dried, crusting in his hair and on his face. I wet a rag and carefully clean around the worst of the wounds. There's a deep gash above his right temple, the source of most of the bleeding. It needs stitches, but I don't have the skill or supplies for that. The best I can do is clean it, press a folded cloth against it, and hope.
His eye is swollen completely shut now, the bruising spreading down his cheek. His jaw is probably fractured. Possibly his skull.
He should be in a hospital.
But he's here, in my barn, bleeding into hay that hasn't been used in years.
I work for an hour, cleaning wounds, checking for broken bones, doing what little I can. He doesn't wake. Doesn't make a soundexcept for those shallow, unsteady breaths that I keep checking for, terrified each time that they'll have stopped.
When I'm done, when there's nothing left to do but wait, I sit back and really look at him.
Whoever he is, whatever he's done, someone wanted him dead. The beating wasn't random. It was methodical. Deliberate. Someone took their time.
And yet he survived long enough to stumble through an olive grove in the dark and collapse on my land.
I should be afraid and I am.
But there's something else too. Something that twists in my chest as I watch him struggle to breathe.
I know what it's like to run. To be hunted. To have nowhere safe to go.
Maybe that's why I can't turn him away.
