Derek checked their GPS coordinates and lifted his radio, moving to face the blackened trunk of a dead tree to block the wind. Artie tipped her head back, watching the trees bend under a strong gust.
A sharp crack rang out, and Artie spun around, startled. It had sounded almost like a gunshot. Another loud crash above them made her look up and suck in a hard breath.
An enormous branch had been torn from the tree by the wind. It smashed through lower branches, the weight of it snapping the smaller limbs without slowing its fall.
Grabbing the back of Derek’s coat, she ran, dragging him with her. After a few stumbling, backward steps, Derek twisted out of her grip and latched onto Artie’s arm, propelling her forward even faster—but not fast enough. The huge branch plunged to the ground, knocking both of them down with it.
Artie landed facedown, hitting hard enough to knock the air and the sense out of her for a minute. She was vaguely aware of Derek’s pained grunt as he fell next to her, but she was concentrating too hard on trying to breathe for the sound to really register. The best she could do was suck in small gulps of air. It felt as if her lungs had shrunk to kidney-bean-size, refusing to take in enough oxygen.
She finally managed a deeper inhale, and then two. When she was breathing seminormally again, she struggled to take stock. Her face throbbed, there was a metallic taste at the back of her throat, and her stomach hurt where she’d landed on a protruding rock. Everything else just ached dully and could be ignored.
“Artemis.” Derek’s anxious voice made her turn her head toward him. “You okay?”
“Just had…the breath…knocked…out of me.” Talking made her realize that her lungs weren’t quite functioning normally. “You?”
“Nothing serious.”
She tried to push up to her knees, but something was across her back, flattening her against the ground.
“We didn’t run fast enough,” Derek said. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.” Once he said it, she realized that her face was wet. There were other, more urgent things to worry about, though, like getting free of the enormous branch that pinned them down. Even as she thought it, she saw Derek work his arms higher so he could belly crawl. She tried to copy him, but her left arm didn’t want to move. Pressing her right elbow against the ground, she pushed her body upward against the restraining bark.
It lifted very slightly, but that was enough for her to drag her left arm free. The rough wood tore the fabric of her coat sleeve, and Artie had to bite back a sound of annoyance. On the scale of things-to-worry-about-now, a ripped jacket did not even rate, even if it was her favorite coat…and the temperature was dropping rapidly.
With both arms mobile, she managed to drag her body forward. Her right knee throbbed when she bent it, so she used her forearms and her left knee to wiggle out from under the branch. She was almost free when the weight on her legs disappeared. Turning her head, she saw Derek holding up the branch. From her position, he looked obnoxiously superhero-like, and she scrunched her nose.
“What was that face?” he complained. “I rescue you and that’s my reward?”
Artie scooted the rest of the way clear, and he let it drop. “You know I hate to be rescued.”
He laughed, offering a hand to help her stand. “I remember. You always refused to be the damsel in distress when we played together as kids.”
“So did you.” Her knee protested when she climbed to her feet, and she clung to his hand a second too long. Derek lost his smile, eyeing her intently, and she started talking to distract him from her wobble. “It’s no fun to wait for the hero to swoop in and save me. I wanted to be part of the action.”
“What’s wrong? Is it your bad knee?” Obviously, her efforts at diverting his attention from her injury hadn’t worked.
“I’m fine. I just need to walk it off.” She looked past him to where the branch was lying on the ground. “Whoa. It’s good that thing just nicked us. That’s as big as a good-size tree.”
Derek was digging in his pack. Before they’d started searching, Rob had handed out backpacks with basic survival gear—a first-aid kit, matches, an emergency blanket, flares, water, energy bars, and flashlights. After a brief tug-of-war, Artie had given in and let Derek carry the pack. It hadn’t been worth spending time arguing about it, not with the girls missing.
Pulling out the first-aid kit, Derek opened it and extracted some gauze squares. As she accepted them, she gave him a confused look.
“Your nose is bleeding,” he said, and she remembered the wetness on her face earlier, and the metallic taste.
Artie dabbed under her nose. The flow seemed to have stopped, so she wiped up the remaining blood and tucked the soiled gauze into her pocket.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Sure you’re okay to walk back?” he asked.
The thought of hiking to base made her want to bawl like a baby, but she straightened her aching shoulders instead. “Of course. Let’s go.”
“Hang on a second. Let me tell Rob we’ll take a little longer to get back than expected.” After shouldering the pack, Derek reached for something at his side…then frowned. “Shit. The radio must’ve been knocked off my belt. Do you see it?”
They both started searching the area around where they’d been laid flat, and Artie made a conscious effort not to limp. By the way her knee was refusing to bend, it was already starting to swell. If she’d been at home, she could’ve elevated it and iced it, but now she just had to deal with it. The wind was cold enough to act as an ice pack, at least, although Artie was pretty sure that wouldn’t be helpful.
“This is one time when more snow would’ve been useful,” Artie said, her eyes sweeping the ground. The earlier icy snowfall had stopped before much had accumulated. Before Derek could reply, she finally spotted the black rectangle. “Found it!”
