“This is amazing,” I said. I couldn’t wait to find the last hidden part of the treasure, the seven-foot solid gold statue of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus. But not today. Hunter and I deserved rest. I gestured to his and my bloody arm. “Let’s take a break for a day or two to heal and then continue our search.”
“Okay.” Hunter rubbed his swollen hand over the bloody dots. “You take some of these to the hut, and I’ll free the snakes.”
“Are you sure? Can we just let them eat each other?”
Hunter shook his head, unimpressed with my suggestion. “No. It’s their home.”
Fine. Hunter was right, but after today, I would never want to come even close to that place.
“Should we get the chests from the hole first?” I asked, touching an aching spot on my arm.
Hunter glanced at the black rocks, pulling his lips to the side, thinking. “It’s safer to keep them hidden there for now. We have enough to take back with us as proof we found the Treasure of Lima, or part of it at least. We will use the contacts that Edward gave and bring the right people on board to excavate it.”
I sighed, handing back a doubloon to him. “I’ll help you push the slab back into its place.”
ChapterTwenty-Four
Ifound Hunter in the icy lake. His head rested backward against the flat rock, eyes closed, skin pale. Something was wrong—very wrong. A panic coiled around me like an anaconda. I dropped to my knees next to him and placed my hand on his wet forehead. It was like touching hot coals in the firepit.
“You are burning up,” I whispered. “You should be in bed, not here.”
Hunter rolled his head to face me, grunting, his jaw clenched, teeth grinding together. After a long second he exhaled, the contour of his face altered by agony. “I need to bring my temperature down,” he said, and a shiver ran over his body either from the cold-ass water or it was fever chill.
“What do you think is wrong with you?”
He drew a sharp breath. “Just an infection.”
Hunter brought his left arm out of the water, and horror drained the blood out of my face. Last night, the bite on his hand had been red and slightly swollen, but now his hand was brick-red and three times its usual size. The punctured holes were penny-sized and ripped at their edges, the skin around them blackish-blue. The gruesomeness of it wasn’t easy on my stomach, and it roiled with nausea. I clamped a hand over my mouth and took a deep breath through my nose.
What did people do in the movies in this situation? InOutlander, Claire Fraser amputated someone’s leg or arm to stop infections from spreading. Fuck. I twisted back, launched to a nearby bush, and threw up. I would make the worst nurse. I groaned, embarrassed by my weakness, and wiped my mouth with a shaking hand.
“So sorry,” I said, swallowing the foul taste down my acid-burned throat, and returned to my original spot. “What can I do?”
My eyes welled up, and my heart drummed with worry that if we didn’t get Hunter’s infection under control, he might die. I scrunched up my face, trying not to sob at that thought. I couldn’t lose another person I deeply cared about. I wouldn’t allow that.
“Wonder Woman.” Hunter a weak smile pulled at his lips. “Don’t cry. I’ll be okay.”
The medical field was an unmapped territory for me. I cared for my father close to two years, but he wasn’t physically sick, he had no open wounds that I had to redress. My tasks were ensuring he ate, drank, took his medications, and I changed his diaper and bathed him.
“Didn’t you put antibiotics on it yesterday?” I asked. Last night, Hunter rinsed his wounds with an antiseptic solution, and I used the remaining on mine. I was fine today. Why wasn’t he? Sure, the spots on my arm were sore, but they looked fine.
Seeing my strong and energetic Hunter like this was unreal. And nerve-racking. My breath hitched.
“Tell me what I can do?” I said, my voice wobbling with emotions.
He sighed. “Just sit with me for a while and don’t let me drown.”
I folded my legs under myself next to Hunter’s head and sat quietly, gently running my fingers over his scalp and trying to remember if we had a first aid book.
In the hut, I helped Hunter get into the bed, gave him acetaminophen pills, and covered him with all our towels and blankets, which wasn’t a lot because no one needed covers on a tropical island. For an hour, every five minutes I changed a wet washcloth on his forehead, careful not to wake him up. Hunter’s chest rose and fell with shallow and rapid breaths. Every so often, a soft whimper fled his lips. All-consuming panic spread like a poison within me, and a lump formed in my throat. I didn’t want Hunter to be in pain. I would give anything to help him.
Stepping away from the bed, I ferreted the medical box out again but found nothing useful. I located the book on first aid, studied the sections about open wounds, and snake bites, and read a chapter on natural antibiotics: garlic, honey, ginger, goldenseal, and myrrh. What the fuck was that? It didn’t matter. We probably didn’t have it on the island, just like we had nothing else on that list.
Sometime during his sleep, Hunter pushed off all the coverings, allowing me to check his exposed body for anything else that could have been infected. All the other cuts and wounds looked fine.
Seeing Hunter frail and vulnerable threw me back to the last days of my father. My throat constricted as my mind pivoted back to that dark place, and I couldn’t let it drag me down. I fled to the beach, stopping when my bare feet reached the hot, soft sand. Closing my eyes and lifting my face skyward, I concentrated on the constant soundtrack of waves rolling onto the shore, birds chirping, and bugs buzzing. For every time my mind shoved aside a morbid thought, another would take its place.
What if Hunter dies?No, not thinking about that.
