Dear Lord, please don’t let Evan be dead. Hugo, either.How would her friend take the blow if she lost the man who’d become so important to her?
Before she attempted to maneuver to Brielle, she called back through the opening. “Philip, can you hand in a torch?” She could do nothing to help the men unless she could see them.
“Let me get one.” The voice sounded so distant.
While she waited, she worked up her courage and asked the question she almost couldn’t bear to know the answer to. “Are they ... alive?”
A shuddering deep breath came from Brielle. “Hugo is here, and his hand is bleeding bad. Evan is breathing, but unconscious. I don’t know what’s wrong.” Her voice trembled with the last words.
Audrey hadn’t seen her friend cry since they were girls. She longed to be there, to wrap her arms around Brielle and tell her all would be well.
But she couldn’t know that for sure.
29
At last, the glow of the torch shone in the opening, and a hand passed it through. Audrey reached up and took the light, then turned to get her bearings in the small space.
Rocks littered the floor, and Hugo sat upright against the far wall. Brielle knelt near him, beside the form of her beloved.
With the torch in one hand and her satchel in the other, Audrey maneuvered over the rocks to kneel beside Evan. She handed the torch to Brielle, then glanced over both men. As Brielle had said, Evan lay perfectly still, and Hugo sat against the wall, curled into himself.
She squinted to see what he held. “Where are you hurt?”
The young man gasped. “My finger. It’s gone.” He always mumbled when he spoke, but now his voice also trembled, making his words even harder to comprehend. Then they registered and the pressure tightened in her chest.
A finger sliced off? She’d never treated such an accident, though one of the elders had only the stub of his thumb left from a knife accident years ago. “Let me see.”
Hugo eased both hands up, and the dim light revealedblood running down his skin. As she peered closer, the missing finger became clear. Her belly roiled, but her mind moved into action. Reaching for a bandage from her satchel with one hand, she cradled Hugo’s hands with the other.
Carefully, she wrapped the damaged hand with the bandage, just tight enough to slow the bleeding. “I’ll tend it properly once we get you out of here. For now, press this on the wound.” She placed Hugo’s good hand around the injury.
Once he had a good grasp, she moved her hand to cup his face, drawing his focus up to her. She had no doubt of the pain throbbing through his hand, but she needed to know if his mind was clear. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
As he met her gaze, only pain registered in his eyes, not shock or fear, which could be deadly. “I don’t ... think so.”
“Good.” She moved her hand to squeeze his shoulder. “We’ll get you out of here as soon as we can.”
Turning her focus to Evan, she reached for the pulse in his throat. His heartbeat thrummed strong, though fast. She rested a hand on his chest and felt the steady rise and fall of breathing. Those were good signs. “Has he been awake at all since the rockslide?”
She didn’t pull her attention from the man as she waited for Brielle or Hugo to answer, instead running her gaze and her hands over his limbs.
Hugo responded slowly. “I ... thought I heard him talking at first. I’m not sure, though.”
“He had some rocks on his legs I moved away. Not big ones, just the size of my fist.” Brielle’s voice strained with worry, but at least the tone sounded free of tears. She would have to make sure her friend found the chance to cry later if she needed to release the tension of the ordeal.
After a careful check of Evan’s limbs, Audrey shifted her focus to his abdomen. “I don’t feel any broken bones yet, though his clothing is torn. I’m sure he has scratches.”Gashesmay be the better word, based on some of the blood she’d found. But if bones weren’t broken, the healing would be much faster.
Moving as quickly as she could, she unfastened the buttons on his shirt and peered at his skin. No bruising that she could see and no swelling, either. That boded well for no chance of internal damage to organs.
At last, she turned her attention to his head. She still needed to check his back, but the skull was her greatest concern, since he’d been unconscious so long.
Scratches marred his face, but nothing that would need stitching. She began working her fingers through his hair, moving slowly so she didn’t miss anything.
The blood was hard to overlook. Above his right ear, thick liquid matted his hair, and a lump puffed out. Her fingers detected a gash in the area—the source of the blood, no doubt.
Evan groaned as she prodded the spot, and a layer of tension lifted from her chest. He responded to pain, which was a good sign.
She eased her probing, and his eyelids flickered open. Brielle gasped, shifting her position so he would see her better. His vision would likely be blurry at first.
