When I heard rustling, my eyes sprang open and it took a minute to wonder why I was in a cave watching Maxine stare at her now stumpy, two-fingered hand.
I bolted awake. “Maxine!”
Ronnie was sitting up, opening her dressing to show the extent of the damage and probably check the wound for infection.
“The fingers are gone or I would have attempted to reattach them, but I was able to save the hand.” Ronnie’s voice was small. Maxine was our beauty queen, so I wasn’t sure how she was going to take this.
She stared for a full minute, moving the hand over. “Well, at least I still got my trigger finger.”
A smile pulled at my lips. It might be that she was still on morphine, but Maxine always had the best outlook on life and that made all the difference. Leaning forward, she pulled Ronnie into a hug.
“You did fine, darlin'. Thanks for saving the hand.”
Emotion clogged my throat as I saw a tear run down Ronnie’s cheek and realized how much pressure she must have felt working on her friend like that.
When they pulled away, Ronnie quickly wiped the tear, as if it were never there.
“Alright, a few orders of business,” Ronnie declared, and started handing out pills to all of us.
“Kit, today in your med cocktail we have 600 milligrams of ibuprofen, an antibiotic, and your birth control,” Ronnie said in a silly voice. I could tell that Maxine accepting her hand as it was had lifted a huge weight off Ronnie.
I grinned and took back the pills with a bottle of water.
“Maxine, you are getting the good stuff, girlfriend. A twenty-four-hour morphine patch, two different antibiotics, a steroid,andbirth control.”
Maxine grinned. “Thanks, doll.”
“Ask Dawn about her pain, but keep the convo short,” Ronnie told me.
Oh yeah, I was limiting my mental power usage
Dawn looked up at us when Ronnie had said her name.
‘Hey, how is the pain?’
Dawn nodded. ‘Pain better, but Dawn needs food. Thirsty.’
My stomach growled at that, and I felt awful we’d been chugging water this whole time and offered her nothing.
I peered out of the cave to where the green feeding pool was. There was a bluish slime across the top from the acid rain. The Galadrias got their water and food from the green stuff, so without it Dawn would deteriorate quickly.
“Umm, Ronnie, we might have a problem.”
My bestie's head snapped up from where she was rationing pretzels.
“Dawn’s pain is fine but she needs food and water. The feeding pool is contaminated with acid rain.”
Ronnie cursed.
We still had blisters from that shit falling on our skin. The cream had helped, but it wasn’t a miracle cure. I couldn’t imagine getting those blisters down your throat.
I reached over and stroked Dawn’s neck.‘I’ll figure something out. This feeding pool is contaminated.’
Dawn’s eyes registered mild alarm but she nodded. She trusted me and I took that to heart.
“Can she drink some of our water?” Ronnie held up an eight-ounce water bottle and raised an eyebrow.
I had no freaking clue. Dawn understood spoken English pretty well and she shook her head.
