Ginny probably saved my life. She trotted double time, taking me through the forest and finally to a creek where we could take a rest. My legs were so stiff and wobbly I collapsed when I slid off of her. I caught my wavy reflection in the surface of the water.
Holy hell.
I looked like a beaten yet badass warrior. I’d forgotten the blue paint Arrow had placed on my cheeks and the bridge of my nose. The bruise around my eye was an angry purple at the center, fading out to a sickly yellowish green at the edges. The wooden shaft of the arrow jutting out of my shoulder really sealed the deal. If I had my camera, I might even take a picture for shitty memory’s sake. I erupted into a fit of laughter, pretty sure I was losing my mind, and then I reached up and grasped the feathered end of the arrow sticking out of my shoulder.
I needed to deal with this. No knight in shining armor was coming to save me. Marmal was far away and I’d run out of luck. This was all me. I had to suck it up and get through this no matter how scary or painful it was.
Reaching down to bite the leather shoulder strap from my arm sling, I braced myself for pain, then I snapped the end of the arrow off.
Murder snake shifter hell!I could no longer cuss without thinking of Arrow. That dark and mysterious Paladin had me wanting to visit my biological father’s people and know more about them.
I groaned as the sharp pain flared to life in my arm and then throbbed down to my elbow and back. Black spots danced in my vision as I fought to stay conscious, and my forehead broke out in sweat.
“Help me,” I whimpered, unsure who I was calling out to. God? Sawyer? Ginny? My wolf?
I needed to get these damn cuffs off, but first I had to deal with this arrow. I was afraid if I left it in, it would get infected, but if I pulled it out I might bleed to death if it had hit an artery.
My breath shook as I looked at sweet Ginny. She was plopped down and drinking from the stream downriver. “What do I do, girl?” I asked her, wondering how I’d survived this long without talking to her. I’d never gone twenty-four hours without a TV or phone or social media. I felt like I was losing my mind.
She looked up at me and then went back to drinking her water. With a shaky hand I filled the canteen in the river and decided that it was impossible to have a main artery in your armpit, right? Your neck yes, your thigh sure—that’s where they inserted heart catheters, right? But I’d never heard of a main artery in the armpit. If my smart, pre-med boyfriend—er ex-boyfriend or whatever he was—were here he could probably tell me, but he wasn’t, so…
Digging through the bag Marmal had packed me, I looked to see if she’d left me any more of that salve or anything useful for this moment. Sifting through the brown paper food packages, my eyes fell upon a small leather pouch tied with twine. There was a note hanging off of it.
Just in case you shoot yourself in the foot or get injured. - Love Marmal
Yes!Please be four Vicodin and a suture kit with a YouTube video explaining how to do stitches on yourself. Unwrapping the package with one hand took time, but I was able to get it open, and when I saw the contents I frowned.
Figures.
Instead of Vicodin, there was a chunk of that root that my alleged grandpapi Paladin gave me. What did Arrow call it? Chucka root or something? The other item confused me. It looked like a lighter from the eighteenth century, and a small, four-inch, thin steel rod lay next to it. What was I supposed to do with this and where was the suture kit? I tore a chunk of the root off with my teeth and winced at the initial bitterness before sighing at the sweetness that splashed over my tongue. The root’s outside shell was creamy white like ginger, but the inside was bright yellow like turmeric. And its shape was very bulbous. I tried to make mental note of it in case I needed to forage for more. I hoped to be in the safety of Sawyer’s arms in a few days, but I had no idea how long it could take if I got into trouble. A week? Longer? Oh God, the thought made depression settle over me like a heavy cloud.
As the root settled into me, making everything feel light, and the pain ebbed a little so that I could focus, I realized what the lighter and steel rod were for.
Oh snakebite. This was gonna hurt.
“I totally got this,”I told Ginny, who looked at me from the base of the tree where she was napping. We’d made good time with all the running, but I’d need to get back on her to get across the remainder of Troll Village by nightfall.
I held the lighter in one hand, flame dancing in the afternoon light, while I grasped the steel rod with my nearly useless injured hand, letting the end heat up. I had wrapped a bit of leather around the end so that I didn’t burn myself, and now I was just growing the giant set of balls it would take to rip out the arrow and shove the hot steel rod into my wound, giving myself a millionth-degree burn. I think that one was way off the burn chart and into cauterization land. At least I hoped so. There was a small possibility Marmal left me this lighter for a fire and the steel rod just fell in here, but I was too far now to back out.
“I got this. I got this,” I chanted. The root was good but not Vicodin good; it was like Tylenol good.
Nervousness danced across my belly as I realized it was now or never. The steel rod was hot and I was wasting lighter fuel.
“I’m a fucking badass bitch who can totally handle this!” I declared to the woods as I felt bile rise up in my stomach.
“One. Two.” I clicked off the lighter before I could puss out and dropped it on the forest floor. With my hand free, I reached up and yanked the arrow out of my shoulder from behind, hating the sickening way that it moved inside of my body. It didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it might, but the spurt of blood that shot from the wound scared the shit out of me.
Note to self: I guess you do have arteries in your armpit.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My survival instinct took over then and I just reacted. Dropping the broken, bloody arrowhead to the ground, I grabbed the red-hot steel rod from my useless arm and shoved it into the bleeding hole, crying out in pain as it hissed. The scent of burning flesh hit my nose. Agony like I’d never experienced seeped through my body, but I kept going. I pushed the rod all the way into the hole until it nearly disappeared, and then yanked it back out as the bile in my stomach surged forward.
Pain,unbelievablepain, rocked my body as it all became too much and I turned my head over to the side and vomited.
Ginny made a whining sound and I fell forward, into the cold creek water. The side of my face hit the water and I just let the water run over my face and into my mouth, spitting it out every few seconds. Rolling onto my back, I lay half in and half out of the cold creek as it turned red with my blood. I wondered if I would die like this. Was that blood from my clothes or the wound?
I didn’t care.
