Page 67 of Deadly Sights

Julian is paler than when I stopped at the clinic. He wrapped the wound with strips from his shirt, but he bleeds through the makeshift bandage. I barely resist the urge to speed toward safety to treat him. The thoughts running through my mind center on one thing: I don’t want to lose Julian.

I blink back the panicked tears that could blind me and try to remember how to be the rational, cool-headed person in a crisis. After all, emotional driving will do us no good if we skid off this mountain and die. I’m so busy keeping the car on the road Ialmost miss the turnoff for the house I recall seeing on Julian’s phone before the signal acted up.

The trees thicken the deeper we go, confirming I guessed correctly. The dense forestry hides the house I’m seeking. Only an aerial view like the one on Julian’s phone will give away its location.

I utter a prayer under my breath that the house is empty and I won’t have to take any hostages. I may kill for a living, but I don’t do so indiscriminately. I pull up to a dark house.

“Stay here until I check things out.” I glance at Julian who is barely conscious.

I have to do this fast because he isn’t able to defend himself. Leaper takes up watch in his lap as if she can protect him from a larger predator. If I had time, I would joke about the picture they make, but I don’t. When I step out of the vehicle, I drop into half a foot of snow.

Urgency drives me as I break into the house. If the weather continues unabated, we won’t have a choice but to stay here. The silence inside gives me reason to hope. As I go from room to room, I confirm the place is empty. Next, I check the kitchen. The place is fully stocked, which means the owners, a couple I guess to be in their mid-fifties based on the pictures around the house, expect to return. Given sane people won’t be on the road right now, I have to bank on them being stranded away from home, the same way Julian and I are.

This risk I must take. I return to the car where another inch has accumulated since our arrival. After getting Julian situated on a sofa inside the den, I collect the things from the clinic. Leaper jumps out and disappears under the snow. Her forlorn calls prompt me to dig her out and juggle her with the mountain of other things in my hands as I go back into the house.

She leaps out of my arms, and I drop the supplies to check on Julian. His skin is clammy but his forehead feels warm.Given the heat in the house only suffices to keep the pipes from freezing, my concern escalates. I run around, increasing the heat, boiling water, rooting through the supplies I stole, and a myriad of other tasks I need to complete before I can see to Julian’s wound.

When I finally have everything set out, I inject him with morphine to dull the pain I’m about to inflict on him. I unwrap the bandage saturated in Julian’s blood and expose the entrance wound in his abdomen where the bullet hit him. Although he told me the ammunition is inside him, I roll him over to check for an exit, praying he’s wrong. No one in heaven is listening to my plea because there is no exit wound.

“Julian, you know how you like to grant me whatever desires I have? Well, right now, I need you to not wake up,” I say, hoping he can hear me in his unconscious state. I don gloves and clean the area, slicing through the hole to make it larger and easier to search for the bullet.

He groans as I feel for where the slug lodged during his earlier fight, but he doesn’t regain consciousness. When my finger brushes against a hard metallic material after feeling soft tissue, I grab a pair of forceps with my free hand and remove the round. Blood spurts out of the affected area and I work to stem the bleeding. When it slows, I do my best to close and bandage the wound, praying I haven’t done more damage in removing the projectile.

I rummage through the medicine until I find antibiotics and give him the dose Moni suggested. Then I transfer him to a bedroom where he’ll be more comfortable. During the long hours that follow, I watch him, change his bandages, and wipe him clean. Anything that allows me to touch him and feel that he’s still breathing, still alive, and still has a fighting chance, that my actions haven’t killed him.

Leaper sits atop the headboard, peering down at him, drooling with concern. She’s as worried as I am, refusing to leave his side.

In the next twelve hours, his body begins to shiver, and sweat dots his brow.

“Julian, can you hear me?”

He opens feverish eyes, but there’s no recognition and no focus. His temperature is 103.

I hold crushed ice to his lips, but he shies away, crying, “Yolanda, why won’t you come back to me? Why? I need you.”

“I’m here,” I say, but if he sees me at all, he doesn’t recognize me.

He’s lost either in a fevered dream or through the pain meds. Although we’ve spoken about how my disappearance affected him, his voice is full of fresh pain, as if he’s reliving a low point. His hurt is so visceral, it feels like he’s yanking on my insides and ripping out my heart and guts in one go.

The night continues like this. While the snow outside piles up, I split my time between caring for Julian and making sure we won’t be trapped inside when the snow stops. Already, I’ve cleared a path to and around the car three times. Each time feels shorter than the last. This time, like the last, I step out and into another three inches of snow and plow the area.

Each time I re-enter the home, I’m soaked and my muscles scream in protest. But I can’t rest. I check on Julian, make sure he’s hydrated, and wipe him down to keep his fever under control.

Inside the master bedroom, Julian vacillates between the present and the past. Sometimes he recognizes me, most times he doesn’t, but he always cries out for some version of me. At one point, he brushes his hand against my face, causing me to think he’s lucid.

“Nadira, my queen, how long must I wait?”

“Wait for what? What do you need? I’ll give you anything.” I grab his hand between my two and kiss his knuckles.

He lapses into silence then closes his eyes, leaving me in a state of suspended confusion.

The lights flicker in and out until we lose all power. With my breath streaming in the cold air, I retrieve the firewood the owners have in a dry room and start a fire. Soon a humming from a generator comes on, turning the lights on again.

We go into the next day with Julian’s fever fluctuating and keeping me awake. I won’t rest easy until he does. Leaper has stopped eating, and I only stomach the sight of food long enough to heat the broth I found in the pantry and feed it to Julian.

The snow finally stops in the early morning hours. There’s no signal on the TV, radio, or phone to get news updates, but I doubt anyone is traveling. Between the snowdrift and natural snowfall, my guess is four feet of the cold white stuff is on the ground.

I go into the bedroom to check on Julian and find my body giving out. I slump in the chair beside him, unable to move a muscle.

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