Page 76 of Caught in the Axe
I headed up toward the parking lot, avoiding the airstrip and looping around the machine shop and where the fellers, cranes, and loaders were all parked neatly in rows. I’d become familiar with each of them and their uses over the last few weeks. It was a shame. This place had once been bustling, with employees everywhere.
My heart ached like it always did when I thought about how much the Heberts had lost.
I banked around the building, avoiding the row of dumpsters. Once I was safely behind it, I stopped to catch my breath and tighten my ponytail. Running like hell from a wild beast took a lot out of a girl.
With my hands planted on my knees, I heaved in one deep breath after another. Finally, as my heart rate was returning to normal, I straightened. As I readied to head inside to splash water on my face and chug a bottle of water,I caught sight of a single boot tipped on its side in the middle of the parking lot.
Frowning, I headed for it. It was clear, as I got closer, that it was a man’s hiking boot. And its mate was nowhere to be seen. Weird. I stopped in front of it and scanned the parking lot, a chill going down my spine. There were a few cars parked near mine, which was typical for a Thursday afternoon, but something was off.
Hackles rising, I looked over my shoulder, then slowly toward the main building. I hadn’t made it far before my curiosity got the better of me. So with another deep breath, because my heart had taken off at a gallop again, I jogged back around to the shop.
And there, lying next to the row of black dumpsters I’d just hustled past, was—I stopped short. Holy fuck. There, on the ground, was a man. His face was bloody, and he wasn’t moving.
Fuck.Fuck.
I fumbled to get my phone from my waist pack, my fingers shaking as I unlocked it.
Walking closer, I assessed him. It was impossible to tell if he was dead or alive. I could barely make out his facial features beneath all the blood, and his body was crumpled.
Right in plain sight.
“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
“I’m at the Hebert Timber headquarters,” I said, gasping for breath. “There’s a man on the ground. He’s bleeding.”
My brain went offline. Dammit. What was the address of this place? “527 Cumberland Road,” I rushed out when it finally came to me. “Down the road past the main building, next to themachine shop.”
“Okay, ma’am. Help is on the way. Can you tell whether he’s breathing?”
I crept closer and squinted, looking for the rise and fall of his chest. I wished Willa was here. She’d know what to do.
His head was bleeding. That was for sure. As I got closer, I scanned his body, looking for weapons. When I didn’t see signs of anything near him, I knelt beside him. I trembled as I put the phone on speaker, set it on the concrete, and stripped off my hoodie. I used the shirt to apply pressure to his head wound, then snaked my fingers to the side of his neck to check for a pulse.
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was feeling for, but after a moment, I detected a slight rise and fall of his chest.
He was alive.
Fuck. Now I just had to keep him that way until the ambulance got here.
Ignoring the blood on my hands, I tried again to locate his pulse. The flutter in his neck was faint, but it was there.
My stomach revolted as the coppery scent of blood hit me. I choked back the bile that rose up my esophagus. I would not get sick, and I would not let this random person die on my watch.
I shifted closer, shaking more urgently now, and wiped the blood out of his eyes as best as I could.
He looked like he was a few years older than me, and he was only wearing one boot. Clearly, the other was the one I’d seen in the parking lot.
What the hell had happened? Could he have been hit by a car?
“Please live,” I whispered as my eyes welled with tears. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. But help is on the way. Just hang in there.”
By the time I heard sirens, tears were pouring down my face.
Response times weren’t spectacular, as was typical in rural towns, but Lovewell had an excellent fire department. Sure enough, the ambulance crested the hill first, followed by a fire truck.
Unsurprisingly, the police were the last to arrive.
The paramedics were out and rounding their vehicle in seconds. I was still on my knees beside the man as they found his pulse, put an oxygen mask on his face, and checked for spinal injuries.
