Page 23 of Loathing Ryan
“Just—” I paused as I pulled myself up to the next spot. The rain was growing even heavier, if that was possible. “Move!” I yelled.
I had one more section that I had to get over. I could feel something dripping down my leg; it could’ve been rain or blood, but I didn’t want to look to confirm. I would deal with it later. All that mattered was that I got up onto the solid ground. Taking a deep breath, I swallowed the throbbing pain and heaved myself up and over the bluff.
My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest as I flopped down flat onto the mess of leaves up at the top. I did my best to take deep breaths, feeling the rise and fall of my chest when I placed my hand over my heart. Izabel rushed over to me, her hands hovering over my side, which I’m sure was a bloody mess. I still hadn’t looked at it. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t about to have a heart attack.
“Oh my god, Ryan!” she breathed out as she examined my side. “You’re hurt.”
I groaned again. “How bad does it look, Bells?” She stayed silent, which affirmed my fears that it was pretty damn bad.
I finally mustered the courage to sit up and look at it. Just as I had expected, there was a massive gash in my side, right above my left hipbone. The skin was mangled and torn. Blood gushed from the wound down my leg and over my flank.
“Well damn,” I muttered, feeling a wave of nausea hit as the world swayed around me. I swallowed thickly, forcing down the bile threatening to rise up my throat. “So much for a fun, uneventful kayak trip.”
11
IZABEL
“What can I do?”I asked Ryan again. He looked like a gory mess. The wound traveled from his belly button down to his hipbone. It looked pretty deep, but not deep enough to hit any vital organs. Blood dripped everywhere, mixing with the rain and covering the skin all down his torso and his leg from the gaping gash in his side. We were both soaking wet. I was shivering, and Ryan was shaking uncontrollably, likely from the adrenaline rush his body was going through at the moment.
And, just to make matters worse, it was still raining. The wind howled around us and sent a chill deep into our bones. Each time thunder crashed through the sky, I winced.
Ryan groaned as he leaned back again so he was lying down flat on the earth beneath him. “We need to find shelter,” he wheezed. Lightning cracked above us, streaking through the sky just to emphasize his point. He draped his arm over his eyes, still trying to catch his breath. “I just need a minute.”
I sat down on my knees and watched him, uncertainty starting to settle low in my gut. Ryan needed more than a minute. He needed a hospital. He was clearly trying to regain composure enough to get control of the situation, but his wound was still bleeding, with no signs of stopping any time soon. We needed to do something about that so he wouldn’t bleed out before we had a chance to find shelter. I searched my brain to think of anything I knew about wound triage. I must have read something about battlefield wound care in one of my books.
Deciding that sitting around wasn’t helping anyone, I snapped into action and pulled off the t-shirt Ryan had loaned me earlier in the day. I laid it on my lap and gave it a firm tug near the bottom hem. There was the sound of ripping fabric as it came apart more effortlessly than I would have expected it to. I pulled it apart all the way around, leaving only about half the shirt left over. Then I tore off another scrap from the sleeve and wadded it up.
“Ryan, I need you to sit up,” I said gently. He pulled his arm off his face and looked at me. Weariness covered his expression, his green eyes glazed as he stared at me in question. I held up a scrap of t-shirt and saw recognition flash across his eyes.
He groaned as he pushed himself to a sitting position and let me put the wadded-up piece right over his wound. He hissed in pain as I pressed it into his side and then wrapped the strip of fabric tightly around his waist.
“Ow, Bells, stop! It hurts!” Ryan cried as he tried to push my hands away.
I huffed in frustration. “I know it hurts, you big baby, but I need to stop the bleeding. Let me help you. Please.”
Once Ryan settled down again, I tied the fabric tighter, ignoring his grunt of pain at the added pressure against his wound. I needed the bandage tight enough to hold the makeshift gauze in place. It was awful enough that if we were back in civilization, he would have probably needed stitches. We had to find help quickly.
When I finished, he fell flat on his back again, his arm going to its place over his eyes. A few minutes passed, and he finally started to breathe a little easier. And I was, too, now that I couldn’t see the mangled skin by his hipbone.
The rain kept falling. The thunder kept rolling. Ryan lay there for what felt like forever before he moaned and moved his arm off his face.
“We have to go somewhere else, Bells,” he said weakly. I nodded and stood up, waiting for him to follow my lead. His green eyes met mine sheepishly. “I don’t think I can get up. My abs are shot right now; even breathing hurts.”
My eyes darted down to his abdomen again. I saw a speck of blood already trying to soak through the shirt. Sighing, I reached out and offered my hand, which he took without any type of protest. He really must have been feeling weak because I had to use a lot of my upper body strength to get him standing up straight. He wobbled on his two feet and swayed to the left.
I lurched toward him, knowing exactly what was about to happen. Carefully, but firmly, I draped his arm around my shoulders and let him lean on me. I looked around. There was nothing but trees and more trees ahead of us. A few rocks here and there. But other than that, nothing.
“Where are we going to go?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
Ryan grunted with each step we took. I didn’t want to push him to move faster than he was capable of, so we took our time. “I don’t know, just follow the river line. I have no idea where we even are.”
Great. That was the answer I was afraid of.
We kept walking, soaked to the bone. Worry for Ryan bloomed until it took control of every thought I had. He was putting more and more weight on me the farther we walked. He had lost a lot of blood from his wound, and every time I looked up at him, he seemed to be paler and paler. We had to find somewhere to rest soon. I narrowed my eyes against the rain and weathered on.
It felt like an eternity, but finally, I saw it.
Up ahead was a cave. A small cave tucked into another bluff, but it was shelter nonetheless. Relief flooded my system, and I squinted my eyes, trying to get a better look. From what I could tell, it was big enough to hold the two of us, and it would keep us from the rain. It would do. At the very least, it was better than nothing.
