Page 41 of Jackson's Redemption
I threw on my shirt and opened the door. I stopped when I didn’t see her by the log.
Maybe she had to take a piss. I listened but heard nothing.
“Kate!” I shouted and could hear the echo of her name bounce back. “Kate!”
Fuck me. What the hell did she think she was doing?
Running. That’s what she was doing. I just hope she knew where the fucking truck was. If she got off course, even a little bit, I might never find her. I tossed my coat on and started running after her. Shouting her name every couple hundred feet.
* * *
Kate
“Kate!”
I stopped. I could hear the echo of my name as he shouted it. I still had a good hundred yards on him. I didn’t take the direct route to the truck, knowing that’s what he’d expect. So I zig-zagged while still maintaining a general southwest direction.
I had to get to the truck first. I had to! I didn’t think I could bear to look at his face again, knowing how much I cared about him. Knowing what this week meant to me. Now also knowing what my father did to him.
Two years of his life. What had he called being an ex-con? A stain he could never remove. It was something he was going to have to carry with him for the rest of his life and there was nothing I could do to fix that.
I stopped when I reached a thicket I couldn’t push my way through. I was going to have to go around it.
“Kate!”
His voice sounded closer. He was bigger than I was. Stronger, faster. If I was going to get to the truck before him, I needed to push harder than I ever had before. I moved to my right looking for a break in the thicket. I found something I thought I could slip through except when I went to put my foot down there was nothing there.
I fell, unable to stop the scream that came out of my mouth as I tried to brace myself for the landing when something speared me through my side. I screamed again and knew I had been impaled by something.
The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt. I panted and tried to get a sense of what happened. Just a drop in the ground. Maybe only five feet but covered by the thicket so I couldn’t see.
I turned my head to the other side and I could see it, the sharp-tipped branch protruding from a dead log I was lying on poking through my shirt. It went straight through my right side. I could see the blood running down the branch onto the log. I had to pull myself off. But when I braced my hands against the ground and tried to push the pain was too much.
“Oh god,” I breathed. “Oh god.”
“KATE!” He sounded frantic now. He’d heard my screams.
“Jackson!” I shouted and even that hurt. I was desperately afraid I was going to pass out but if I did, he might not find me in that heavy brush from above. I closed my eyes and focused my breathing.
“Kate!”
“Down here. Watch it. There is a drop. Pretty steep.”
I could hear him above me pushing through the thicket.
“Fuck me,” he growled.
“I can’t get off the log,” I told him, feeling the panic starting to overwhelm me.
“Don’t move,” he barked. “Do not move an inch.” I heard him searching for a place where he could jump that was safe to land. Then he was there standing over me. He ripped my shirt so he could see what he was dealing with.
“Is it bad?”
“It’s not good,” he said. He moved around the log and crouched so I could see his face. “Try to lift your head. I want to see if I can break the branch off the log.”
I lifted it as high as I could, my whole body screaming in agony.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to break off the piece that’s poked through you at the top. Then I’m going to have to pull you off this log. It’s going to hurt like a sonofabitch and if you feel faint, let it happen. Do you understand me? This goes better for us if you’re out. I’ll pack the wounds front and back and carry you to the truck.”
