by Amy Star
Dylan and Sarah were almost at the ridge of the driftwood when a third shot rang out and Sarah let out a scream and toppled face-first down onto the sand, gripping her thigh. Fresh blood oozed from it, and Dylan knelt down over on top of her, trying to block any incoming bullets with his body while helping her onto his shoulder.
“Leave me. Go!” she screamed.
“We’re a bit past that now,” he chided her.
She looked up at him. We both live or we both die. A moment, and she nodded, grunting with pain as she clung to his shoulders and another shot rang out, smacking into the wood beside them.
“Give me the gun,” Dylan said, letting her down beside the wooden shield. She was breathing heavily, both hands clutched at her thigh. Through the ripped denim a large red stain was already widening, and there was fear written clearly across her glazed expression.
“It’s… it’s uh, it’s deep, I think…” she said, trying to collect herself. She’d had more first aid training than him, and he saw the businesslike side of her struggle to keep control. “Might… might have hit an artery… gotta tourniquet… it… quick.”
Another shot rang out, this one closer. He dared to look around the corner. The poacher was stumbling toward them, one hand holding his rifle, the other his face. A torrent of blood was streaming onto his clothes, and a gaping bloody crater glared from a sightless socket.
Dylan swore and ripped off his shirt, wrapping it around her thigh, high up near her groin, and she screamed in pain as he tightened it, and wound a piece of driftwood through the knot. He twisted it like a valve. She almost lost consciousness, struggling noiselessly and her eyes rolling up in her head as she gasped. My love, I’m sorry… stay with me.
“Good…” she cried, “it’s…”
She passed out and Dylan closed his eyes against his own tears and kissed her lightly on the lips. They tasted like salt and ash. Another shot, this one coming through a small hole in the driftwood above Sarah’s head. He growled. The bleeding looked like it had stopped but he couldn’t be sure.
“Time to finish this,” he said resolutely to himself and stood up, gripping the stock of the gun and cranking another shell into the barrel with blistering complicity.
He came out in full view and heard one of the poacher’s bullets whizz past his leg. He was screaming indecipherable curses, a burbling mess of pain and adrenaline. Even if Dylan left him now, he’d probably perish from the blood loss.
“Come on!” Arthur taunted, stumbling to one side and shooting. The sand exploded in front of Dylan’s feet, but his eyes were stapled on the poacher.
Calmly, Dylan raised his own gun, even as Arthur expelled the last bullet in his magazine, and several other empty clicks signaled he was fresh out of ammo. Dylan let out a slow breath and let the poacher’s face come into view on the scope. He squeezed.
Down the beach, a flock of seagulls jolted into the air, alarmed by thunder that issued from the cloudless sunny sky. In moments, they had forgotten about it, and returned, chattering against the sand. The beach churned with waves, an endless cycle of ebb and tide.
Half an hour later, they would rush in a flock to the warm kill of a body, staining the beach with a slow runnel of blood that leaked like a tributary back into the ocean, darkening with the tide. If they had cared, the seagulls would have noticed the lack of eyes, as if some great force had scooped them from both sockets. They would have also noticed the wide expression, lips curled back in an endless scream. But these were seagulls, and they had no interest in such things.
*
Waves lapped against wood, and for as many times as she could remember in recent memory, Sarah woke up not certain of her surroundings. The sky was above her, a fractured pounding of clouds and bitten light, like ice-floes scattered against the firmament. She blinked, trying to ascertain if she were really alive. She felt a chill rush over her chin – that felt real enough.
She tried to speak, but her throat felt constricted, dry with the effort. Whatever she was lying against wasn’t solid, and it took her several moments to realize that she was in a boat. The white painted ribs of the boat crept up on either side of her like the inward ribs of some monstrous wooden fish. She could smell fish, that lake-bottom smell. And blood.
“Dyl…” she muttered.
The boat rocked again and a familiar face loomed over. He had on a bright knowing smile, despite the scrubbed side of his face, here a lingering dark umber marked dried blood. His black hair was like a dark sickle over his eyes, and the blue underneath seemed to have reclaimed its splendor. They shone down on her, and felt safe.
“You’re awake, that’s good… I thought you’d sleep the whole way,” he joked.
“Whole way… where?”
He took a moment and looked up. Then she realized that there was a humming in the air, and it died suddenly as there was another shuffling and he knelt down beside her. The boat rocked with the capricious currents and she could smell the ocean like an augury, something that was trying to tell them something, if only they had the presence of mind to listen to it and try to understand whatever deeper meaning was borne by it.
“Home,” he said at last, “but we’re still a good half day out. It’ll be many hours. You just sleep.”
“No,” she struggled against the heavy blankets that were layered over top of her, preventing her from moving. It was warm, but she wanted to sit up. “Tell me…”
A grim shadow passed over his face.
“Don’t move. Your leg is still injured pretty bad. I bound it as well as I could… it’s not bleeding, but I think there’s still a bullet or a piece of one lodged inside. You just stay still… don’t make me get out the strait-jacket.”
She ignored his casual attempt at humor. “Tell me what happened?” she pleaded.
“I ended it,” he said simply. “There’s nothing to fear anymore. It’s all over.”
She had hardly dared to hear those words spoken aloud, and from Dylan’s lips they were like a godsend. A great weight lifted off her chest and she choked out a sob of relief but it was also a sob of pain of the things they’d lost. Things they’d had to do in order to survive. She knew instinctively that Dylan bore a burden she would never be able to share. But in time, perhaps, she might help him carry it, at least a little ways.
And then there was Chris. The image of the great man appeared before her, smiling as always. She could almost smell his grilled salmon and vegetable soups. He had protected them until the very end, and she would never forget his sacrifice.
But they had lost more than a friend. She looked at Dylan, the strong edge of his jaw, the gritty look of pain that would follow him like a hard earned scar. They had lost some of their own innocence. The parable of the island, she almost wanted to laugh, remembering the last lines of from Golding’s book The Lord Of The Flies.
“And he wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air,” she enunciated, channeling some ancient childhood reservoir of memory that had long been buried under the current of adult life.
“What was that?” Dylan asked, cocking his head.
“Just something from school… I think. A story about losing your humanity…”
He nodded, not disagreeing with the moral but his face betrayed an opposition to something. “There’s more to humanity than darkness,” he said after a pause. “We’ve proved it.”
Sarah was about to ask how they’d done something like that when he bent over her and kissed her forehead. Love, she mused. Was that the one thing that redeemed them? They had survived the island, survived death several times over, to what end?
Dylan’s distant expression seemed to say it all, without saying anything. We survive because we can still love. As long as there was that, that strange imperceptible spark, kept alive in both their breasts, then maybe… maybe, she wanted to believe, love could redeem anything. Whether it was the darkness of human nature, the pursuit of revenge and blood, or even the los
s of a wise true friend named Chris.
She glimpsed over the wale of the boat and saw, far off, the black ridged silhouette of the mainland; so close, and yet so far. In front of her, handling the outboard motor again, Dylan gave her a warm smile. She didn’t mind how long the journey took as long as he was there.
* *
Hey sexy. Thanks for reading, you are the best!
This book is from the “Bears With Money” series and all the other available books are listed below.
BOOK 1 – THE BEAR'S FAKE BRIDE
BOOK 2 – THE BEAR'S SECRET SURROGATE
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You are a star!
Amy x
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