As Darkness Gathers (Dark Betrayals Book 2) (6 page)

Bryan’s skin held a gray pallor, and his skin was clammy as I felt for his pulse. It was hard to detect, faint and fast.
 

Clay started to stand. “I need to—” He swayed, and I caught his hand, pulling him back down.

“Sit and don’t move. I have to stop the bleeding on your head.”

“I’m—”

“Don’t argue with me,” I said, my voice sharp.

From the crinkling of his eyes, I knew a grin threatened to make an appearance. “Aye, aye, General.”

I scurried back into the plane and looked around. The first aid kit had remained secured in its hooks in the first overhead bin. It held only rudimentary bandages and aspirin, but it would have to do. There wouldn’t be enough gauze to bind everyone’s wounds, so I threw several of the seat cushions outside. Keeping my gaze averted, I retrieved the crash axe from just inside the flight deck and then ripped from its hangings the curtain that cloistered the galley. When I opened the beverage cart, I found that while some of the sodas had burst, the majority of the mini liquor bottles remained intact. I collected all of them and then ducked back outside.

Clay arched his brows when he saw all I’d retrieved. “Plying me with alcohol?”

I knelt next to him and uncapped a bottle of vodka. “You’re going to wish I were. Tilt your head back and close your eyes.”

“Shit,” he muttered.

My chuckle was pained. “I’m sorry.” I poured the alcohol over the wound.
 

Air whistled between his teeth, but aside from that, he made no move or sound. My own eyes burned.

After several moments, he said, “You don’t do”—he blew out a breath—“slow and easy, do you?”

I ripped a chunk of foam from the seat cushion and placed it over his wound, wincing when he did. I caught his hand in my own and brought it up to his forehead. “Hold this for me.” I wrestled open the tin case of the first aid kit. The supplies were woefully limited. After a moment of thought, I reached under my skirt and rolled one of my stockings down my leg. I realized then I only wore one shoe. I didn’t know where I’d lost the other.
 

Clay watched as I pulled off the stocking, and his lips quirked when I wrapped the nylon around his head, securing the foam in place. “I’ve always had fantasies about women in thigh highs. Can’t say this scenario ever factored into them, though.”

His sense of humor when I was ready to fall apart made me want to hug him. It gave me the resolve I was floundering for. “I just combined two fantasies for you. Nurse and stockings. You can thank me later.”
 

Bryan moaned, and I touched his chest, relieved to feel it rise and fall.
 

“I don’t . . .” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know what to do to help him.”

“He shouldn’t be moved too much, but we need to get him further away from the plane in case . . .”

“In case it catches fire.” I swallowed. “I’ll help you carry him.”

Bryan didn’t wake up as we moved him under the tree with the others, and for that, I was thankful. My stomach lurched every time my gaze landed on the bones protruding from his upper arm and thigh. When we had him settled, his feet propped on my suitcase, I placed gauze over the jagged edges of bones and torn flesh.

“I divided the clothes as evenly as I could,” Timothy said, handing me two of my own sweaters and a pair of jeans I’d packed.
 

I glanced around and found everyone clad in an assortment of garments. Clay dragged a sweatshirt over his head, and I donned the jeans under my uniform skirt and pulled the sweaters on, wincing when I grazed the knot on my temple.

“I saved these for you, too.”

I took my winter boots and thick wool socks from him. As I laced the boots, I realized how cold I was, my fingers red and shaking as I struggled to tie the knots. The boots were made for fashion rather than warmth, but they were better than the one ballet flat I’d been wearing.

“What are we going to do?” the elderly woman asked, her tremulous voice breaking the silence.

I studied our surroundings for the first time. A debris field stretched to the west, gouging a trough through the landscape. Hills rolled in all directions. Spruce and pine dominated the forested landscape, snow capping the upper boughs. There were some patches of snow on the ground, while other areas were crusted with ice, but much of the forest floor was soft with mud and moss.

As far as I could see, there were no plumes of smoke wafting over the treetops. There were no sounds of traffic, no voices, no motors, no homes, or clusters of buildings. All was quiet. Even the birds were subdued in the aftermath of the devastation.
 

For a moment, all I heard was the ragged sawing of my own breath, the rush of blood in my ears. My head throbbed, my joints felt stretched and strained, nausea churned in my midsection, and black spots danced around the edges of my vision.

“What are we going to do?” she asked again.

All eyes were fixed on me.
 

I met Clay’s and drew strength from his steady watchfulness until I could answer honestly. “I don’t . . . I don’t know.”

Chapter Four

Everyone was bloody and bruised, but I bandaged the worst of the wounds as best I could and doled out aspirin. Clay wrapped Timothy’s knee while I used the axe to cut a triangular swath of fabric from the curtain and made a sling for Daniel’s arm. Mark Allen, the polite businessman with dark brown hair threaded with silver at the temples, had a gash across his back, slicing from his right shoulder to his left hip. I used three bottles of vodka and two rolls of gauze to disinfect and cover it. The elderly woman’s name was Tula Mason, and though there were several cuts I covered on her forearms, I was more concerned about her shallow breathing and the sheen of sweat on her forehead even though her skin was cold.
 

I studied the swollen, discolored skin of Henry Richards’ ankle—Mr. Lime. “I don’t know if it’s broken or sprained,” I told him. “I don’t think I should wrap it in case it’s broken.”

“You’re not trained for this, are you?” His words held a biting edge.
 

“I only know basic first aid. I don’t know how to set a broken bone.”

“No, I mean
this
!” He narrowly missed clipping my jaw as he flung out a hand toward the wreck. “You have no idea how to deal with this mess.”

“I know we all need to stay calm,” I said, and he scoffed. “Calm and as warm and dry as we can. The captain would have sent out a distress signal before we went down, and there’s an emergency locator transmitter in the tail of the plane that—”

“That’s nowhere to be seen.”

“They’ll find us,” I said, my voice firm.

“When they do, you should know I’m going to sue your asses off.”

“I’d be more concerned with surviving than threatening to sue right now,” Daniel, Timothy’s father, snapped.

Henry glared at him. “You—”

“That’s enough.” Clay’s voice cut like a knife. “This isn’t helping the situation.” Icy rain had begun to fall, and the clouds were settling low over the hills. He turned to me. “It’s been over an hour, and there’s still no sign of fire.”

I nodded. “It’s our best means of shelter.”

Mark, the polite businessman, lifted Tula into his arms, grimacing as even her slight weight strained the gash on his back. “I’m willing to risk it.”

Timothy helped his father to his feet and then pulled Henry’s arm over his thin shoulders, serving as a crutch. Clay and I carried Bryan, and he groaned every time I stumbled.

We pulled all of the seat cushions from their Velcro holdings and plugged them into the blown out windows. The ones that were left over padded the dented, punctured metal that served as the floor as we crawled inside. The rain began to fall in earnest, the freezing pellets pinging on the fuselage.
 

I retrieved bottles of water and packs of pretzels from the cart in the galley and passed them out. Most of the pretzels were crushed, but they were still edible. “You’ll have to ration it for yourselves. There’s enough for everyone to have a couple bottles of water and several packs of pretzels. But we need to be prepared if . . .” I wouldn’t allow myself to contemplate the possibilities yet. “We need to be prepared.”

Everyone ate in silence until Timothy whispered, “How long do you think it will take?” He glanced around. “For them to come for us?”

Henry said, “You all saw the weather reports. Heavy snow and high winds in the Great Lakes area all the way to the eastern seaboard. For days. No one’s coming for us in this weather. Maybe not for over a week.”

“But how will we survive?” Tula’s hands were knotted together, and Mark covered them with his own.

“We won’t,” Henry said.

Tula’s chin began to tremble, and Timothy turned to his father with wide eyes. “That’s not true, is it, Dad?”

“No, son, they—”

“Don’t lie to him. We all need to accept that we’re on our own. And we’re not going to last long.”

“The only thing that needs to be understood,” Clay said, his voice so quiet and threatening it made the salty crumbs I was eating stick in my throat, “is that you’re going to shut your mouth.”

Henry closed his open mouth with an audible click of his teeth, swallowing the protest, and remained sullen for the rest of the afternoon as we all strained to hear any sound of a helicopter or voices over the rain.
 

Silence was prevalent, our stares downcast.
 

Clay moved around Bryan’s unconscious form to sit next to me in the opening of the boarding door. Fog had come in with the rain, shrouding the landscape, and the wind was cold and damp.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. The foam had absorbed a lot of blood from his head wound, but it wasn’t saturated. “Who are you?” I asked.

He touched my temple with a careful finger, avoiding the throbbing knot. “I suspect a concussion, but amnesia?”

A smile came unbidden to my lips, and his quirked in return. “Is Clay is short for Clayton?” I asked.

“It is. Clayton James Gandy, if you’d like the whole thing.”

“Named after your father?”

His gaze shuttered so suddenly it was as though a door had slammed closed. “No.”

Family was off-limits, then. I bit back the questions that arose and said lightly, “You could have been a Finch Lavinia Rhodes.”

“I have to meet your mother.”

I struggled not to think of the possibility I might never see her again. “Were you headed to Ottawa on business?”

“Vacation. I’ve taken some personal leave, and my secretary’s family has a cabin outside the city on the river. She offered it to me for a couple of weeks.”

“And what are you taking a vacation from?”

“I’m a district attorney.”

I arched my eyebrows. “A lawyer?”

“Should I be flattered or insulted by your surprise?”

“Well, I didn’t think you were a farmer.”
 

He chuckled, and the sound rumbled along my nerve endings. District attorney. It added a new facet to his character. A sharpness and intuitiveness. I tried to imagine him in a three-piece suit, arguing in a courtroom. It reminded me of Henry’s threat to sue, and I glanced at him. “He’s right, you know. I’m not trained for this, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t start doubting yourself now, Finch Lavinia Rhodes.”

I was silent for a moment. “We should stay with the wreck, I know that. It’s the first mistake when you’re stranded, leaving the area, but I also know Bryan won’t last long if a rescue is postponed by the weather.” I spoke in hushed tones, glancing over Clay’s shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “And I’m worried about Tula.”

“You’re the one in charge. Whatever you decide, I’ll back you up.”

I blew out a breath and raked a hand through my hair, cringing when the movement pulled at the knot. “I don’t know how to even begin to decide what to do. It’s a risk either way, staying or going, and not everyone will be able to travel. And if we were to leave and try to find help, which direction would we go? I have no idea where we are, aside from north of Ottawa. That’s too vague, and we can’t set out aimlessly.”

“Map.”
 

Clay and I turned at the weak whisper.
 

Bryan licked his lips and again murmured, “Map.”

I scrambled into the flight deck, keeping my gaze averted from Edgar. The area was a tangled mass of sharp metal and twisted wires. I couldn’t find even a piece of map anywhere. I ducked back out and shoved the door closed. “I can’t find one.”

“What are you looking for?” Daniel asked.
 

Everyone’s attention had been caught by my hurried movements.

“A map,” Clay said.

“A map?” Timothy had been curled on his side using his backpack as a pillow, but he sat up now and started scrounging through his bag. “I have one. Dad and I were coming up here to fish. I always bring a map.”

“A road map?” Henry’s voice was snide. He sat apart from the others, holding his phone up at different angles, trying to find a signal.