Hopeless For You (14 page)

"No. No, no, no." It was my fault. All my fault. Again.

I finally got hold of my emotions and carefully crept to the new boundary of the ravine. Below, a jumble of dirt and rocks, some of them large enough to be called boulders, showed the extent of the slide. It formed a kind of peninsula out into the river. The loose dirt near the tip was quickly being picked up and carried downstream by the current.

I spotted Kade close to the bank. He was half buried in the slide.

He lay on his back, unmoving.

"Kade!" I called out. Thinking fast, I quickly hurried over to the backpack he'd left on the ground and pawed through the contents. Finally, I found the coil of rope I was looking for. I looped it around a tree, tying it with my best Girl Scout's knot, and wrapped the loose end around my waist. Carefully, I rappelled over the edge, half sliding, half running the slippery, 45-degree angle slope.

I skidded to a stop next to Kade and dropped to my knees in the mud. The rain fell around me like tears as I cradled his head in my hands. I dropped my forehead to his. I couldn't see anymore. My eyes were too blurry.

"Kade. What have I done? I'm so sorry."
My fault. Again.

No. I was letting the despair take over. I had to think. I heard the subtle exhalation of his breath. It was weak but he was alive. I checked his pulse. His heart rate seemed normal. Most of his upper body was free and nothing seemed obviously hurt or broken at first glance. I was more concerned about any injuries that might be hidden by the dirt, which buried him to the waist. I checked his head for signs of concussion and I found a small lump. I hoped he hadn't hit his head too badly but it'd be hard to say for sure until he woke up.

If
he woke up.

Shaking my head to clear away the dark thoughts, I started digging him free. Relief welled up in my chest when I realized he was covered mostly in a thin layer of soil
and gravel, nothing I'd have trouble removing. After only a minute, I felt the scrape of denim under my hands and soon I had one of his legs free of the mess.

The rain picked up, making it hard to see, but as I cleared more of the debris, a growing feeling of unease grew in my gut. Sure enough, when I unearthed his other leg, I found something that wasn't right.

His pant leg bulged sickly around the knee, as if the entire area were swelling up inside.

I felt queasy even though I couldn't see how bad the injury was through his jeans. I sat back for a minute, glancing up the slope, trying to decide what I should do. I kept imagining the terrible pain Kade would be in when he finally woke up and I couldn't think clearly.

I wave of heat flashed through me and I dry heaved.

I swallowed a few times, steeling myself, and forced myself to look at him.

Kade. My poor Kade. I'm sorry.

I closed my eyes as the tears welled. He saved me and now he was going to die.

Get it together, Ash! You're a premed student, for crying out loud!

The fighter in me refused to admit defeat. Kade was going to get through this. I was going to make sure of it. He just had a small injury on his knee. Nothing life-threatening.

I decided there was nothing I could do to treat him while he lay on the slope. The rain was turning the mud into a slurry around me. Who could say whether there'd be another mudslide, one that would bury him entirely and me along with it?

I had to get him out of there.

I was equally aware of the roar of the raging river just behind me. Those waters were waiting for me to make a mistake, all too eager to sweep me and Kade away. The river seemed to be growing even more violent with the passing moments, no thanks to the fresh rain
.

Untying the rope from my waist, I coiled it under Kade's armpits and secured it to his chest. There was a chance I'd make his injuries worse by moving him but I didn't have any choice. The slope was just too dangerous.

I used the rope as a handrail to scale the slippery bank and then I went to the backpack and fished out the heavy work gloves. I put those on, grabbed the rope, and positioned myself a little downstream to lessen the angle of the slope I'd be dragging Kade across.

At first I thought he really wasn't all that heavy because the bank took most of his weight. And the muddy surface certainly helped, making it easier to slide him along. All those toning exercises I did in the gym were finally paying off.

But soon enough, my arms started to get sore. When I had him halfway up the slope, I was forced to rest. I slid the rope beneath my bum and sat on it. After a few quick breaths, I started up again.

Hand over hand, I slowly drew him up the bank. I was glad he was unconscious because the way the bank pressed into his knee with each jerk of the rope looked painful.

It seemed like an eternity before his dark hair slipped onto the grass beside me. When I finally heaved him completely onto the solid ground, I released the rope and gave a sob of relief. I don't think my hands and arms ever ached so much. So much for the gym paying off...

When I'd caught my breath and the burning in my arms had faded to a dull ache, I grabbed Kade by the jacket and dragged him farther from the bank. I kept going until I had him under the shelter of a pine.

I checked his pulse. I might have been imagining it but his heart rate seemed stronger. I thought his breath was a little more forceful, too. I fetched the backpack and pitched the tent under the pine.

The rain lessened just as I was pulling him inside the tent, which made me kind of mad. I looked at the sky before going in and said, "You could've turned that off earlier, don't you think?"

In the tent, I stripped off Kade's jacket and shirt. This was no time for blushing or modesty. Kade needed me. My eyes constantly flicked to his face, hoping to find those bottomless, sea-green eyes gazing up at me. I checked his chest and arms for injuries. Everything seemed fine, though I discovered scars I hadn't noticed before hidden beneath the tattoos. It was like the ink was meant to cover them. Some of the marks seemed from fights—jagged, puckering scars that could be from broken glass—while others were definitely talon marks.

My hand went to his chest and I traced the lion's head above his heart with a light fingertip, running my hand up to the falcon that hugged his neck. Those two tattoos summed him up. His lion heart made him save my life not once, but twice, without thinking about his own safety. And the falcon represented who he was deep inside, soaring free on the wind, held back by no one. A
man who, once he fell in love, would love for life.

Kade's muffled groan made me jerk my hand away. I glanced at his face. His
eyes—his sweet, emerald eyes—were open, if only a notch, and his poor face was twisted in a grimace of pain. His breath came in soft hisses between gritted teeth.

"Kade!" I said.

"What the hell happened?" he said.

"Nothing. Everything." I lowered my eyes. "You saved me again."

"I don't remember."

I suppressed a sudden panic. "What's your full name?"

"God, my head is killing me." He tried to sit up but his lips contorted in agony. "I take that back. My
leg
is killing me."

I pressed a hand to his chest and held him down. "Your name, please?"

"Funny," he rasped. "You just said my name, you know that, right?"

"Tell me your
full
name." My voice rose slightly and I met his eyes with what I hoped was a stern expression. I had to be strong now. He needed me.

Kade let his head sink down and he closed his eyes. "Kade Eli Gyllenhahl." He couldn't mask the pain in his voice. "When I said I don't remember, I meant what happened. You were standing at the edge of the ravine. I was walking to you. Next thing I know I wake up here with my leg on fire and my head splitting open."

"You pulled me away from the ledge," I said quietly. "Saved my life. Again."

His sea-green eyes flickered open. "That sounds like something I'd do." There was passion in those eyes mixed with the pain.

I smiled and pressed my hand down on his heart. "Yes." I pulled my hand away because I felt that electricity passing between us. Now was
not
the time for such feelings.

I held up two fingers. "Tell me how many fingers I'm holding up."

He blinked once, letting his head sink back down. The passion left his eyes completely, leaving only pain. It broke my heart to see him this way, knowing I'd caused most of it. Why did I have to hurt the people I cared about most?

"Kade, you didn't say how many fingers
—"

"Two," he snapped. "Happy?"

"Almost. Keep talking to me."

He forced a smile. "Sure. You know what I really need right now?"

"A smoke?"

"No. A blow job."

It was my turn to force a smile. "You're going to be okay, after all."

"Yeah. Well if you can't give me a blow job, that smoke would make a good second choice right about now."

"I know, Kade. I know." I reached for his belt buckle, knowing I had to examine the wound in his leg more carefully. I was almost afraid of what I would find.

His hands feebly batted me away. "What are you doing? I was just joking about the blow job. Sort of."

"Kade, I have to check your leg. I'm in premed, remember? I know what I'm doing."

"Of course," he said sarcastically. "Premed is the same thing as being a full-blown practitioner. I'm a doctor, Jim, not an intern!"

"Kade." I looked at him crossly. "Will you just let me get in your pants?"

"Well, when you put it that way..." He let his hands drift to the side.

I pulled his belt free and worked open the muddy jeans. In an emergency room setting, I'd just rip them off but I had nothing to cut the pants with out here. He started to shift his hips slightly to help me drag the pants down but then he gave a sharp cry and fell flat again.

I realized I hadn't removed his boots yet so I pulled them off before working on the jeans again. His lips were pressed together so tightly. Poor Kade. He was doing his best to muffle the pained noises he was making. I could only imagine how much agony he was in.

I tried to be as gentle as possible with him but the swelling in his knee made it hard to slide the jeans down. Kade moaned and wheezed the entire time.

"You're so strong, Kade," I said, trying to dis
tract him. "Not even shedding a single tear."

I glanced at his face and saw that his cheeks were
actually glistening with tears. I felt terrible for what I'd just said because I didn't want him to feel weak. He wasn't.

Finally I got the jeans past the knee and I stopped, hissing softly.

Kade noticed, because after wheezing a few times, he said, "That bad?" His voice sounded tight. He tried to prop himself up to get a look but with a wince and a painful-sounding grunt, he collapsed.

"Better than I expected, actually," I said.

At school, I'd dissected dogfish sharks and sat in on a human cadaver dissection so I was prepared for whatever awaited me under those jeans. Or so I'd thought. It seemed worse somehow, knowing that this injury was affecting someone I cared about. Kade had been so perfect and now
this
...

"Guess I won't be doing any squats at the gym for a while, eh?" he said.

I finished sliding his pants the rest of the way off, which was easy, now that there wasn't a swollen knee in the way. Kade was left wearing only his white briefs.

"You know that there's a pocketknife in the backpack, right?" Kade muttered as I set his jeans aside.

I frowned, feeling bad that I'd caused him unnecessary pain by dragging the pants off instead of cutting them. "You could have told me that before."

"Yeah. Just remembered."

On second thought, cutting away denim with a pocketknife probably wouldn't have been the easiest job in the world, anyway.

I ran my hands along his muscular thigh and calf, checking the area around the grapefruit-sized knee. Since no bones broke the skin, I pressed into the muscles above and below the injury, biting my lips as he groaned and hissed. I explored all the way to his hip and down to just above his ankle but it seemed like nothing around the knee was broken. The knee itself was twisted and dislocated, I thought, although it was hard to tell with all the swelling. I touched the outer side of his knee, where the patella usually slid during a dislocation, and he howled in pain.

"Fuck off bitch!" he snapped.

I jerked my hands away.

"Sorry," he gasped, and he sounded like he meant it. "Ash. Sorry."

I nodded distractedly. I knew it was only the pain that had caused him to snap.

I reached down to explore his ankle, which was also a bit swollen. He panted louder but didn't swear at me this time. The ankle wasn't broken, then. Just twisted, probably.

"So. Bet you've just been waiting for a chance to get into my pants." His voice was strained and his smile
seemed forced.