by Emily Forbes
‘That sounds like a doozy of a fight.’
‘It was.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I haven’t told anyone about this except for Amy.’ He thought that was the end of it but then she continued. ‘I was in Spain with a girlfriend. We were celebrating the end of our Foundation training when Jane’s father had a stroke. Jane wanted to fly back to the UK so I went with her. When I walked into my flat I found my boyfriend in bed with another girl. I don’t know who was more surprised. Hugo, her or me.’
Pat wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying.
‘I couldn’t stay there and I was too shocked to think about kicking him out so I fled. I was still on holiday before I start the next stage of my training, so I came here. For almost as long as I can remember Amy has been the one I’ve run to when things haven’t worked out.’
‘Do you want to work things out with him?’
‘Are you kidding?’ Her voice regained some strength and volume. ‘I’d never be able to trust him again. And he was either unhappy in the relationship or less invested in it than I was or just a complete arse.’
Pat was surprised how pleased he was to hear that Charli was definitely single. He was also pleased to hear some fire in her voice and to see a spark return to her eyes. There was still some fight left in her and he knew she was going to need it.
* * *
The next time the drilling stopped Charli tried to steer the conversation towards Pat. She was tired of talking about her life, nothing in it was going according to plan and she’d rather forget about it for a while. She didn’t have a high opinion of men at this point in time but Pat seemed like he might be one of the good guys. The world could do with more men like him. She could do with a man like him.
‘Tell me something more about you,’ she said to him the next chance she got. ‘How did you get that scar under your eye?’
‘That’s what you want to know?’
‘Mmm-hmm, I’ve been wondering about it since I first saw you.’
‘Is that a fact? And here I was, thinking that in your jet-lagged state, you’d barely remembered me.’
She still couldn’t see him but she could hear the smile in his voice. She wished she could see it again but just thinking about his smile was enough to lift her mood. ‘I remembered you. So, how did you get the scar? Were you rescuing someone else or doing something dangerous?’
‘None of the above. Doing something stupid, more like it. My brother and I were practising our whip-cracking skills. I was holding a stick in my mouth and he was trying to crack it out. Needless to say, he missed the stick and got me under the eye. Our mother confiscated the whip and we were grounded for weeks.’
He was laughing and she’d bet he and his brother had given their mother plenty to worry about. ‘Are you and your brother close?’ It sounded as if they were.
‘Yeah, we are.’
Lost in her thoughts, it took her a moment to realise that everything had gone silent above her. Immediately she thought the worst. ‘Pat? Are you still there? Is something wrong?’
‘No, everything’s great.’ His voice came down to her, reassuring and calm. ‘The engineers are just about to remove the final piece of concrete. It’s time to get you out.’
‘Really?’
She started to sit up, forgetting once again that he could see her.
‘Don’t move! We need to take this slowly.’
Charli put her head down and watched as a backpack was lowered to the floor through the hole that the engineers had made at the foot of her bed. The bag was followed by a pair of boots and then legs in bright red trousers appeared followed by a body in a jacket and, finally, Patrick’s head and face emerged.
He had a hard hat on with a bright light shining out from the front straight into her eyes.
She winced and he angled the light up. ‘Sorry,’ he said as he squatted on the floor and looked around.
‘Don’t apologise. I don’t think I’ve ever been as glad to see another person in my life.’
He grinned.
She couldn’t believe that he was there, that she wasn’t alone any more.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Her knight in rescue gear. He was tall and muscular and broad shouldered and took up a lot of the minimal space but she didn’t mind. She was more than happy to share her space. Finally she could let herself believe she was going to get out of there.
Tears threatened as she realised she was actually going to make it out alive.
‘Hey, it’s all right, you’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay.’ He was beside her now, his voice confident and reassuring as he leant over her and gathered her into his arms. She didn’t think she’d ever felt anything as wonderful as his embrace. After more than forty hours trapped and alone, to have someone close enough to touch, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek, was overwhelming. ‘We’ll do this together, okay?’
She nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘We’re going to take it slow.’
‘I just want to get out of here.’
‘I know you do and don’t worry, that’s the next thing on my list, but we don’t want to move you too quickly. Trust me.’
Charli knew there had been cases of hypothermic patients suffering cardiac arrest caused by toxins in the bloodstream. He was right to go slowly, she didn’t want to have survived this long only to encounter another trauma. She bit back her impatience and chose to follow his instructions. He’d got her safely to this point. She chose to trust him.
He was still holding her hand and his dark green eyes didn’t leave her face as he waited for her to agree.
She nodded.
He let go of her and reached for the backpack, dragging it towards him. The backpack contained a medical kit and he searched through it, pulling out a small torch.
‘Close your eyes,’ he told her.
She did as he instructed and waited for him to lift her eyelids as he shone the torch in her eyes. The light was bright and she was certain her pupils contracted in response but his expression gave nothing away. He was thorough and gentle as he checked her injuries. He unwrapped her makeshift bandages from her leg and hand and rinsed the wound on her leg with saline before quickly rewrapping her calf with clean dressings. His hands were warm and gentle. She closed her eyes and held her breath as he held her calf.
‘Am I hurting you?’ he asked.
She opened her eyes and shook her head. She had no pain but his touch was doing funny things to her insides. Making her quiver.
He wrapped another blanket around her shoulders.
She should tell him she wasn’t shaking from cold but she couldn’t speak.
She lay still and silent as he cleaned and checked and re-dressed the wound on the palm of her hand. She was aware of how filthy she was. Her hair was matted and she was covered in mud and blood and who knew what else after being entombed for hours. She wished she was cleaner, wished she smelt better, wished she could have a warm bath, but all of that would have to wait.
She flinched when she felt a sting in her elbow.
‘Sorry,’ he said as he inserted a bung. ‘I want to get that in now so we can attach a drip and get you straight into the ambulance. There are a lot of news crews up above and we really don’t want to treat you in full view of them.’
He brushed her hair from her forehead. Their faces were close. Close enough that she could see the individual hairs in the stubble of his beard. Close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheek. Close enough that she could press her lips to his if she chose.
She closed her eyes again as she imagined his lips brushing over hers. Imagined him leaning in to kiss her, even though she knew he was only inspecting the cut on her forehead.
She flinched as he rinsed the wound with saline and she reminded herself t
hat he was taking care of her because that was his job. Kissing her would be the last thing on his mind. ‘We’ll do it properly up above but that will do for now,’ he told her, before calling out to the crew above them.
Charli watched as a spinal board and harness were lowered through the hole. Pat undid the straps and laid the board beside her. ‘I’m going to harness you to the spinal board to take you out.’
His arms encircled her as he slid the harness straps under her chest. They were pressed almost cheek to cheek in the confined space and she wanted desperately to burrow into his embrace.
‘I’m going to roll you onto the board now.’
He rolled her away from him and she felt the hard edge of the spinal board against her back. She could feel the warmth of his hands through the thin latex of the surgical gloves that covered his fingers as he rolled her back onto the board. In contrast to his fingers the board was cold and uncomfortable under her spine.
‘Slowly straighten your legs.’
Her legs were stiff and her knees felt locked.
‘Take your time.’ He waited until she was able to lie flat. He reached up and clipped two carabiners to her harness and the spinal board before covering her legs with a blanket. ‘Okay, here we go.’
He called out to the team of people on the surface, ‘Ready!’
And Charli felt herself being lifted out.
Pat was left below her and she almost wished she was still there with him. She wasn’t ready to leave him.
Her stretcher was put on the ground and she was surrounded by the rescue crew. She was in the centre of a circle, shielded from view as people double-checked her vital signs.
A woman leaned over her, introducing herself as the ED doctor, Melissa, but Charli wasn’t registering much more than that. She was looking for Pat.
She heard someone comment on her heart rate and her respirations. She was aware that her breathing was fast and that her heart rate had accelerated. She knew it was important to stay calm but she needed to see Pat. She needed him to tether her, to slow her panic, to make her feel safe, even now that she was out.
And then she saw him. He’d followed her straight out of the hole. She could see his unruly dark hair as his head emerged from the rubble, half-hidden behind the rest of the people, but it wasn’t until he was kneeling beside her, until she felt the weight of his hand on her arm, that she could breathe normally again.
‘Look at me, Charli, breathe with me,’ he said. ‘You’re okay...everything is going to be okay.’
Again, he held her gaze, watching and waiting for her to calm down. Again, she had the sense that she could trust him. That he wouldn’t leave her.
‘Look at the sky,’ he said as she got her breathing under control.
She looked past him now, over his shoulder.
The sun was beginning to set and the sky was streaked with pink and orange. It looked like someone had pulled swathes of fairy floss across the sky. The mountain across the valley was covered in snow and the sunset was turning it pink. There was no wind, the air was still.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered, scarcely able to believe she was actually out and able to see the sky.
She was aware of cheers now and of a flurry of flashes and bright lights. Pat had warned her that the media had been covering the situation twenty-four seven, reporting on the bad news and hoping for some good.
‘They’ve been waiting a long time for this moment. You’ll be the headline on the evening news.’
She’d known they would film her extraction but she didn’t care. She brought her eyes back to Pat. He was all she could see. All she wanted to see. In the evening light she could see that his dark green eyes had a lighter hazel ring around the edge. His smile was white and his jaw was darkened by that five-o’clock shadow. She couldn’t remember if he’d started the day with stubble. Was it designer or was it just because of his dark colouring?
‘On the count of three,’ she heard someone say. ‘One, two, three.’
She felt her stretcher being lifted. Pat took one side, next to her head. She didn’t look to see who the other stretcher bearers were. Charli kept her eyes on Pat as she was carried across the rubble. She saw the open doors of an ambulance and felt herself being lowered onto the ambulance stretcher.
She saw Pat let go of her and her heart missed a beat as panic rose in her chest.
‘Are you coming with me?’ she asked.
‘Don’t you want Amy to go with you?’
‘Can’t you both come?’
He shook his head and her heart plummeted.
‘Do you have to go back out there?’ she asked. He’d spent hours with her, talking to her, comforting her, helping her through the process. She wondered how he coped with the pressure and couldn’t imagine how he would be able to go back and do it all over again.
‘No. My shift is finished, I’m due a break,’ he said, ‘but there’s not enough room in the ambulance for Amy and me. I’ll meet you at the medical centre.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘OKAY,’ CHARLI REPLIED just as Amy was ushered through the crowd of medics and rescue workers. Her face was tearstained but she was smiling. She leant over and hugged Charli, somehow managing not to dislodge the myriad tubes and monitor leads that the paramedics had already attached to her.
‘Charli, thank God,’ she sobbed. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’
Amy’s voice was thick with emotion and Charli fought back tears of her own as she hugged her sister. She’d had exactly the same thoughts while she’d been buried alive before Pat had put her mind at ease. ‘Are you going to be okay?’ Amy asked as she released her.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she replied as she was loaded into the ambulance. Amy climbed into the back too and knelt beside her.
Charli flinched as the doors were slammed shut and Patrick disappeared from her view. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye. He’d got her through her ordeal, he’d been with her every step, and she needed him.
She lifted one hand in a silent farewell. ‘What do you need?’ Amy asked her, misinterpreting her gesture.
‘Nothing.’ Amy would never understand if Charli asked for Pat to accompany her in the ambulance instead. She couldn’t do that to her sister. She was still the most important person in her life. Amy was still her someone.
Charli closed her eyes as it was easier to pretend to be tired than to talk. Not that she was pretending. She was exhausted, emotionally and physically drained, and she missed Pat’s calming presence already. When she’d been trapped she’d wanted her sister. Now Amy was beside her and she wanted Pat, but she knew she couldn’t put that longing into words without hurting Amy. So she kept her eyes closed and her mouth shut. It was fortunate that no one seemed to expect much more from her.
Amy held her hand while the ambulance drove slowly through the resort but Charli only opened her eyes when the ambulance stopped moving. The journey lasted only a few minutes before her stretcher was unloaded and she was wheeled into the resort medical centre. Screens had been erected to block the inquisitive journalists and news cameras but they worked both ways, Charli realised, as they prevented her from seeing if Patrick had followed her, as he’d promised. She was pushed into a treatment room but not moved from the stretcher.
The doctor was already there. Charli thought her name was Melissa, and she heard her issue instructions to the other staff who darted in and out of the room. She gave up trying to keep track of all the comings and goings—the movements combined with the bright fluorescent lights overhead were starting to give her a headache. She turned her head and looked at Amy, who still hadn’t let go of her hand, as the medical staff poked and prodded her and discussed her condition—which they announced was surprisingly good—and her injuries—relatively minor considering everything that had happened. She had three frostbitten toes, a cut to her head and two further cuts, one
on her hand and another on her calf, that would need stitching.
‘I’m going to attach a drip and start a course of antibiotics,’ Melissa told Charli. ‘And then I’ll clean and suture your wounds.’
Charli could feel her heart rate and respiration rate accelerating and she watched the numbers rise on the monitor, which was completely counterproductive and just made the numbers rise more rapidly.
Melissa glanced at the monitor. ‘Amy, would you mind waiting outside for a minute?’
The treatment process wasn’t bothering Charli but she didn’t mention that it wasn’t the idea of stitches that was making her nervous. She was wondering where Pat was. He’d said he’d meet her there and she wondered if he was waiting outside. Being without him was making her anxious.
A sharp prick in her leg drew her attention back to the room and to what was going on around her. She looked down at her leg. Melissa had injected a local anaesthetic into her calf and was about to start cleaning and stitching her wound. She moved onto Charli’s hand next and once her hand and leg were numb she became aware of pain in her feet. She wriggled in the bed, trying to find a comfortable position, but the pain didn’t abate.
Melissa looked up at her. ‘What’s the matter, Charli? I need you to stay still.’
‘My feet.’ Charli gritted her teeth as she tried to ignore the pain long enough to speak. She didn’t think she’d ever been in as much pain as this before. ‘They feel as if they are on fire.’
‘That’s a good sign,’ Melissa said as she looked down towards Charli’s toes. ‘It means the circulation is working. Blood is reaching your feet and toes as you warm up. Colour is returning to your toes. We should be able to save them. I can give you something for the pain.’
Charli nodded and concentrated on attempting to breathe through the pain, while Melissa ordered intravenous pain relief.
‘Has that pain relief worked?’ the doctor asked as she finished suturing the wound in Charli’s palm.
Charli’s feet felt like two enormous soccer balls at the ends of her legs but the burning sensation had decreased slightly. Her feet still felt hot but it was better. Almost bearable. She nodded.