by E. A. Copen
My hosts dragged me over a particularly sharp rock and I let out a small gasp of pain. “Well, well. Sleeping beauty awakens.” It wasn't LeDuc speaking to me, that I knew for sure. I didn't hear his smug French-Canadian accent anywhere.
“Oh, thank God. I thought you were dead!”
I twisted my head around at the sound of the familiar voice. “Ed?”
Ed let out a sharp cry. “Shut up,” said the second voice. “Or I'll break your arms, too,” he spat.
The one dragging me turned. I could tell by the way my shirt twisted. “Don't go spoiling him, now. Rations are tight as it is.”
“Father Reed,” I called out.
Ed coughed, spat and answered me in the good father's stead. “LeDuc has him.”
“I said shut up!” There was a loud thump. Ed whimpered. “Next time, it won't be a finger.”
They started forward again at a quicker pace, dragging me more roughly now. I tried not to think about where they were taking us or how they might have dragged Hunter this way, bound and blindfolded to his death. I had to hold on, to believe he was still alive somewhere. Maybe they hadn't killed him right away. After all, they'd kept Ed and I alive this long. Maybe they were waiting for something. To eat us alive, maybe, I thought and had to force the thought from my head. If these assholes had hurt my son, I was going to make them pay inch by inch, limb by limb, tooth by tooth.
So, as I was dragged, I started to think about where I was and what I knew about my situation. The ground beneath me was cold, hard and rocky. It was damp, too, and the voices carried pretty distinctly. I was almost sure we were in a cave. If we were lucky, LeDuc had done some of the work for us and brought us into his lair. Ed was with me, which meant I had an ally. That ally, though, wasn't going to be much help with both his legs broken and next to no combat experience. I wasn't even sure if he could shift like that. LeDuc had already taken a bite out of Reed and decided he liked the taste. Father Reed was probably already dead.
We stopped suddenly. “Down there?”
“That's what he said.”
“God damn. He must have something really special planned for you two.” A boot came up and struck me in the ribs and then came down on top of me before I could draw in another breath. I curled up as best I could to protect myself but there wasn't much I could do bound up like that.
“That's enough.” Zoe's voice echoed off the walls. I never thought I'd be so thankful to hear her high pitched voice or the way her heels clicked as she came down the corridor. “Just what the hell do you think you're doing?”
“Tenderizing,” said one of the men who had dragged Ed and I in. Then, he spat on me. “This one looks tough and chewy.”
“You have your orders, Oswald.” Zoe sounded furious. I imagined her standing there with that crazed look in her eye, fists clenched. “See that you follow them to the letter.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Zoe's footsteps retreated.
“What the hell, Ozzie? You're going to get us both in trouble.”
Ozzie gave me one more good kick and then grabbed me up by the front of my shirt. “There's more where that came from if you even look like you're going to crawl away. You got me?”
I spat a mouthful of blood back at Ozzie and he dropped me hard. “Next time,” I managed after catching my breath from the fall, “you better make sure you kill me.”
“You-”
“Ozzie.” It was the other guy, the one that had Ed. “I don't want the boss up my ass, man. Let's just dump them and get on with it.”
“Audios muchachos,” said Ozzie and gave me a hard shove with his boot.
If I'd had the good sense to count, I would have known how deep the hole they tossed us into was. Since the fall didn't kill me or break any bones, I figure it was somewhere less than twenty feet. It felt like I was suspended in air way too long for twenty feet. I came down in a small puddle of water, maybe three inches deep. Underneath that was a bed of thick cave moss, which may have been the only reason my injuries weren't too bad. Ed scuffed and scraped all the way down one side before rolling into me with a grunt and a whine. Laughter echoed from above us and footsteps retreated.
“Ed,” I said, struggling against the wire holding my wrists and ankles. I winced when I moved my shoulder. Shit. I must have dislocated it in the fall. “You okay?”
He gave a few heavy breaths. “I don't know. I don't know...”
The wire was secure enough but, with a little wriggling, I was pretty sure I could get free. The dislocated shoulder worked to my advantage in that situation, even though it hurt like hell. Maybe we could climb out. Then I'll find that son of a bitch and put a boot down his throat, I thought, though I wasn't sure if I was thinking of LeDuc or Ozzie.
“Oh man,” Ed went on, while I worked on getting my wrists free. “My legs...”
“Does it hurt?”
“Shit, Judah. The bone's all sticking out and everything. I'm bleeding out. We're going to die here.”
I gave a hard pull against the wire and felt it move. I was almost free. “No we're not. We're going to get loose and get out. No one else is dying here today except for LeDuc and his flunkies.” Maybe I didn't believe it myself completely, but I knew I needed to say it. Ed was a mess. I could hear in his voice that he was panicked. Panicked people aren't thinking people. I needed Ed's help if we were even going to stand a chance at getting out of that pit. My speech didn't convince him. He kept repeating over and over again that we were going to die.
The wire cut into the side of my wrist and I winced but kept fighting it. I was almost loose; a tiny bit more and I would be free. Who cared what skin came along with it and plenty did. It felt like it took hours. By the time I finally got the wire off, both my hands were soaked with my own blood. Then, I pulled off my blindfold and set myself to moving my dislocated shoulder back into place.
On TV, they show the hero doing that kind of thing willy nilly. A quick jerk, a growl of pain and then it's done. It's much more complicated than that in real life. I had to crawl over to the cave wall and slam my shoulder against it while pulling it forward at the same time. I think a gunshot would have hurt less. It finally went back with a loud crack, sending a huge dose of pain down into the rest of my torso. I lay there in a heap, crying for a good ten minutes before I was able to sit up again. As soon as I was upright, I promptly had to bend over and throw up, which somehow reduced the pain to a dull roar.
I sat up and looked around. We were in a pit, alright, with ninety degree slopes chiseled into the walls. Someone had painstakingly come down here and smoothed out all the rock to make sure no one could climb up. There were no roots, no branches, no protruding rocks... nothing. And the only light we had was a single torch burning about halfway up the pit wall.
I got busy freeing my ankles and looked over at Ed. He was right. The break was pretty bad on his left leg. The white of the bone had ripped through his jeans and was wiggling with every one of his sobs. The cavern floor around him looked to be free of blood, though his jeans were soaked with it. They'd bound his ankles and hands too, which had probably worked to Ed's advantage. It meant they'd kept the leg relatively still while moving him.
As soon as my ankles were clear, I made my way over to him and pulled the blindfold off. Ed stared up at me, wild eyed. “I don't want to die.”
“I'm not going to let you die, Ed. I promise. But I need you to calm down. We need to deal with your leg.”
He swallowed. “It's bad, isn't it?”
“The bleeding's not too bad but I'm not a doctor.” I glanced down at the bone and shook my head. “How fast do you guys heal?”
“Um...” He took a few deep breaths. “I don't know. From something like that? Jesus. I don't know. I’m just the token geek. Jesus, I don’t know.” He threw his head back against the rock and tried to contain his panicked sobs.
“I'm going to look at it. Both legs. I need you to stay as still as you can. Can you do that for me?”
“
Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. It hurts real bad.”
“Try.” I searched my person for something useful. Of course, my captors had stripped me of my gun, my knife and anything else that might have been useful. I turned out my pockets and only came up with that stupid lighter I'd taken from Robbie. Looks like I'm doing this the hard way, I thought. “Ed, I have to take off your jeans.”
“What?” Ed lifted his head off the rocks. “Can't you, you know, rip them at the knee or something?”
“Are you kidding me, Ed?” I said undoing his belt. “You got a bone sticking out of your leg and all you can worry about is that I'm going to see your underwear?”
“Just don't laugh at me, okay? I'd rather die with a little dignity.”
I would have hesitated too if I'd been wearing an old pair of Power Rangers boxers. This wasn't the time or place to be cracking jokes about Ed's choice in attire, though, so I kept it to myself, focusing on the task at hand. It was pretty difficult, getting those jeans off without disturbing the protruding bone but I somehow managed it. His other leg wasn't so bad. It was twisted the wrong way and swollen where the break was but time would probably fix that. The first leg was pretty bad. Blood was still oozing from the wound but at least it looked like a clean break. There weren't any fragments that I could see.
“It's bad, huh?”
“If we weren't twenty feet down in a cave in the middle of nowhere, I'd be calling you an ambulance right now and they'd probably be rushing you off to surgery.” I touched the area around the wound and he jerked away, a move that probably hurt worse than my fingers. “We have to close it up. In this environment, you're at a pretty big risk for infection if it stays open. Shock, too, and the bleeding could get worse.”
“How are you going to close it with the bone all sticking out and stuff?” I looked up at Ed and watched his eyes go wide. “No. No fucking way, Judah. You can't.”
“It's going to hurt like hell but I need you on your feet. I can't carry you and Hunter out of here and we're probably going to have to fight our way out. That can't happen unless you heal and the only chance you have at that is if I put you back together the way you're supposed to be.”
“No,” he repeated. “Dammit, Judah... Have you even looked around? We're not getting out of this.” He let his head go limp back against the rocks. “I'd rather die of infection than let one of them eat me like they're probably doing to your priest friend.”
“I'm not giving up just because it's hard. You shouldn't either.”
Ed rolled his head away from me. “It's pointless. Even if we did get out of this hole, I'm not a fighter. I'd slow you down.”
I crawled up and moved Ed's head back to face me. “Ed, you stood up to Daphne and Shauna. You helped me when no one else would. And Robbie, you scared the living hell out of him. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you, Ed.” He closed his eyes, as if that would block out my voice. “Maybe you're not the strongest or the fastest or even the smartest but you're the bravest.”
Ed opened his eyes and frowned. “You really think that?”
I smiled and lifted him so that I could free his hands. “You see Sal or Valentino down here with me? When was the last time you saw either of them demand something from Daphne or Shauna and then turn around and step on a Hobgoblin? That takes balls, Ed. And here you are, two broken legs in the bottom of a cave, ready to give up because it might hurt a little?”
“A lot,” Ed corrected. “It's going to hurt a lot.”
I got his hands free and lowered him down. He was almost with me. I just needed to get him over the idea of the pain, push him through it to make him realize the benefits outweighed the risks.
“I'm not going to lie to you, Ed. I don't even want to think about how bad it's going to hurt. I don't even know that it's going to work. I do know that LeDuc has every intention of killing us and he's going to draw it out. He's going to take his time and laugh in our faces while he does it. He thinks you're a coward. Are you going to lie down here and prove him right? Prove everyone else right?”
Ed swallowed. “But... They are right, Judah. I'm scared to death. I've got nothing to prove. I don't need to keep fighting the truth. The world's not going to miss one wimpy werewolf.”
“Ed...”
Ed was quiet for a minute. I racked my brain, trying to find the words he needed to hear. I didn't know how to reach him. I sucked in a deep breath. “I do need you. I can't do this by myself.”
“I need this to be over. I can't.”
“Ed,” I said, sinking down next to him. “I think this is a case where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Ed blinked and his eyes focused for the first time in the darkness. “... or the needs of the one.” He offered me a weak smile. “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I didn't peg you for a fan.”
“Hating Star Trek is akin to treason,” I said with a shrug. “There are kids somewhere in here that need our help. Sal's sitting in lock up for a crime he didn't commit and, if I don't clear his name, he'll go away forever. So are you with me or not?”
Ed took in a deep, shaky breath and then whimpered. “All right. Do it.”
I didn't wait for a second invitation. I searched the area for something that I could use as a splint first. There wasn't much down there except rocks and the occasional puddle of water but I did manage to find a small stick. It wouldn't hold up for anything heavy duty but it might be good for holding the break in place. I went back to the puddle by Ed and cleaned my hands there, since it was the closest thing to sterile that I was going to get. Then, I cupped some of the water in my hands and did my best to clean up Ed's wound. He whined and cried about it but did a pretty good job of staying still. I ripped a few strips of fabric off of Ed's jeans: some for tying on the splint and some to help stop the bleeding once the job was done. It was going to get messy.
“Now, for the shitty part,” I said kneeling next to Ed. “You ready for this?”
“No,” he whined, his voice small. “Just do it.”
“On the count of three,” I said. “One... two.” I did it on two to keep him from flinching or stiffening.
Kids, don’t try this at home. Pushing a protruding bone back into place wasn’t as easy. Things shifted. Muscle and tissue and tendon got in the way. Ideally, I would have left the job to a professional, someone with way more training and schooling than I had. My first aid training told me to leave him be, to make sure the scene was safe and to call EMS. But no one was coming there for us and if I left Ed alone, he was going to die. I needed his body to heal itself. If Ed hadn't been a werewolf with amazingly fast healing powers, and if we weren't in an extreme survival situation with our backs against the wall, I never would have attempted what I did to Ed down in that pit.
Ed screamed so loud I thought he would bring LeDuc and the others down on top of us. He bit down into the belt I'd put through his teeth and almost bit it in half. His hands closed on my shoulders in a grip that was surprising for a skinny kid. I had the bone almost back into place when Ed suddenly fell silent and his arms went limp.
“Dammit,” I growled, knowing I could either stop, check on Ed and then have to start all over again or just finish up and hope for the best. I told myself he couldn't be dead. He hadn't lost enough blood. He'd passed out from the pain. I pushed through, forced the bone back into place and aligned it as best I could before splinting. The tattered remains of Ed’s jeans became a bandage for Ed, held on by strips of belt.
It was a heavy half hour or so before I was able to verify that I wasn't splinting and caring for a dead man. I pressed my head to Ed's chest and listened to him draw in a strained breath. He was in shock, maybe, but there wasn't much I could do for that other than drag him out of the water and do my best to keep him warm, dry and safe.
“Come on, Ed,” I said, bending over behind him and wrapping my arms under his to drag him back against the wall. “Stay with me.” I dragged him back against the wall of the pit. He was unconscious,
but I still felt like I needed to reassure him. “I'll be right back. I'm going to walk the perimeter and look for anything useful.” I started to walk away but hesitated and turned back. “Stay here.”
I must have walked the perimeter of that pit half a dozen times, finding nothing, before I came back and plopped down, exhausted, next to Ed. “There's nothing,” I told his still unconscious body and wiped sweat, dirt and blood from my face. “There's nothing, Ed, and I'm too damn weak to even manage a spell. Not that I even know one that would help us get out of here.” My chest rose and fell with a great sigh as I tried to contain my tears of frustration. “When I get out of here, I'm going to rip LeDuc apart. You hear me, LeDuc?” I screamed the last sentence as loud as I could and watched the torch flame quiver as my voice ran through it. “I'm going to kill you!” The only thing that answered me was the sound of my own voice, echoing back on itself.
I settled in against the wall and pulled Ed closer. The pit was cold enough that I could see my breath and getting colder as time went on. If we had any chance of surviving the next few hours, we were going to have to share body heat. More than that, I didn't want to be alone and useless. If I could keep myself busy taking care of Ed and trying to find a way out, maybe I wouldn't have to think about Hunter. Maybe, I could rest.
I closed my eyes and imagined it was daylight outside. There were birds in the sky and sand on the ground, just the way it always was. “People are looking for us,” I told Ed. “They'll come. Tindall and Quincy and the rest. They'll find the car all wrecked in the middle of the road and they'll come. You'll see.”
I didn't believe it. Not even for a second. Ed and I, we were on our own.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I dreamed shallow dreams that slipped away too quickly when I opened my eyes to the darkness again. Above us, the torch hissed and burned, dropping a few cinders here and there. Someone or something was scraping around up there, too. I could hear them and see the shadows moving, though the sound got too jumbled in echoes for me to make out what they were saying. I lifted the hand I'd thrown around Ed's shoulders and put it against his forehead. He was sweating out one hell of a fever. That meant infection, which meant we were officially in a worst-case scenario. Dammit.