“If you have more medicine with you, I can give her another dose or two, if you think that’s what she needs,” I offered.
“Yeah, I do. She’ll need an injection every twelve hours for at least three more doses. Then, she can probably switch to pills; one every twelve hours for ten days. Even with the antibiotics, she needs to watch it closely. If it gets infected and isn’t taken care of properly, she could easily lose her leg,” Splint said while digging through his kit for the antibiotics.
“Thanks, brother. Appreciate you getting here so fast and taking care of her leg for me.”
Splint eyed me with a sly grin on his face, “No problem, Prez. You gonna tell me how you ended up with a woman who’d been bitten by a wild boar in your possession?”
“No, I am not, and you’re not going to tell anyone else about it either,” I snapped.
“Got it, Prez. If you don’t need anything else, I’m going to head back to the clubhouse.”
“I think we’re good. Thanks, Splint. See you in a few days,” I said and walked him to the door.
Once he was gone, I dropped my ass onto the couch and wondered what in the hell I was going to do with the woman upstairs.
2
My head was throbbing, and there was a very good chance I was going to throw up. Rolling to my side, I started to get out of bed to go to the bathroom when the excruciating pain in my lower leg had me freezing in place. I took in a few deep breaths and slowly opened my eyes.
Oh, crap. Where in the hell was I? I whipped my head around, causing the throbbing to ramp up to a damn near intolerable level. I quickly realized I wasn’t in my room. Well, it wasn’t exactly my room, but it had come to feel like it was mine since I had been sleeping there every night for longer than I cared to admit. I tried desperately to remember what happened to me, but I was drawing a blank. Between the pain in my leg and the pulsing in my brain, it was all I could do to make it to the door that hopefully led to a bathroom.
I did my business, washed my face, and rinsed my mouth out with some mouthwash I found under the sink. Unfortunately, after a quick perusal of the medicine cabinet, I didn’t find anything to help with the pain.
Tiptoeing back to the bed, I gingerly sat and inspected my leg. My jeans had been cut away at the knee, and my calf was covered in a large bandage. I teetered back and forth on whether or not I should take a peek. Ultimately, I figured if it was hurting as bad as it was, I should have a look and see what was causing the pain since my memory was still failing me.
Carefully, I pulled the tape back from the top corner of the dressing and lifted the gauze away from my skin. The sight of the grotesque wound on my calf had me gasping in horror. A huge gash surrounded by some serious bruising covered the majority of my calf. But what stumped me even more were the professional looking stitches. Well, thank you to whomever, but I needed to get out of wherever I was and back to my safe haven.
I glanced around the room and found two windows on the back wall of the bedroom. Hobbling over, I peeked outside and realized I was in the cabin. What was I doing inside?
What was even more disturbing was that I couldn’t recall anything. Obviously, someone found me and brought me inside. But how did they find me and what happened to my leg?
Huffing out a breath in frustration, I mentally chastised myself. I needed to focus on getting out of the cabin as soon as possible because I had clearly been discovered by someone, and not knowing who exactly was troubling me the most. It could be any of the three people looking for me, or it could be an all new hell if my history was anything to go by. It would explain why my head was in a fog. I experienced the exact same feelings the last time I was drugged.
Pushing those thoughts away, I eased open the window and mouthed a silent “thank you” for its smooth and soundless slide. Next, I yanked the sheet from the bed and tied it securely to the headboard. Then, I tied a blanket to the end of the sheet, hoping it would be long enough to reach the ground because I didn’t see any other material I could use.
Ignoring the pain in my leg, I climbed through the window and began my descent to the ground below hoping and praying the bed wouldn’t move and alert whomever was in the house to my activities. The sun was barely peeking over the horizon, so, hopefully, the cabin’s occupant was still asleep, and I could get away without being noticed.
As soon as my feet touched the ground, I moved as fast as my leg would allow to the bunker I’d been staying in since I managed to escape not one, not two, but three horrible situations. I was beginning to think I had done something to forever piss off Lady Luck until I stumbled upon an unlocked, unoccupied, and fully stocked bunker behind a large cabin.
Once I was safely inside the bunker, I closed the hatch and didn’t come out for two whole days. Those first two nights were horrible. I was terrified of what could possibly be coming for me outside. When I was finally brave enough to leave the bunker, I opened the hatch to find the ground covered in snow. There was no way I could try to hike down the mountain in the snow. The only footwear I had was the pair of flimsy tennis shoes I’d been wearing the day I escaped.
So, I stayed in the bunker and waited for the snow to melt. And it finally did, several weeks later. I should have known if it was warm enough for me to be out and about it was warm enough for the animals in the area to be out scavenging for food. But the thought never occurred to me, and I only made it a few hundred yards from the cabin when I ran into the boars.
I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, but I couldn’t because I needed to come up with a new game plan. There was no way I would be able to get down the mountain with my leg injury, at least not in one day like I’d originally hoped. My head felt fuzzy, and my leg was killing me. I had no idea what to do, and sheer panic was trying its best to consume me as I ambled around the small space, packing everything I could into a large backpack I found in the bunker.
As I was packing, and panicking, an idea hit me. I didn’t have to make it down the mountain in one day. I could hike a little bit at a time and then pitch a tent for the night. It would likely take me a few days of hiking and camping before I reached the small town at the base, but I could do it. Once there, I could find someone to help me.
Feeling slightly better about my situation, I hurried to gather the items I needed so I could get out of there before the man came looking for me. Wait! A man? How did I know it was a man in the cabin? Little flashes of memories were blinking on my mind’s horizon but refused to light up completely. It didn’t matter. I would remember what happened, or I wouldn’t. Either way, I didn’t have the time to worry about it. Getting away was priority number one.
Once I finished packing, I tossed my loaded backpack through the hatch, followed by the compact two-person tent I found in a storage closet. Then, I climbed out, picked up my belongings, and made a beeline for the trees.
It was taking every bit of my willpower to keep going despite the pain in my leg. I hadn’t even made it a third of a mile when I felt like it would be easier and less painful to cut the damn thing off. Tears began to leak from my eyes, but I gritted my teeth and pushed on. This was no time to be weak. If I wanted to survive, I had to keep going. And keep going is what I did.
3
Icouldn’t decide if I was more pissed off or intrigued by the woman as I watched her descend to the ground using a blanket. It was a move I hadn’t expected from her, while at the same time, I wasn’t surprised by it either.
I watched her limp toward the back of the property and thought briefly about calling out to her, to tell her to stop, but something in my gut told me to wait. I always followed my gut instinct. It had never led me in the wrong direction.