“Whoa. What are you doing?” Splint asked.
“If he won’t go, I will,” I spat.
“No, you won’t,” Copper’s deep voice rumbled through the room. “You would be dead if it weren’t for me. The least you can do is sit your ass down and accept the care you’re being given for free.”
“Fine, but then I’m out of here. And for the record, I don’t like you.” Childish? Yes, but it was all I could come up with. The truth was, I wouldn’t have been able to get very far on my own; however, there was no way I would admit it.
“You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last, Locks,” he said with unmistakable arrogance.
“Locks?” I questioned.
“Didn’t know your name and needed to call you something other than ‘woman.’ You reminded me of Goldie Locks, traipsing around in the woods and sneaking into places you don’t belong with that mess of blonde hair,” he casually explained.
“I was not traipsing!” I screamed.
“Enough,” Splint stated. “This isn’t good for her. She needs to rest and let her body heal. Getting her so worked up she’s trying to leave isn’t helping anything.”
Copper pinned Splint with a fierce glare, “I’ll let you have that one, but don’t you speak to me like that again.”
“Got it, Pre—Copper,” Splint mumbled before he directed his attention to me. “As for you, your leg is infected, severely. Copper found you basically unconscious in a tent in the woods and carried you back to the cabin. I’ve been giving you IV antibiotics and IV fluids while monitoring you closely. You need to stay put and let me give you the medicines to fight off the infection. If you leave before you’ve finished the antibiotics, the same thing will happen to you, only you’ll be in far worse shape than you are now. You’re at risk of losing your leg or dying. Understood?”
I nodded my understanding, even though I was certain he was exaggerating the severity. “How long will I have to stay here?”
“Probably a couple of days. You need several more doses of IV antibiotics before you can switch to pills. Once you switch to the pills, as long as you can change your dressing and promise to finish the antibiotics, you can leave,” Splint explained.
I highly doubted I would be free to leave, if the menacing look on Copper’s face was anything to go by. I would have to fight that battle when I came to it. In the meantime, it seemed as if there was nothing else I could do except accept the care being provided for me.
Instead of encouraging either one of the two to continue talking, I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. The medicine Splint had given me had taken the edge off the pain in my leg and was perhaps making me drowsy. Before long, I drifted off to sleep, blissfully unaware of my surroundings.
* * *
For two days,I was waited on hand and foot by Splint. He brought me food, medicine, and assisted me to the bathroom. He didn’t talk to me about anything that wasn’t directly related to my health. At first, I was thankful for that, but by the end of the second day, I was beyond frustrated. Surely, they had questions for me. I certainly had come up with a list of my own questions for them.
“Knock, knock,” Splint called, as he always did before he entered the room. “How are you feeling today?”
“Better than yesterday,” I said, which is exactly how I answered him the previous two mornings.
“Great. While you’re eating breakfast, I want to go over how to change your dressing. When you’re finished, I want to watch you do it to make sure you can handle it when I’m not around.”
I nodded and proceeded to inhale my breakfast while he prattled on about clean hands and a sterile field. I wanted to roll my eyes. Seriously, gauze plus tape, not hard.
“Kayla, you have to take this seriously. It’s not like putting a bandage on a scraped knee. You have a serious wound in your leg that is very susceptible to infection. You have to do this properly to prevent it from getting infected again,” Splint said, sounding irritated with me.
“I am taking this seriously. I heard everything you said to me about thoroughly washing my hands and making sure to not contaminate the sterile field,” I said, a little irritated myself.
“Okay, let’s see how you do,” he said.
Apparently, I could not fumble my way through changing the dressing to his liking, buying me another day trapped in the cabin. At least I was able to move around by myself, and I even managed to take a shower. Unfortunately, that also meant I had to either put my dirty clothes back on or hand wash them in the sink. I opted to wash my underwear and shirt in the sink. I would tackle my jeans another time.
“Knock, knock,” Splint called from the other side of the bathroom door.
“You may not come in,” I blurted, wrapping the towel tighter around my body.
“You’ve been in there a long time. I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said, and I could hear the concern in his tone.
“I’m fine. I’m just waiting for my clothes to dry,” I explained.
I heard a whispered curse followed by, “I’ll leave you to it.” I thought his reaction was odd, but in all honesty, the whole situation was odd at best.