Ty spared the dark woods one more careful look before he reached behind him and pushed at Zane’s hip. “Three!” he shouted, and they turned and ran as fast as they could through the darkness.
Zane led him back to the camp, where Ty knew the fire and the scent of more people would provide safety. Adrenaline still rushed through him, and he didn’t know how badly wounded he might be. Nothing hurt yet, at least. He just knew they needed to get to safety before the cat came back for more.
When Ty and Zane broke through trees and into the circle of light and warmth from the fire, Earl was waiting with a flashlight and a large hunting knife. As Ty stumbled, he grabbed the shotgun out of his hands; Deuce stood with his shotgun drawn, looking out into the woods, ready to fire at anything that came after them. Ty slid to the ground and grabbed at the end of one of the sticks in the fire, turning with the flaming branch in his hand and breathing hard as he waited. For whatever reason, he felt better with the branch than he had with the shotgun. Probably because he’d missed with the fucking shotgun the first time.
But the forest was quiet. Nothing came out of the woods after him. A bird chirped somewhere in the distance, and another happily answered the call. The fire crackled merrily, and the only sounds were Zane’s and Ty’s harsh breaths as they tried to pull air in.
Finally, Ty lowered the stick in his hand and looked down at it abashedly before tossing it back in the fire. The others lowered their weapons and turned to look at him doubtfully, like he might have finally had that mental breakdown they were all expecting.
“I’m okay,” Ty mumbled to them. “I think.”
“Where’s—”
“He’s gone,” Ty said flatly, cutting Deuce’s question off.
“Gone? What happened?” Deuce demanded.
The flashlight played over Ty, and Earl stopped it at his hands. “Jesus Christ, boy,” Earl grunted as he came closer. Zane appeared at Ty’s side, shoving his gun into his waistband, putting a steadying hand against Ty’s back.
Ty looked down to see that blood was dripping down his fingers, running freely and obscuring the sources so they couldn’t see how many punctures there were or how badly his hand was torn up. His entire front was covered in blood, in fact. Some his, spreading from the scratches on his shoulders, but most of it belonged to the dead man.
He held his hand up and peered closely at it in the wavering firelight. “Fuck, man, I just got that out of a cast,” he said in annoyance. “Bring that light,” he requested as Earl stopped in front of him and shined the light down on his hand. He could discern at least four separate punctures, one of which was so deep that Ty thought it might actually have hit the bone. His fingers were stiffening up quickly, and his hand was beginning to throb. The knuckle of his ring finger was swollen and turning blue. “Hell,” he cursed in defeat. He supposed he was lucky that he still had the hand at all, considering he could have yanked out the cat’s tonsils at one point.
“What happened?” Deuce demanded.
Ty shook his head as Earl yanked the buff off Ty’s head and used it to make a rough tourniquet around his forearm. The buff wouldn’t go tight enough to do much good, though, and Zane went to dig in his backpack.
“What’d you do?” Earl asked as Ty tried to calm his breathing.
“Cat jumped us,” Ty answered in a surprised voice. “Ate him.”
“A cougar?” Earl asked in shock.
“Yeah,” Ty answered, still in disbelief. He held his hand up as it began throbbing angrily, trying to slow the blood flow to the wounds.
“I thought cougars in these parts was just hearsay,” Earl said in surprise.
“Well, we’ll be sure to report the sighting to fucking Fish and Game when we get home,” Ty snapped as he sat down heavily beside the fire. His entire body was shaking. The firelight flickered off the blood streaming down his hand and forearm.
“Hey,” Zane said quietly as he knelt beside Ty with a shirt he’d yanked out of his backpack. Ty recognized it, actually. Zane had worn it the day they drove up here. It was one of Zane’s favorites. “Look at me, all right?” Zane used the shirt in one hand to start mopping up the blood on Ty’s shoulder and down his arm, and the other hand settled on Ty’s knee to squeeze gently.
Ty looked up at him obediently. His hand trembled in Zane’s. He’d been trained to face danger of all kinds, but he supposed nothing overrode the very distinct knowledge that you were about to be dinner.
“You’re okay,” Zane said quietly but clearly. “Just focus on me for a few minutes. What’s the first thing that comes to mind?” While talking, he was gently wiping away the blood.
Ty blinked at him, opening his mouth as he thought the very first thing that came to mind when Zane prompted him. I love you. He snapped his mouth closed and stared at Zane, unable and unwilling to answer.
Zane frowned a little. “Ty?” His head tipped to one side as he looked Ty over, probably for more injuries. “Are you hurt somewhere else?”
Ty swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry as he tried to answer. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he finally managed to utter. The truth was, he had no idea. His entire body was numb, not to mention his mind was reeling as he watched Zane.
“Deuce, would you get a canteen, please?” Zane requested, his eyes not wavering from Ty’s face.
Ty cleared his throat uncomfortably and tore his eyes away from Zane’s, afraid of what he might say if he continued to look at him. He glanced around uncertainly. Earl was rummaging through the first-aid kit, not paying them any mind as he searched for ointment and bandages, but Deuce was standing over them with his hands on his hips, watching them closely, and he nodded at Zane’s request as Ty looked up at him.
“Sure,” Deuce said, and he limped over toward his backpack.
Zane’s hand on Ty’s cheek brought his attention back to his partner. “Hey. You with me?” Zane asked, the concern clear on his face and in his eyes. “You have any more of the… falling?”
Ty swallowed hard again. “I’ve never seen anything like that, Zane,” he admitted roughly.
Zane didn’t try to make light. He nodded and continued to wipe at the blood on Ty’s shaky hand. “I’ve got your back,” he promised.
Ty nodded jerkily. He cleared his throat again, finally feeling the embarrassment. He looked down at his hand for lack of anything better to do. “It’s bleeding a lot,” he said in a surprised voice as he looked at his fingers in the light of the fire.
Zane must have noticed his discomfort, because he released Ty’s hand as Deuce lowered himself carefully to a knee, offering the canteen to Ty.
“A cat?” Deuce asked dubiously.
“It was a big cat,” Ty insisted as he held his hand up. He watched as several drops of blood dripped off his wrist. It looked like he’d stuck it in a blender.
Earl muttered as he knelt beside Deuce and took Ty’s hand. He raised it up to look at it. “Won’t be able to get this fixed up real good until daylight,” he said grimly. “Should cauterize it.”
“Oh, hell no,” Ty protested as he tried to jerk his hand away. Earl’s grip tightened, and he looked at Ty pointedly. “We’ll just clean it real good and double-time it in the morning, okay?” Ty bargained.
Earl raised an eyebrow but nodded in agreement. “Wash it up real good,” he warned.
“Yes, sir,” Ty muttered. His father handed Deuce the ointment and bandages and then went to get water. Ty glanced over at Zane, who was watching him silently. “Shut up,” he muttered.
Chapter 15
AS ZANE and Earl packed their bags at sunup, Deuce hunkered down, took Ty’s hand, and frowned at the wounds. “Does it hurt?” he asked as he poked at Ty’s palm. Ty nearly choked on the water he’d been gulping down and wrenched his hand away with a hoarse curse.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Zane said wryly as he stopped next to them.
“We need to wrap it,” Earl advised. He turned around, his hands
on his hips and a scowl set on his face. “You need to protect it while you’re walking. You need to keep it as still as possible, keep it up. We’ll have to immobilize it somehow.”
Ty resisted the urge to growl. It was a nuisance, but he knew his father was right. Bites were nasty business at any time, but out here where they were miles away from anything resembling sanitary conditions, it could turn deadly very fast. Of all the wounds the others had suffered during their escapades, this was probably the most dangerous, as embarrassing as it was. “Yes, sir,” Ty muttered with a nod.
“I’ll get a clean T-shirt,” Deuce mumbled as he climbed to his feet.
Zane’s lips twitched as he stayed there next to Ty. He crouched down next to his partner. “So. Just a nice stretch of the legs on the mountain. No problem,” he said conversationally.
“It’s not entirely going to plan,” Ty muttered as he looked away from Zane, flushing a bit.
Zane snorted. “With us, when does it ever?”
Ty glanced over at him, met his eyes for a moment, and smirked crookedly. “I can think of a few times.”
Their eyes met briefly, and Ty felt more words on the tip of his tongue, but the jarring sound of material ripping interrupted any further conversation. Deuce was methodically cutting a brown T-shirt into thin strips. “Hey!” Ty called out. “Not that one!” he protested as he pointed at the shirt. The Schitt Creek Paddle Co. shirt was one of his very favorites. “That’s a lucky shirt!”
“Deal with it, Meow Mix,” Deuce advised as he carefully draped the strips over his shoulder to keep them clean.
“The Phillies will never win again if you tear up that shirt,” Ty told Deuce threateningly.
“We don’t need your lucky shirts,” Deuce claimed with a smirk. “Save those for your damn Redskins.”
“You can get a new shirt,” Zane pointed out. “New hand, not so much.”
“New hand, nothing,” Earl broke in as he knelt and began rummaging through his pack. “It gets infected and you won’t make it off the mountain.”
“Being a little dramatic about it, aren’t you?” Ty asked him with a small, hopeful smile.
His father turned his head and met his eyes. “No.”
Standing up, Zane took Ty’s good hand and pulled him to his feet. When Ty stood, though, his head swam, and he wavered. Zane placed a supportive hand on his lower back. “You okay?” he asked, his voice exposing new concern.
Ty nodded and brushed him off. “I’m good,” he muttered as he looked down at his hand. “Okay,” he sighed as he started trying to think of a way to immobilize the wounded fingers. Earl was right—the less he moved them the better. If an infection did get into the joints, it would spread faster if he were using the fingers. Besides, they hurt like a bitch.
Ty looked around the clearing, frustrated by how muddled his thoughts seemed to be. The pain when he kept his hand at his side was distracting, and he raised it up and cradled it to his chest unconsciously.
Finally, he turned and looked back at Zane appraisingly. “How much of your gear do you really need?” he asked.
“Just the canteen. Everything else important is on me,” Zane answered. Ty knew he meant his weapons. “The duffel we can leave behind.”
“No, no,” Ty corrected as he made a “hand it over” gesture with his good fingers. “The duffel’s what I need.”
Frowning again, Zane shrugged and took the several steps to snag it and bring it back, holding it out for Ty to take.
Ty nodded his thanks and took the bag, unzipping it with difficulty as he knelt. He dumped the contents onto the ground and then slid the hunting knife from its sheath at his thigh and began slicing into the thick padding of the shoulder straps.
Zane watched as Ty started cutting up the bag. “Are you making a sling?” he asked after a few moments.
“No, but that would have been brilliant of me,” Ty answered as he glanced up at Zane and smiled slightly. “I’m making a splint,” he added as the smile fell. “Pretty sure something broke in there. A little wrapping with that damn duct tape and this padding should be hard enough to do it.”
Nodding, Zane knelt down next to him and grabbed the roll of silver duct tape they’d been using to tape the prisoners up. “Let’s get you wrapped up then,” Zane said to him.
Ty knew that he couldn’t manage the feat with just one hand, and he relented with a grunt of displeasure. “Try to mold it as you wrap it,” he advised as he held out his injured hand in the shape that would work best. “Just curve the end of it.”
“Leave the man alone, boy, he’s got sense enough to know basic first aid,” Earl chastised as he clunked down a small plastic box.
Zane raised an eyebrow as he followed Ty’s instructions, making the mold fit the natural curve of his hand. Ty watched him as he wrapped it rather than watching his progress. Every time he thought too hard on it, an uncomfortable tightness formed in his throat and butterflies assaulted him. At least he now he knew the truth about himself and Zane. Looking raptly into Zane’s dark eyes, Ty wondered why he hadn’t realized he loved the man earlier.
“How bad is it? Really,” Zane asked, looking up to meet Ty’s eyes.
Ty swallowed hard. “Hurts worse than I thought it would,” he answered in a barely audible voice. Whether he was talking about his hand or something more, he really couldn’t have said.
He shook off any more thoughts along those lines and cleared his throat. He would let himself ponder that once they were off this mountain and in the clear.
He looked down at his hand and examined it, holding it out toward Zane. His shoulders ached where the cougar’s claws had sunk in, but his hand was the true problem. The side of it where the shallowest punctures had been was bruised and swollen, and the entire hand was red and painful. The two knuckles of his pinkie and ring fingers were twice the size they were supposed to be, and all his fingers were swollen and bruised as well. There was a puncture on his palm that made it impossible to grip anything hard. And since he’d wrenched his hand away from the pain when the cat had bitten down, the punctures weren’t just deep, they were rips that had torn up the skin, making it harder for the wounds to close. In fact, he’d had gunshots that were less painful than his hand was right now.
“Hurts,” he repeated. “It ain’t infected, though,” he surmised with a shake of his head.
“Keep an eye on it, tough guy,” Zane murmured as he kept wrapping the modified brace with the tape to bulk it up and make it stiff. “I don’t want to have to carry you out of here.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Ty assured him as Earl stepped closer and handed him a small tin of Rawleigh’s antibiotic ointment. “Thanks,” Ty said as he looked up at his father and took the tin.
Earl swished a bottle of water at him. “Time to clean it again,” he said grimly. Cleaning it the night before had been painful enough. Ty thought he might have whimpered through the whole process.
“Great,” Ty muttered as his father chuckled and took the mangled backpack and Ty’s knife just as Deuce held up the cloth, indicating for Zane to take the canteen.
“Ready?” Zane asked.
Ty glared at him. “Just do it quick,” he requested.
Glancing to Deuce, Zane waited until he nodded to start pouring the water in a thin, slow stream. Deuce held the cloth under it briefly, took Ty’s hand, and began scrubbing at it, hard and fast. Ty just closed his eyes and turned his head slightly, breathing in the cool air of the mountain as the little torn bits of skin were ripped up and away. It wasn’t as bad as he’d been expecting. He supposed most of the pain was coming from the bruising rather than the open wounds. He was almost positive the nerves around those were all dead, now, anyway.
When he looked back down at it, most of the dried blood that had caked his fingers and palm was gone, and Deuce was slathering it with ointment and wrapping it carefully with the strips of his T-shirt.
Ty sighed and looked up at his father, who was standing aside and
watching with a frown. He met his dad’s eyes and gave a weak smile. They both knew how bad this could turn.
Zane picked up the mold he’d made and held it out. “All right, into the splint,” he said.
Ty placed his hand into it, wincing as his palm settled. Deuce waited until Ty gave him a nod; then he began anchoring the splint to Ty’s arm with an Ace bandage from the first aid kit.
“I gotcha a sling, here,” Earl announced as he held up what had once been Deuce’s spare pack. “Might be better off without it,” he advised.
Ty shook his head. He needed to keep it up more than he needed that hand to walk. “Let me have the damn thing,” he muttered as he pulled his hand away from Zane and stood slowly. He’d found if he rose too quickly, his head would swim and his vision would blur. He pulled the straps of the mangled backpack close to his body, essentially tying his arm to his chest. It would fuck with his balance and probably end up making him fall on his face, but it was better than the alternative. When he’d adjusted it, he flopped his good hand to his side and looked around at the others. “Let’s divvy up the shit and get going,” he suggested.
As Earl and Deuce picked through the rest of the supplies spilled on the ground, Zane stood slowly, only a couple feet from Ty, keeping his eyes on him the whole time. He took a step closer and reached out to untwist one of the straps and tie it more securely. “There you go,” he murmured.
Ty found it difficult to meet his eyes as he thought about a similar action Zane had taken in a New York hotel room almost a year ago. Now, just as then, his heart beat a little faster because of it. But he nodded in thanks and smiled as he tried to fight back the hint of warmth it caused. I love you. The thought had haunted him all night, almost as much as the sound of the cougar’s scream.
Zane’s fingers lingered where Ty’s T-shirt met his neck, pressing against the warm skin for just a few moments longer than necessary. “Come on. There’s beer and apple pie waiting,” he said.
“Can’t wait,” Ty muttered. He reached out and socked Zane in the stomach as soon as the other two men had turned away and started off down the trail.