9. Taylor

Chapter 9

Taylor

M y eyes open and I see nothing but utter darkness.

I suck in a sharp breath, and it takes me a moment to even understand what happened. Where am I? And then I let out a whimper, because it all comes racing back. I'm in a cave on Tarvos, and we must have been through an earthquake and subsequent landslide.

There is a huge pressure on top of me and I can barely breathe. “Sten?” I gasp and shift slightly and then push harder.

He falls with a thud on the ground next to me.

I place both my palms on his warm skin. “Sten?” I sigh with relief, because I can feel his chest rise and fall with each breath.

Then I do a quick check of myself, shifting arms and legs, realizing I'm not really in any pain, maybe some jabs from what I guess is the ground underneath. Bruises from the weight of the huge male who’d landed on top of me.

I pat myself because I can't do much of anything if it's completely dark. I find a light source clipped to my hip. I always have more than one handheld light source because I’ll always need another or someone else will need one. I unhook it and flash the light on Sten’s face first and confirm he's completely passed out. The good news is that I don’t see any visible head injuries.

This man saved my life.

He's bleeding from different wounds on his body though and I need to check on him further.

But first, I need to see if I can get us out of here and get Sten some real help. And then I need to fix his wounds with my med kit. I’m able to sit up, which is good. Neither of us are fully covered by rock. And I’m pleased to discover my backpack is still on me. It's been crushed beneath the weight of both of our bodies, but not so much.

I stand and use the light source to walk around, trying to find a way out. There’s no reason to shout for help because no one is outside and even the riding beasts are too far away to hear our distress.

My chest constricts. Are Thunder and Leetra are alright? Did the animals get hurt?

The light flashes all around the entrance and I whimper at the sight of the wall that blocks our exit. The original entrance is now full covered with an enormous pile of both large and small rocks. I push against it to see if I can open anything and I get are small cuts on my hands. “Nothing,” I say to Sten as if he were awake. “I can't get anything to move, nor are there any cracks of daylight. This is scary.”

I walk around slowly, shining the light everywhere, trying to figure out exactly what happened and what we can do next. "Unfortunately, I can't find the crates now. The mobile equipment and the crates are all under a huge pile of stones in the opposite direction, and I can only hope and pray that the stone of those crates was strong enough to withstand the landslide,” I say out loud, because for some reason talking like this makes me feel better, “it does make me wonder if this cave had originally been closed by hand, or maybe there had been an actual opening here before that rainy landslide, and then it was closed by a small earthquake and then reopened just recently. And if we hadn't been here, it would have been closed by this earthquake again, and no one would have known these crates existed. I'm going to get us out of here, Sten,” I say, not that he can hear me, but it makes me feel better to pretend I’m chatting with him and giving updates. “I'm looking with the light at basically a whole wall of rock now where the entrance had been. There's no daylight coming through any cracks. This is not a good sign. But I did bring a lot of goodies in my backpack that will really help.”

Next, I bend down and unzip my backpack all the way and check in every pocket for all my emergency equipment. “We can’t get out on foot and make it to the riding beasts, but help will still come. Even though you didn't tell anyone where we went, I wasn’t highly concerned because I have emergency equipment. I always have a tracker on me. Librarians go on missions with a tracker at all times. Uh oh, my tablet is broken, which means I can’t directly contact anyone of Gravian or even local authorities to say come and get us now.”

Then I start patting his pants and find his cracked tablet in a front pocket. “Dammit, yours is dead and broken too.” I toss the tablet aside and lift my tracker and examine it closer. “But the tracker looks like it's on and it feels warm, so the Librarians on Gravian know where I am. If I haven't reported in by a certain number of hours, and they can't get a hold of me, which they won't be able to, then they will get in touch with local authorities, and they will be able to tell them where we are. So at least there's that. We're going to be okay. But…I don’t know how long it will take them to get here.”

In my backpack I find a secondary light source and wave it at Sten. “This is good, because this first one gives twelve hours of light, and the second one will give another twelve, and after that, it'll go pitch dark in here. Luckily, it's not freezing outside. The weather is temperate, a little chilly, but not bad.”

I set the light down and pull out the emergency med kit. “Okay, let's get you fixed up.” I open the box and take out the sensor and run it up and down his body, from his head to his toes. It beeps and lets me know that there are deep lacerations on his back and worst of all his right arm and his left leg are broken.

Sten groans and his eyes blink open.

“Hi, Sten,” I say with a watery voice because now I’m all choked up because now I know the extent of his injuries. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize at first that you were this hurt. I think it’s just that you’re so big and strong, you’re like some sort of superhero, and I guess I assumed nothing could hurt you. Which is stupid of me to think. I was running around here, not even addressing your wounds first. Thank gods you were knocked out and couldn’t feel the pain, because there must be a lot of pain. Let me take care of that first for you.”

He tries to sit up and then winces.

“Lay back down.”

“What happened?” he croaks.

“You saved my life,” I answer while rummaging around in the med kit and making sure I have what I need to follow the kit’s simple directions. “That's what happened. There was an earthquake and the ceiling collapsed and you fell on top of me to make sure I wasn’t in danger. Some very heavy stones fell on you, and I would have died if they’d fallen on me instead. You're so much stronger than me and bigger than me. You're lucky to be alive.”

He groans again from the pain.

“I'm giving you a pain shot right now.” I press the injector into his shoulder and it makes a hissing noise. “That should do the trick. I’ve been told these work really well. I have another one too so hopefully this will last you until we get help, or you heal, whichever is first. My mobile med kit isn’t nearly as good as your high tech med lab in Fire Creek, but it’s decent. It does secure a wound or a break and it heals them much, much faster than on its own.”

He doesn’t answer, which makes me think he’s not fully aware yet, or in that much pain. “I’m going to roll you over onto your stomach for a minute so I can fix up your back. If you agree to this treatment, where I’ll be touching you and cleaning up wounds, I’m hoping you’ll signal by helping me with this.”

I shake out a thin blanket and lay it down next to him. And after a lot of stops and starts, I’ve got his large body rolled onto his stomach. The barbed tail is in my way and I push the surprisingly soft appendage aside and down against his perfect backside. I examine his wide back and the wounds are indeed very bloody and dirty. “I’m going to get started on this. You have a few deep cuts and they have debris so I have to clean them. I’m hoping they will not hurt at all but you’ll only feel the movement of the cleaner.” I bring the light closer and get to work with a cleaner and patches. Soon everything is covered and healing nicely. “These healing patches are good; they claim that they can speed-heal and that these cuts should be fixed in a matter of hours.”

“Thank you,” he says.

“Oh, are you feeling better?”

“I’m not in pain and more awake now, but I can’t move my leg or arm.”

“Yeah, let’s work on those next. They are both broken. Can you help me to get you propped up against this rock?”

Soon, he’s sitting up and facing me, with the barbed tail resting next to his hips. I give him a big smile and he grins in return, letting me know he is indeed feeling better. “Thank gods for pain meds.”

Sten nods in agreement. “The pain is lessening and is now barely noticeable. I’m starting to feel more awake.”

“I’m going to have to use these to cut open your pant leg so I can…”

He reaches down to instantly tear open the bottom of his right pant leg.

I set down the knife. “Oh, thanks.” Then I take a deep breath. “This is a more complicated break than I’d originally thought. The good news is that it’s not so bad that we need to reset it. You can see that the bone is exposed but not so broken that it’s obviously poking up. The arm looks better than the leg.”

He grunts in response.

First, I clean the bleeding cuts. Then I open two different packages and place the webbed patch of a bone knitter around the correct arm and two more of them around his leg. “These claim on the package that they can fix broken bones in a couple of hours. They really do work. My coworker fell and broke an ankle while we were out hiking by the river on Gravian. We put this on her ankle and it fixed her broken bone so well that by that evening she was walking around like it didn’t happen. She didn’t even need to go to the med lab.”

Sten braces one powerful red arm against the floor, trying to move. “Thank you for your help. I feel better already.”

“No, don’t get up. You need to rest for it to work.”

He shakes his regal head, both black horns glinting in the light. “I have to get us out of here.”

“I’ve already checked. There’s no way out. We’re stuck in here for the time being, but you're going to be all right until we can get you help. The most important thing right now is for you to rest and properly heal.”

He meets my gaze. “No one knows we're out here.”

“All is not lost. See.” I show him my tracker and explain how it will allow us to be found.

He pulls out his tablet and frowns at the black, cracked screen.

“It's broken and mine is back there, buried in the rubble. So, we have to wait.” I point to the wall. “It's completely covered.”

“I'm going to get up and check on this myself.”

“No, do not get up,” I say again. “Just lay there. There's nothing to do right now, unless you need to go to the bathroom. Let me know. Other than that, it's just a waiting game.”

He sighs and leans back against the rock.

I sit cross legged next to him, with the light propped between us and my backpack nearby. “I'm relieved to see that we are completely encased in here because at least we weren’t stuck in a small, dark space with predators on the prowl.”

“This is good,” he agrees, his eyes roving all over the area that is visible in our circle of light. “It has even covered the crates. I can't see them anymore. But at least they weren't made from fragile wood. They were made from stone themselves and will most likely survive this crash.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

He moves his broken arm and examines the bone knitter. “Do not worry female. Erid, the local Sheriff will for a team to find us and dig us out. It'll just take time. They don't know that we're up here. I told Tilden that we were going on this route. So they do know that.”

“They don't know about the cave, though.”

“Erid knows about the cave.”

“But you hadn't brought him here yet, right?”

“No.”

I point at my backpack. “This is why the tracker will be important, helping them to pinpoint our exact location.”

“Thunder and Leeta will also return to the ranch. Tilden will see them and immediately know something is wrong. Our beasts will help to lead them back here.”

“Do you think they are both okay? I’m worried the beasts were hurt during the earthquake.”

“They were in open space and could run from debris. Thunder would protect his mate and lead her to safety.”

I nod in agreement. “I have some water and meal replacement bars. Do you want some?”

“Yes. I would like that.”

We both eat and drink. I keep sneaking glances at his perfect torso which looks amazing above his black belt and silver buckle.

Then I let out a yawn.

“You look tired.” He lifts his good arm. “Come here and keep me warm,” he orders.

I swiftly scoot over. Soon I’m propped up next to Sten on the floor, and I snuggle into him.

And I fall asleep.