Allison Brennan - If I Should Die

“Don’t-”

“Exactly. This doesn’t count as our vacation. I should never have let Duke convince me this would be a quick and easy assignment.”

“Well, except for your clumsiness, I’m glad we can help Tim. He’s heartbroken about what’s been happening.” She assessed Sean’s leg with the flashlight. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but she couldn’t be certain it wouldn’t start up again. “I’m going to cut your jeans.”

When her hand brushed against the wood, Sean ground his teeth against the surge of pain.

“Sorry.”

He’d need a tetanus shot, antibiotics as well. She carefully cut away the material. “How did you end up at the bottom of this mine shaft?”

“Just lucky.”

“We found the ATV you were riding by the highway.”

“The kid busted his quad. I chased him, he did a quick turn and I slipped right in here.”

Lucy stopped what she was doing and looked at Sean’s face.

“An intentional trap?”

“I think it was a spontaneous idea on his part.”

“You said he was a kid?”

“No older than seventeen or eighteen. He’s not doing this alone. He was scared of someone. I’m going to find him. I almost had him convinced to trust me-then he bolted. I suspect he planned to circle around back to my quad in the hopes I’d left the keys in and he could get to it before me.”

“You did leave your keys in it.”

He shook his head. “I was stupid. Rookie mistake.”

Lucy gently pulled away the scraps of material. She pulled an emergency combat tourniquet from her first aid kit-the C-A-T used by the military and EMTs were not usually found in an over-the-counter kit, but she’d enhanced her supplies. She wrapped it around Sean’s thigh above the stake and cinched it into place.

“I’m going to pull this straight out, pour water on it, then-”

“Just do it.”

Lucy laid out the rest of her supplies and propped the flashlight on her backpack. This time, she didn’t count. She assessed the angle, then pulled the stake straight out of Sean’s thigh. Nearly an inch of the sharp wood had gone in. She poured water liberally over the wound.

His eyes were closed, his jaw clenched, his face covered in a fresh layer of sweat. The grime and dirt from the mine coated his skin, his dark hair falling forward over one eye. She needed to get him someplace warm, clean, and dry.

She patted the injured area with a thick wad of gauze, then checked the bleeding. The tourniquet was doing its job. She hadn’t thought any major arteries had been hit, considering the location of the stake, but she wouldn’t remove the tourniquet until they got him out of the hole.

She held the gauze there for a long minute. Tim called down. “Lucy? Sean?”

She looked up. The sunlight was brighter. It was eleven in the morning, though it felt as if much longer than four hours had passed since she and Sean first smelled smoke.

“I’m bandaging his leg, then I’ll get him ready to bring up.”

She lifted the gauze. The skin was red and starting to turn purple. She sprayed antiseptic on it and Sean’s body jerked. She bit back another sorry , took a fresh bandage from the kit, and taped it on the wound.

“You’re good for now,” she said.

“A minute,” he said.

She packed up the first aid kit, then sat next to Sean and took his hand. “You’re going to be okay,” she said, more for herself than for him.

He put his arm around her and held her head to his chest.

She squeezed back tears. Why was she about to cry? Sean was fine . It might take him a few days to go running, but he hadn’t broken anything, he hadn’t died .

A tiny sob escaped.

“Luce?”

“It’s nothing.”

“I’m okay. You know that.”

“I know.”

He kissed the top of her head, and that made the tears fall. She didn’t understand why she was so upset. She’d get Sean out of this pit, take him to the cabin, watch him all night to make sure the concussion didn’t cause him more problems, and by tomorrow …

What if he’d died?

There were so many things she wanted to tell him, things she didn’t know how to say. The thought of Sean dying terrified her. She’d lost people in her life, people she cared about. Her cousin. Her ex-boyfriend. Her brother Patrick had been in a coma for nearly two years and though she prayed daily, she never thought he’d wake up. That he’d survived and was now back to his old self was a miracle.

With all her hard-fought strength, her ability to close off her emotions, she found her walls crumbling as she pictured Sean sprawled on the floor of the mine shaft, dead.

To Sean’s credit, he didn’t try to get her to talk about it. Maybe he understood her better than she did-he seemed to get her even when she was confused.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

He looked down into her face. Her breath caught at the emotion twisting his face. “I love you, Lucy.”

Say “ I love you .” Tell him .

She wanted to, but not here. Not now. Her feelings were all jumbled, fear and relief and an aching rawness.

She kissed him instead. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Sore, but functioning. I’m more than ready to get out of here.”

Lucy helped Sean put on the harness while he remained sitting, since he couldn’t put much weight on his bandaged leg. Then she helped him stand. He leaned heavily on her, showing Lucy that he was in more pain than he wanted to admit. “You’re going to have a lot of bruises,” she said.

“I’ll expect you to kiss every one of them. You might have to bathe me, too.”

“The sacrifices I’m going to have to make.” She wondered if she could get a doctor to come out to the lodge.

The scent of decay hit her again. This time, Sean hesitated, too, and looked down the tunnel.

“I smelled it when I first came down,” Lucy said.

“No,” he said, knowing what she was thinking.

“I won’t go far. I promise. Just check it out. If I don’t see anything within a few feet, I’ll turn around.” She clipped on the hook to the harness belt. “I’m not reckless, Sean. It’s most likely an animal. But just in case-” She didn’t say it.

“And if you don’t check it out now, you’ll be back here tomorrow.”

“How do you know me so well?”

Sean kissed her lightly. “I know you better than you know yourself.”

A sudden unease crept up the back of her neck at the truth of Sean’s statement. She called up to Tim. “He’s ready!”

Tim said, “Okay, Sean-I’m starting the winch.”

After an initial jolt off the ground, Sean was lifted slowly to the surface. He used his good leg to keep himself from hitting the wall, his hands holding the rope.

Once he was out of the shaft, Lucy breathed easier. She called up to Tim, “Make sure Sean gets water and blankets. I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

Lucy picked up a stick to mark her way-she wasn’t taking any chances of getting lost. She aimed her flashlight toward the tunnel that led from the ventilation shaft.

She knew very little about mines, but was aware that they could be unstable and extremely dangerous. Because there was no active mining, she suspected her greatest danger would be from unmarked openings or debris left over from the mining days.

Using the stick to scar the wall, which was mostly rock with some wood supports at the base, Lucy left a trail to follow back to the pit.

As soon as she stepped into the tunnel, the unique, putrid scent of decaying flesh increased. She proceeded slowly as the tunnel veered slightly to the right, shining her light on the ground to make sure it was solid before continuing forward. Glancing back once, she could barely see the light at the beginning of the tunnel and noted that she was on a gradual downslope as well as the curve. The roof seemed to be shrinking. Claustrophobia gripped her for a minute. Breathing deeply, she calmed herself.