After she’d landed at the bottom of the hill, Raven had lain on the forest floor, staring at the tops of the pine trees and the blue that peeked through, trying to gauge how fucked she was. Adrenaline had still been coursing through her, making it difficult to discern anything past her own breathing and the relentless pound of her heart.
But when she’d settled, she noted there was no pain and she couldn’t smell the metallic bite of blood. The pain, however, roared when she’d tried to stand. Her left ankle couldn’t handle any weight; climbing the hill she’d fallen down was out of the question. So she’d crawled to the boulder she sat against now—dragging her injured limb behind her and forgiving the dirt for settling painfully underneath her nails.
A few times along the way, she collapsed to the ground to catch her breath and wipe the sweat stinging her eyes. But she’d finally got there. And now she had some security. Something to cower behind if a wild animal—
“I am grateful that I didn’t smash my head on the way down. I’m grateful forLove Island. And I’m grateful that I have this first aid kit,” she said before swallowing hard to relieve her dry mouth without touching her waning water supply.
As much as she was trying to remain positive, Raven was also trying to prepare for a scenario that would see her spending the night in the woods. She doubted she could fall asleep; her ears were too concerned with the noises emanating from the forest to really relax.
She skimmed her hands over the supplies she’d neatly displayed next to her. Taking inventory was soothing. Twelve ounces of water, flint, a smartphone with thirty percent battery life, and a first aid kit with immediately relevant items like a space blanket and a pocketknife.
The Mountaintop staff had to have noticed she was missing by now. It was close to an hour since she gotten lost. They’d have gathered outside in the parking area to bid each other a good evening before leaving, and Silas would have noticed her absence. He was observant. And they’d planned to talk after work today.
He was most likely already out here. She could picture his furrowed brow and resolute lip as he whacked the bushes in search of her. Her heart danced at the idea. How foolish to conjure a fairy tale at a time like this, she thought.
An hour and a half into being lost, Raven caught an odd sound off in the distance and froze. A voice or a tree creaking? She closed her eyes and held her breath to focus.
Nothing.
Oh, she was losing it, and the sun hadn’t even set.
Two hours in, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to periodically call out into the thicket, “Help!” The response each time was the hum of nature.
Exhaustion soon started pressing her body.
“Don’t fall asleep,” she said to herself as her eyelids grew heavy, but she found herself, some time later, jerking awake. “Fuck.”
The sun was dipping low, casting creeping shadows on the ground.
She could not doze off and risk missing help passing by. But her placement made it easy to fall asleep, so Raven gathered all the strength she could muster, and with the aid of the giant rock at her back, she hoisted herself to stand.
Her injured ankle throbbed like a second heartbeat to the point where only a few minutes later she regretted making the move.
“To sit or not to sit, that is the question,” she said, immediately laughing at her unfunny joke. But she cut herself short when a sudden sound reached her ears.
It was different from everything she’d been hearing. It was human.
“Help!” she screamed. “Over here, I’m over here!”
Her scratchy throat cracked on the words, which wouldn’t carry past the wall of trees in front of her. Raven dropped to the ground, ignoring the pain shooting up her leg, and rummaged through the first aid kit for the whistle she’d seen. With shaky hands, she pressed the whistle to her lips and blew like nothing else in the world mattered.
She blew even when her head started pounding and even when she began feeling woozy. She blew until she saw Silas, determined and strong, appear over the embankment she’d rolled down.
ChapterTwenty-One
The first timeSilas ever felt real fear was the day he lost control of his ATV and went careening forward. The air had been knocked out of him, and a searing pain in his shoulder almost made him pass out.
The second time Silas felt real fear was when he saw Raven at the bottom of the hill, collapsing to the ground along with her whistle.
They should’ve found her sooner.
He bounded down the hill, Doc right behind him. When Silas reached her and found her eyes wet and chin trembling, he felt like he’d been split open. He tried to wipe her tears with the pads of his fingers, but they were too shaky to be effective.
“I’m so happy to see you guys. I wasn’t ready to become a Tarzan rip-off,” she said, laughing.
Her voice was hoarse, but hearing her laugh smoothed out the fear enough to where he could ask, “You okay? You in pain? Where does it hurt?”
“My ankle,” she said. “I think I broke or sprained it while falling down that hill.”
