Page 60 of Stay With Me

Nobody’s coming.

She still maintained her outward calm. Freaking the heck out wasn’t going to help anything.

In preparation for the total darkness that was going to envelop them, she dug through the bag, almost as a prayer, hoping to come across a flashlight or matches or something else that may have magically materialized since she last checked.

Nope. Still nothing.

Her gaze scanned over their surroundings, trying to memorize everything, on the off chance that she might feel the need to walk around in the dark.

You know, just in case she went totally crazy.

She already felt like she was on the cusp of that anyway.

From left to right: large bush of cacti; the boulder maze about a hundred feet away; the minefield of smaller boulders; some brush along the base of the opposite wall of the canyon; a decent sized hole of sorts in the wall—her mind reeled at what probably lived in there; cacti growing out of the walls; walls that seemingly continued to go on forever; piles of stones here and there; more cacti and brush.

It was all quite beautiful in the twilight of approaching night. The limestone appeared silver and the cacti were bright green, accented by their golden yellow flowers.

What a lovely place to die.

She scoffed at her thoughts as if telling herself to shut up.

She decided she should check Nick’s injuries one last time.

She’d changed the bandages once and now she was out of gauze. He wasn’t bleeding that much anymore.

He won’t last through the night.

She abruptly dropped her ear to his chest.

It was still there.

Thump-thump … Thump-thump … Thump-thump.

“You’re going to be fine, Nick,” she said for the umpteenth time. “Stay with me.”

As she scanned the length of him in her final moments of checking, it occurred to her he might have a lighter on him. Not that he smoked, although, such a bad habit could’ve been useful right then. She decided to check his pockets.

After fishing in one and coming up empty handed, her fingers grazed over something that caused her to gasp.

Water.

His back was soaked, but not from sweat—from his pack.

“That’s how you’re alive right now,” she muttered quietly.

The water pouch had probably acted as a cushion of sorts when he hit the ground but had obviously split open upon impact.

It had saved his life—at that initial moment, at least.

In the longer term, it was more than likely a death sentence to the both of them.

She stuffed the mirror into her pocket and crawled around to sit behind his head, holding one of his hands in her lap.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I can handle this. People do this all the time. I can do it, too.”

The first gust of cold, dry, night desert air blasted through the canyon and hit her back, damp with sweat. A chill ran down her spine.

She squeezed his hand.