I’d never swam with such desperation before, such frenzied movements. All I could think about was reaching the surface and getting a huge gulp of air.
‘Kit!’ Dawn’s voice blazed through my mind. Her meds must have worn off; she was probably in tune again with her hive mind and was seeing what Clyde was seeing.
Bursting through the top of the water like a starved maniac, I inhaled mouthfuls of precious oxygen. Paddling like crazy, I reached the edge and was surprised when the old man I’d given the gun to hauled me up by the armpits with shocking strength. I thought he’d have left by now. Dragging me backward a good twenty feet, he finally dropped me onto the ground.
“Jesus, kid, I thought you were a goner.” He faced me, green stuff all over his hands and arms, the gun hanging from his neck. His eyes were wide, mouth slack.
I couldn’t stop breathing heavily like my lungs wanted to be sure we would in fact still be able to get air.
“Me too,” was all I said. “Thanks,” I added, because even though the bastard jacked me of my gun, he’d stayed, and that said something.
“You gonna be alright?” He eyed my bleeding ankle and upper arms. The damn skid had left a good amount of puncture wounds, but nothing was gushing; it all seemed superficial. Ronnie would be able to fix me up, and I think a smidge of the morphine was still in my system, because I wasn’t in a crazy amount of pain.
“I’ll be okay. Thanks.”
They bade me farewell and I got to my feet, walked briskly over to the lake and dunked the tub inside before heaving it up on shaky legs and running backward to avoid any more skid issues.
I’d forgotten about Dawn and that I hadn’t replied to her, but by the calm way Clyde was watching me, I assumed he was in contact with her.
“Let’s go to Skyhome,” I told him, still using my hand to plug the hole in the tub. The liquid was heavy and my arms were bleeding, so getting on Clyde while the sloshing water threatened to spill over was difficult, but I managed.
As soon as we were airborne, I laid the heavy tub across Clyde’s back, taking the weight off my bleeding arms a bit.
‘Is this weight okay?’ I asked him, and prayed he said yes.
‘Won’t fly as fast, but is okay.’
I sagged in relief and decided I needed to check my wounds. Bleeding, even slowly, over the course of a one-hour flight wasn’t going to end well.
Keeping my hand on the hole to plug it, I started to probe my wounds with my free hand. The ones on my upper arms were okay; they didn’t go deep enough to worry me about blood loss, but my ankle was slowly dripping, leaving a trickle of blood throughout the Dream War.
With a sigh, I heaved my ankle up to inspect it and almost toppled backward.
‘Careful. Clyde not used to carrying humans.’
‘Sorry.’
Whoops.
Slowly, I leaned forward, keeping my balance on the flying Galadria, and lifted my pant leg.
Shit.
A main vein or artery in my leg might have been cut pretty good; I would need Ronnie to tell me for sure.
This was the part where I needed to pray that my mini wound stapler was still in my cargo pocket. I hadn’t felt it when I’d been searching for my knife at the bottom of the lake, but I’d also been in a fight for my life.
Gingerly reaching over with my one free hand, I dug deeply into my pocket and nearly wept in relief when I clamped my fingers around the stapler.
Stapling your own skin shut with no meds while flying through the air on a giant beast… not ideal. But I needed to do this or risk passing out and falling on my neck.
‘Clyde, I have to fix my leg and I might scream in pain, but don’t worry, okay?’
I felt a bristle of energy from him, and it also felt like Dawn too, which was weird.
‘Okay.’
Taking a deep breath, I lined the staple gun up to the most severe gash. The skin was torn quite a bit, and trying to staple it with one hand was going to be hard. But I wasn’t about to let go of this tub and make all of this for nothing. Dawn was getting her damn dinner!
The gun was poised over the leaking cut and I just froze. It was so weird to inflict pain on yourself.
1, 2 ,3, go, baby. Come on.
Without trying to overthink it, I smashed down on the handle that pushed out the staple.
“Holy mother!” A scream ripped from my throat as pain sliced through my ankle. Before I could lose my nerve, I did two more staples in rapid succession and then lay back on Clyde, breathing through the pain. My good leg was holding the left side of the tub, my right hand plugging the right side, and I was staring at the sky wondering how the hell this had become my life.
I didn’t want to do this anymore. I was a professional fighter. Day in and day out I just survived. I felt ninety years
