CHAPTER 284: CHAPTER 284 HELICOPTER

His right hand was trembling violently. It was still covered by a diving glove.

I remembered asking him once why he always kept it on. He had said it made work easier. It seemed reasonable enough, so I hadn’t questioned it.

But now...

My breath caught as I reached for his gloved hand. He was unconscious, unable to resist, and I peeled the glove away with ease. When it came free, I clapped a hand over my mouth to stop a cry escaping.

His right hand.

The palm was split by a raw, unhealed gash. The whole hand was swollen, red, eaten away by infection. It was barely recognisable as a hand at all. The wound had been there for days, festering until it rotted like this.

My chest ached with worry, but another question gnawed at me. When had he hurt himself? What could have done this?

I forced myself to think back. And then it struck me. That afternoon when we dived in the deep sea. After the tsunami, when we lost our torches, Ashton had used his bare hand to feel our way. That must have been it, torn open on coral.

So the mystery was solved, but the realisation brought a flood of guilt. Days had passed before I noticed, and all the while he had kept it hidden.

I understood why. We had no emergency supplies. Later, when we found the suitcase, there had only been a few plasters, no medicine at all. Rather than burden me, he had chosen silence, enduring the itching and the pain alone.

I knew what coral wounds could do if untreated. The agony would flare day and night, unbearable at times, with the risk of infection spreading through the body. It was sheer luck I had discovered it now, before it worsened.

I looked at his face, flushed with fever yet pale from the toll of infection. The thought of him bearing that hand, then still pitching camp, starting fires, gathering food, fetching water, using that same right hand, made something inside me twist.

My chest tightened with emotions I couldn’t name. I poked his cheek gently and whispered, ‘You really are an idiot.’

Carefully, I rinsed his ruined hand with clean water, disinfected it, then bound it with the few plasters I had.

When it was done, I sat hugging my knees, watching him lying there beneath a patchwork of my clothes.

This couldn’t go on. Even dry clothes weren’t enough. His fever, his wound, none of it could wait. When would rescue come?

I glared out at the downpour, nerves raw. The forest was silent but for the pounding rain on leaves and branches. Not a bird’s cry, not a breath of wind.

Then I heard it. A strange sound cutting through the storm. A deep, mechanical roar, steady and thudding.

Propellers?

I shot to my feet and ran outside.

Rain lashed my face as I burst from the hut. Through the sheets of water I saw a helicopter circling above, its blades chopping the air, the searchlight sweeping over the treetops.

It hovered, dipping lower as if to land, then pulled back again, struggling against the storm. My stomach lurched at the thought it might give up and vanish into the night.

I flung my arms in the air and shouted until my throat burned. My voice was nothing against the roar. The rain blurred everything, and in the dark I stumbled, crashing to the ground. Pain ripped up my leg as a jagged rock split my shin. Blood welled hot and fast, but I hardly noticed. I forced myself up and kept running, slipping, skidding, pushing forward.

Branches whipped at me as I fought through the trees, yelling like a madwoman. The helicopter’s light swept close, then swung away, missing me. They couldn’t see me, not hidden in the forest.

I had to reach the beach.

I ran as hard as my legs would carry me, barefoot now, my shoes lost somewhere behind. The ground was a confused jumble of mud and roots and stone. I fell again and again, palms torn open, knees scraped raw. I didn’t stop.

The helicopter was still there. That was all that mattered.

At last the trees broke and I stumbled onto the beach. The searchlight flared across the sand. I grabbed the nearest fallen bough, hoisted it high and waved it like a flag. My arms shook with the effort, rain blinding me, but I wouldn’t stop.

The light swept across me, straight into my face, so bright I had to screw my eyes shut. I kept waving. My whole body was shaking, my teeth chattering, but I clung to that branch and swung it until my shoulders screamed.

The roar grew louder. The air churned and whipped around me, almost knocking me from my feet.

I staggered, the gale from the rotor blades pressing down, but I knew then. They were coming closer. Not leaving.

The helicopter was touching down.