Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
“Kellen,” Aggie shouts. “Kellen, there is a shark!”
Kellen doesn’t stop.
He reaches Adrian just as he sinks below the surface. Ace is already running down the beach, knife in hand, diving in after him. We all watch, our feet stuck to the ground as they try and drag Adrian back to the shore. He has stopped screaming, and his body has gone limp. There is so much blood the water is just a red river that follows them all the way back.
When they drag Adrian onto the shore, they are covered in his blood, dripping with water, their faces pale as they lay him down, and stare.
It is the worst thing I have ever seen.
By the time I reach them, I can already tell how bad it is.
His leg is hanging. Not just cut, but fucking hanging. There are jagged, teeth-shaped punctures all up the calf, and then right at his knee, it is just exposed flesh and bone. Vomit rises in my throat as blood pools on the sand, and Adrian is completely passed out.
Nobody moves, it’s as if we’re all frozen in shock.
I can’t take my eyes off the horror scene before me.
Aggie screams, breaking the silence and Tatiana covers her face and starts hyperventilating. Rachel hits the deck, Kellen catching her just in time. He drops to the ground with her, slapping her cheeks, telling her to snap out of it. Zeke is just staring at Adrian, his face pale in a way I have never seen it.
Ace is the first to act, and he drops to his knees next to Adrian and immediately yanks off his shirt, tying it around Adrian’s upper leg as tightly as he can. Adrian is pale, lips blue, and he’s not making any sound. I don’t even know if he’s breathing, so I drop down beside him and feel for a pulse. He has one, so I tell them we need to start CPR to get him breathing again.
Ace takes over, beginning CPR until Adrian gasps for air, and then begins shaking, a whole body tremble that causes blood to trickle out of his mouth, no doubt from biting his tongue.
“What do we do?” I cry, still on my knees beside him. “What the fuck do we do?”
Kellen is beside me now, after getting Rachel secure. “His... his fuckin’ leg is barely hanging on. He’s goin’ to bleed to death if we don’t do something right fuckin’ now.”
Ace makes a split-second decision. “Get the medical kit. All the tourniquets, tape, bandages and anything else you can carry. Run.”
I sprint, leaping over the rocks, slicing my ankle open on one but barely feeling it. I gather up the first aid kits, and anything else I can carry in my arms. By the time I make it back, they’ve got Adrian flat on the sand and Zeke is holding his head, talking to him in the soft, persuasive tones I’ve never heard from the man before.
“We... we can’t leave his leg like that,” I whisper, watching Ace tie another shirt around the top of Adrian’s leg.
“It needs to go,” Kellen says, his voice so low I’m sure I haven’t heard him correctly. “It’s the only way he even has a chance.”
“What?” I gasp, shaking my head in horror.
Ace and Kellen stare at each other, for so long, as if they’re having a silent conversation.
“You know I’m right,” Kellen goes on, his voice low and heavy. “Then we have to seal it, or he’ll bleed out.”
Seal it? What the fuck are they talking about?
Ace nods. “I need a sterilised knife, the sharpest you can find, and then bandages, a fuckin’ lot of them, or anything that can be used. We gotta clean this, as best we can, so we’re goin’ to need a lot of alcohol to knock him out. Then, we’re goin’ to need something really fuckin’ hot.”
Aggie vomits, just leans over and vomits.
“You girls need to go,” Kellen orders. “You don’t want to see this.”
He doesn’t have to tell them twice, the three of them disappear but I don’t move. “I’m not leaving.”
“Go find the alcohol, and put something flat in the fire, something we can hold.”
I do as he asks.
I rush back to camp, gathering a bottle of vodka and then laying a metal fire stoker in the coals. We found it on the boat, and the guys use it to shove the coals around, to keep the fire burning. It has a pointed end, but it is the only thing they can hold on one end and heat up the other. I don’t have time to search for anything else. I run back down with the blankets from my bed, and the vodka in my hand.
“Here,” I thrust it at Ace.
Zeke is still sitting behind Adrian, holding his head as he drifts in and out of consciousness.