Undone by a Broken Angel

28.) Adrenaline

"He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

-Psalm 23

Abigail:

I look above me and see a blade coming down onto my belly.  Through quick reflex, I lift my leg and stop it with my boot and twist the sword out of its hands and somehow spin it at the other blades aimed at me,  blocking them for a split second.  I pick out my short knife from my boot and throw it, hearing it dig into one’s face.  I don't have time to watch it die.  I finally am able to pull the sword out of my hand.  I grab my sword again and continue fighting, but the blood on my hands makes my grip lose and I'm unable to make a decent block.

I can hear Abraham finally kill his own opponent and come over next to me.  "How bad are you hurt?" he asks.

That's not important right now with two more reapers left who are not frightened by the fact that their companions are now dead.  "Doesn't look as bad as it is," I reply truthfully.

He lunges in front of me, aiming his dual swords at the two remaining enemies.  I follow suit, only blocking when needed to give him necessary advantage.

"You're pretty strong, Princess," one of them says.

"Very good pain resistance," the other one agrees.

"Stop complimenting me," I mock, "you're making me blush." Abe laughs and his blade finally catches one of their arms, taking a good chunk of flesh.

My hands are throbbing, and bleeding heavily, especially my left hand where it was stabbed all the way through.  I can't use it since my fingers won't move.  My hilt keeps sliding around in my grip and I can't do much anymore than dodge.

"Step back, Abby!" he yells at me.  "I can handle these two."

But can he?  I do as he asks just because the pain in my hands are too great.  I wipe away tears so I can see the battle clearly.  Abe seems to be handling them well.  He's been wielding swords in combat far longer than I have.  He looks amazing, his broad shoulders bulging whenever he swings his swords.  His blades are no longer shiny silver, now they're tainted with gooey black reiper blood.  His hair sways with his movements and sweat flies off his forehead.

I fall to my hands and knees in pain, seeing black dots cross my vision.  No matter how many times I blink, they won’t go away.  I know it's from the pain, so I take a deep breath and try to think about something else.  Then I'm fully aware of the evil shadow around me and end up vomiting onto the ground.

Abraham looks at me with panicked eyes. "Hang on, Abby!"

"Don't rush," I yell, "you can never rush!" The words of my father suddenly spill out of me. He had yelled this at me several times when he came in to kill me at night. Now that I think about it, why was he giving me advice? Why would he do that if he was trying to kill me? To give me a fair advantage just because he was bored?

I hear Abe grunt and see him fall back a few steps, but he keeps his composure and swings his blade- missing his mark. He swears under his breath. Now I can see blood trickle down past his ear. He wobbles and I know that his injury is worse than mine. He suffered a blow to the head. I get up and run to them, the reapers not processing that I'm swinging up my blade. They are so worried about Jack, that they don't see me or feel my blade digging into their abdomens. Jack takes the advantage and finishes them off. They fall dead on the ground- their smirks falling into fearsome grimaces.

"You alright?" I ask. "You look worse than I do."

He shakes his head. "I need to look at your hands first." He's panting, and I can see that he doesn't have any energy left to help me, or the pain resistance either.

"I can handle my hands. It's your head I'm worried about," I reply. "Now let me see." But the black dots still won't go away, and I can feel my body losing steam.

"You don't know how to heal yet."

"I know good old fashion first aid, Abraham. You probably have a concussion. You need to lie down."

"Let me see your hands,” he snaps, his posture taking on anger again.

I can't move my fingers at all in the hand that has a gaping hole in it. My tendons have probably been severed. My right hand hurts, but I can still use it. I hand him my bad hand. He scowls at it and turns it over in his hands, my blood spilling out into his palm.

"Try not to move. All I can do right now is stop the bleeding. This might sting." I feel heat flow from his hands and enter my open wound. It does sting a lot, in fact, but I ignore it. I can't let him worry anymore. The heat stops and he falls onto the ground unconscious.

I have to do something.  I need to get us out of here.  I can't take the smell of blood and battle anymore.  The sooner I get away, the better.  I try and pick Abe up, but I'm not strong enough, nor will my hands let me.  I look around me in desperation and come up with a good idea that I hope will work.  I spot several long sticks that will work well, so I gather them up, ignoring the pain in my hands.  The black dots cut across my vision each time I grasp something.  Once I have everything gathered, I fish the tent ropes out of Abe’s bag, coating everything in blood, and tie the sticks together with them, fumbling with my fingers that refuse to move.  Soon, I have a trustworthy travois.  I roll Abe on it and pick up the side where his head is positioned and drag him away from the clearing.

I know we were traveling southeast, so I head in that direction.  I know they will follow our scent, but there is nothing I can do.  There is no water, and no way for me to fly off with him.  And Abe won’t wake up.  He doesn’t even stir even if I try to wake him.  I walk dragging him behind me, the wood digging painfully into the deep cuts on my hands.  I walk as fast as I can to get away and only stop when I need to rest, which isn't very often.  I listen to the songs of the birds and the beats of the scurrying animals to ease my pain- there's nothing like the medicine of the sounds of nature to take my mind off the throbbing in my hands.

As the sun starts to sink down the horizon, I search for a place to camp.  I know that there's no way I'll be able to set up the tent with the condition of my hands, so I find a small cave.  With us being in such a dense forest, it was hard to see the mountains that soar far up in the sky, making me feel small and insignificant, but I’m thankful for the shelter they offer with the cave.  I lay Abe down on the cave floor and then get our beds ready.  I tuck him in his blankets and then start a small fire.

         I attend to him.  The cut on his head isn’t as bad as I expected it to be.  He was hit with the flat side of the sword, leaving a long rectangular bruise.  Two parallel shallow cuts dribble blood down the side of his face that have long since dried.  I know that most of the damage is inside his head.  From his unconsciousness, he has a concussion.  I don’t know if he’ll wake up; his brain could be mush right now, but from the force of the impact, I highly doubt it.

I pray for a very long time for him, falling to my knees, my body recognizing that this is a state of emergency. However, no matter how silly it feels to be talking to a God I can’t see, I know it’s the right thing to do.  All I can do is attend to his symptoms, the rest is up to Him and to Abe.  The fear I feel is foreign to me because I’m for the first time not scared for myself, but for Abe.  I come to a realization that I cannot let him die.  I will not let him die.  If he dies, what will life be like?  The fact that I can’t picture it means that I cannot be without it.

He's too important to me now. 

I clean his face with a piece of my torn dress by soaking it in clean, cold water from our pack.  The dried blood is difficult to get off, but not impossible.  His eyelids flutter when I squeeze water over his wound.  I do it again, hoping he’ll wake up this time.  ”Abraham, do you hear me?  It’s Abby.  Everything is okay now.  Abe?”

His eyes don’t open.  “Abby, I’m so tired,” he moans.

He’s talking!  I’m so relieved that I let out a joyous giggle, but then my stomach suddenly sinks as I realize.  He wants to sleep?  He’s been out cold all day and he slept even longer the day and night before.  Why is he so sleepy?  “No, you need to get up now so I can see if you’re alright.”

         “I’m fine,” he says.

         “Then open your eyes and tell me that again.”

         His brown eyes open and they focus for a long time before he recognizes my face.  “Oh… my head.”  He reaches for his head wound.

         I grab his wrist and stop him.  “It’ll pass.”

         He smiles and then scowls.  “Where are we?”

         “A cave.  I strapped you to that,” I point to the travois, “and dragged you here.  It’s dark out now.”

         “You did that?  You walked all day?”

         “I needed to get away from there.  I needed to keep you safe.”

         He nods and tries to sit up.  I help him.  “That was a close call, wasn’t it?”

         Sleep settles into my lungs, and I suddenly find it very hard to keep my eyes open, the damn holding back my state of emergency rupturing, and the adrenaline drains from my limb, leaving me exhausted.  “How did you gain control of yourself?”  I ask, recalling the fight once again, forcing myself to stay upright.  He forgot me, he forgot the other reapers and left me alone to fend for myself.  I did well considering, but still, with Abe’s help, the fight would have been over before it even began.

         He lays me down in his lap and plays with my ratted hair.  “Your gasp of pain snapped me out of it.  Is that when you were stabbed?”

         I can hardly hear what he said and what I reply.  I’m happy he’s awake.  My prayers have been answered, and now I feel my body and mind relaxing.  My hands start to throb again.  Why?  They didn’t hurt moments ago.  Abe is looking at me with glittering brown eyes.  He says something again, but I can’t hear it or anything else.  The fire in the cave has grown silent.  My eyes drop and close.  I can’t fight it any longer.  

---

Abraham:

         Her hands are bad.  She was so worried about him, that she neglected herself, but in his state, he can’t help her.  His brain is stiff, so he conducts regular first aid.  He rings out the rag she had used on him- making sure there is no trace of him left- and cleans off her hands.  It’s amazing that she was able to use them so well up until now.  He doesn’t have anything to stitch her up with, so he just wraps a cloth around it and ties it tightly.

         He prepositions her in a more comfortable position, but she still looks agitated.  “Don’t go,” she moans in her sleep.

         He knows why she’s worried.  A head injury like his is very hard to treat, especially if he can’t bend his spirit.  He only knows one way to comfort her.  He wraps his arms around her waist and sings her mother’s song.  She sighs, and they both grow content.

If he can’t get her to David soon, she may never be able to use her hands again.    Then there’s the question of his condition.  Can he even help her when they arrive?