Heartbeats Amidst Chaos, Part 3

8. Chapter 8

Chapter eight

R issa clung to Elio’s hand as he stumbled yet again and fell to his knees on the rubble of sticks and leaf debris, almost pulling her down on top of him. Her heart was thundering in her ears, and her side cramped from having run so far.

Straightening up, she looked behind them, struggling to quiet her breathing so she could hear if they were being followed. She was shaking all over with adrenaline. It was only thanks to that adrenaline, she knew, that she had been able to wiggle out from under Elio and toss the wreckage of the fallen wall off him. Her relief when he climbed to his feet had been short-lived, however. She had been practically hauling him through the woods after her, and he hadn’t said a word since the wall had fallen.

There was no way he wasn’t injured. But was it safe yet to stop and attend to him?

Rissa felt tears springing to her eyes as she relived the way he had immediately pushed her out of harm’s way and thrown himself over her to shield her from the tumbling bricks. If she had been looking for proof of his true character and care for her, she undoubtedly now had it.

She was suddenly ashamed of the way she had been thinking since fleeing the resort. Of course, he had been withdrawn and distant in the car. He had to have been in as much shock as she was over being attacked.

Rissa finally managed to hold her breath long enough to listen for any sounds of pursuit in the trees around them. All she heard was Elio’s labored breathing and the trill of tree frogs.

“Elio?” She dropped to her knees next to him, reaching for his hand again. But to her surprise, Elio pulled away from her grasp.

“Where are we going?” he muttered. “Why is it so dark?” He sounded dazed. Rissa’s fear for him intensified as her concern about someone following them decreased.

“Because I don’t have a—wait, don’t you still have a cell phone?”

When Elio didn’t answer, Rissa scooted closer to him and fumbled in his pockets for the cell phone she had seen him stuffing away as he came across the parking lot. Elio did not protest as her fingers closed around it and she pulled it from her pocket.

With shaking hands, she found the flashlight tab and turned it on, shining the bright, flat beam over Elio. He leaned against a small sapling, one leg bent upward while the other sprawled in front of him, squinting in the light. Rissa ran a hand over his chest, arms, and legs, seeing no obvious injuries and getting no flinch response. Her hand slipped around the back of his neck and came away warm and sticky with blood.

Gasping, Rissa scrambled around to his side, tipping his head forward to see the blood pouring from a gash only centimeters from where she had taken out his stitches that morning.

“No, no, no, no. . .” She heard herself muttering as she set the flashlight on the forest floor and scrabbled at the buttons of Elio’s shirt. She couldn’t take any of her own clothes off without being indecent, though she knew she would if it came to it.

Elio was compliant, slipping his arms out of the sleeves of his dress shirt as she tugged it off him, but he looked at her strangely, obviously confused about why she was undressing him in the middle of dark woods.

“I’ve got to stop the bleeding,” she explained, grateful for the cool of her medical training and how it was keeping her from breaking down and sobbing right there in the woods. “I need material to do it.” He was wearing a light, cotton undershirt underneath the dress shirt, which Rissa was grateful for. It was a warm night, but if he was in shock from the injury, there was danger of him getting chilled.

Pressing the edges of the head wound together with her fingertips, Rissa wadded up the shirt and held it tightly against the gash, putting her other hand on the opposite side of Elio’s head to hold him in place and keep the pressure steady.

“Do you feel pain anywhere besides your head?” she asked. “Can you move all your fingers and toes?” From her position kneeling slightly above and to the side of him, keeping his head still, she could see Elio blinking in the dull gleam of the cell phone flashlight as he concentrated on each of his limbs one at a time.

As an afterthought, she did a mental check on herself. It was possible that she had also been hurt and the adrenaline hadn’t allowed her to notice yet. But aside from the light ache and burn of a few scratches and bruises, she seemed to have escaped unscathed.

After a moment, Elio said slowly, “I kind of hurt. . .all over. But I don’t think I’m hurt. . . bad . . . anywhere else.”

Rissa’s heart lurched at his slightly slurred speech pattern.

Another concussion? That’s all he needs.

Grabbing his left hand, she lifted it to the wadded shirt and pressed it into place.

“Here, hold this.”

Once again, he complied, wincing slightly at the pressure of his own hand. Picking up the cell phone, Rissa held it to first one of his eyes and then the other, checking their dilation and ability to track movement. Elio squinted again. His tracking was slow.

“Can you see me all right?” Rissa asked, turning the light toward herself. “Double vision or blurriness at all?”

“Yes,” Elio said vaguely after a slight pause. Then he added with a low whistle, “But you are fucking gorgeous. Both of you.”

Despite her worry, Rissa felt her face flush and a brief laugh burst from her lips.

“Okay, you definitely have another concussion,” she sighed.

“Another?” Elio asked, sounding muddled. “Hey, are you a doctor or something? You don’t look like any doctor I’ve ever seen. And I don’t think I’ve ever had an appointment in the dark before.”

Rissa laughed again, thinking he was still trying to joke around. But as she turned the light to sit between them, lighting both of their faces, she saw his brow lower quizzically, and he followed up with, “Wait a minute—do I know you from somewhere?”

Time seemed to freeze. Rissa stared at him, waiting for the puzzled expression to falter and Elio to give up on the comedy routine. But instead, he only looked slightly uncomfortable with her scrutiny, shifting his position against the tree. Rissa reached out automatically, placing her hand over his to keep the shirt in place over his head wound.

Her stomach dropped as she finally let herself consider the unthinkable. It was rare but not impossible.

Amnesia. Really?

“Elio,” she said, her voice soft. “You really don’t know me?”

Elio’s eyes scanned her face, struggling to focus. A frown wrinkled his forehead, and then he asked, “Should I?”