The Fifth

Delphi

The tree -and Willow- should give me enough time. I rip through my pack. Think, think.
My fingers find the knife.
There's so much blood. I can barely think. The wolf aims another bite.
This is so dangerous. If I get too close, I'm gone too, and she has no hope. If I aim wrong, I kill her myself. But if I don't take the chance she will be dead, anyway. It's a chance is needed to be taken. I take a breath, and I throw the knife.
It makes a sickening thump as it embeds right above the wolf's front leg. It whines piteously.
It's eyes lock on mine. It has a new target now. Well, I missed, but it'll give Willow some time. And maybe I can come up with something.
I run, and it follows.
As I pass my previous hiding place, I grab my backpack. Throwing its currently useless contents on the ground as I run, I finally find what I was looking for.
I clutch the pan in my hand. The wolf so sick, if I can knock it out, it probably won't wake up.
I have to wait for the right moment. I scramble up the first boulder I find, and turn around.
I throw the pan as it leaps at me. It meets it's mark this time. It clangs against the wolf's head. It immediately crashes to the ground. I freeze for a moment, then I realize I have to make sure it won't wake.
But I don't want to do this. It's cruel. But what if it isn't really dead?
I realize that the wolf does have a fading but slight pulse. I remember my sister. I can't take chances. I pull the knife out of the poor thing's leg and finish it off. It only barely consoles me that it was probably a mercy killing, and that I likely gave it a relatively quick and painless death compared to what was coming. But...
What have I done? What have I done? That was a living creature! This was different than regular hunting. I stabbed it.
But is it? How different is it, really? I have taken away a life before. I've clouded eyes before.
Then why is this different?
Am I a killer?
I remember Willow with an unpleasant jolt and run to her, after taking back the knife.
She lies crumpled on the ground. My heart clenches at the sight. I kneel and check her pulse. It's slow and uneven, but it's there. She's loosing too much blood. I tear off strips of my shirt, and try to bandage it the best I can. Her blood soaks them immediately. Most of the gashes aren't too deep, thankfully, but there are three that look very scary, indeed.
I have to get her out of here. I don't know how I'll carry her, but I have to try. I want to set up camp on the forest floor tonight, but that may be dangerous. For one, that wolf got rabies from somewhere. It may be spreading. Besides, wolves work in packs. Which also makes it likely there's more out there. And I wouldn't be able to fight off another animal. Also, I find it more likely for dangerous exposure to her wounds on the ground.
The nearest easy-to-climb tree is thankfully about thirty feet away, and I try to half-carry, half-drag Willow to it. It takes a while, though. I'm trying not to let Willow drag too much, so soon my legs feel like sandbags, I'm sweating, and I'm covered in her blood.
She vomits at one point from the pain and my way of carrying her.
It takes even longer to get her up the tree. But I have to. I run back and grab the coil of rope I threw out of my bag when I was being chased.
I tie her in and hoist her up. It's slow.
Somehow I get her up.
I tie her on to the third branch up: it is right below a fork. While she's tied in, I set up the hammock.
Then I pull her up again with my questionable pulley system and soon she is safe, above the ground, and in the hammock. We aren't very high up: maybe fifteen or twenty feet. But it's a good setup. And nothing should be able to reach us.
I take this time to start first aid. I remember my teachers at school teaching me that you always abort any further danger before helping on the injured. This soothes me only a little. I really hope I made a good decision and didn't waste too much time trying to get her up here. I suddenly don't want to even look at her, remembering the blood and slow pulse. I've never had the strongest stomach.
Grit your teeth and get in there. She needs your help. She may die.
So I do.
Her face is deathly pale. I check her pulse again. It's even slower.
I rewrap her wounds with strips of my fleece that I have ripped off roughly.
Why are no helicopters coming to save her? She'll be dead soon... No. Don't think of that.
I try to steer my thoughts away from what I can see coming.
I've never been a medic. Neither of us were, but Willow was- is better at it than I am. I ignore the horrible pangs of hunger.
I sit there for hours. Rewrapping her bandages. Checking her pulse. It's too slow, but it's steady.
I barely sleep at all.

The next morning, her eyes finally open. She's burning up with fever, and her eyes are glazed over. She doesn't say a word.
"How do you feel?" What a stupid question.
She looks at me for a moment.
I hear something below us.
"I'll be back."
I grab the knife and climb onto a lower branch, watching.
Then I hear a voice.
"Are you positive you heard them here?"
It's Ash. I drop down from my branch, momentarily startling her. Her brown eyes widen.
"Delphi! I have your backpack and the other stuff in it. I assume it's yours? We followed it here and then Azalea said she heard your voice."
I hug her. She only takes a moment to read my face.
"What's wrong? Where's Willow?"
I tell her the story quickly.
Then I notice who's behind her.
Azalea. She must be Ash's partner.
She's not the person I want to see right now. She acknowledges me with a nod.
I climb up the tree, gesturing for Ash to follow.
Willow's eyes follow me, then dart to Ash.
"Willow! I'm so sorry. I -"
She falters, her eyes traveling over Willow.
Azalea comes up behind us. Her eyes sweep over Willow, analyzing.
When I go to rewrap her bandages again, the bites look infected. Her skin has a purple tinge around the wound. I try to stay positive. I don't say anything to Willow. I can tell she saw it in my eyes though. I check her pulse again and then climb down the tree. Ash follows.
"I don't know what to do." I say.
"I bandaged her up and it looks infected and I- "
Ash's eyes look wet. She's trying to hold back tears.
"Well, I guess we wait for the helicopters and hope she gets lucky-" Ash says.
"If you keep your mouth shut I could save her," Azalea interrupts.
We all look at her for a moment in shock.
"How?!" Ash, never at a loss for words, is the first one to recover from the shock.
"My dad is a doctor. I know what to do. I am not exactly an out-doors person, so I kind of overpacked. I hid a plastic injection needle. Not very top-of-line, but it works. I hollowed out my thickest hairpin with a burning hot rod only a millimeter wide that I stole from my dad. I stuffed the tube in my shoe. I put a rabies vaccine that I also stole from my dad's office in a plastic bag and put that in my shoe, too. I have extra water purification pills tucked into my hair elastic in my ponytail, too. And other stuff." She says it all in a whisper. There are cameras and bugs. And what she did was not only illegal but could it get her disqualified.
"Azalea, you are my new best friend. You really can break the rules." Ash says in awe.
"You've earned my total respect." I say. I've never had my opinion of someone change so fast. Ash and I are very similar in some ways. Then again, we are cousins. "Can you help her? We'll try to keep...other stuff...away from you." I say uncertainly.
"That would be nice," she says sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Same old Azalea.
So Ash and I huddle around her while she works. Willow is already unconscious again, so it's the time to do it.
I know the government will know we did something. But it's all worth it is as can save her life. And if they are totally covered, there is no evidence of us breaking the rules. Besides, no one came to save my sister. No one. So if we get questioned for this, quite frankly, whoever asks can go to Hell.
Azalea works quickly and efficiently. Then, she stops.
"What's wrong?" Ash asks.
"I'll need to give her stitches along this cut," -she gestures along a particularly deep gash- "And I didn't pack those."
I think quickly.
"I have really long earring backs. I could pull off the stud. And I can unravel some of the thread from my fleece. We would have to tie it tight and you'd have to have nimble fingers-"
"Oh please. Hand it over."
So I do. She tightens her ponytail and begins to operate.
And then Willow wakes up.