The Falconer's Sentinel

Chapter 5: It's Worth It

I collapsed outside the tents as soon as we made it into the campsite. Suzi couldn't do much to hold up my weight anymore so I was glad to be down on the ground. My chest heaved up and down and my vision blurred over in spots.

"Here, build a fire." Suzi handed some matches to the man, had he come with us? Why would she bring him?

I laid that thought aside as she came near where I was and knelt beside me. She pulled her hair into a messy ponytail to keep it out of her face. Suzi was beautiful. Even as sweat and blood stained her face and her hands. I had always thought she was. Maybe not in a romantic way but in a platonic, 'my best friend is gorgeous and if you hurt her I'll kill you' kind of way.

"Teddy this is, this is bad." Her hands fumbled around for something, anything.

"Hey," I grabbed her delicate fingers, so ironically covered in my blood. "I'm fine."

She chuckled and shook her head. "You don't look fine."

"Then stop looking."

That almost got her to smile but instead my breath decided to play games with me. It hitched and it felt like my heart skipped a beat. I tried not to panic but it rose up anyways. I began shaking and Suzi immediately began to calm me down.

"Shhh, shh, just breathe, you're okay." Her voice was soft and comforting and soon my breathing went back to sort of normal.

"Ahhh!" I clenched my teeth. "Warn me next time." She had poured a saline solution, salt water over the wound and it stung.

"Sorry." She peeled the fabric of my shirt away from the wound, but it was soaked in blood. "Where's your knife? The larger one."

"Backpack, frontmost pocket."

I watched as she got the knife from the bag and cut my shirt away, leaving the wound exposed so she could better treat it.

"Teddy that's bad... you're losing a lot of blood."

I grimaced a smile. "Yeah, I know."

"Come on big guy," she patted my gently on the shoulder. "Let's get you on your side."

I groaned and caught my breath as she struggled to roll me over but managed to do so in the end. The rocks and dirt of the campsite cut into my skin and a cold breeze chilled my side where the wound was now fully exposed.

"Here, bite down on this." She handed me a stick and then leaned down and whispered into my ear. "Sorry."

"Why do I need to bite down on---"

*     *     *     *     *

If it's possible for a six and a half feet tall, two hundred pound grown man to scream like a little five year old child then I think in that moment I did.

I now had my back up against the tree trunk, sipping from a bottle of alcohol. My body naturally rejected most painkillers so it took a lot to get anything to work. The alcohol was only to numb everything. I guess it all put me in a state of half-sleep semi-conscious, dizzy and grogginess.

"Don't look at me like that," Suzi stated, she turned her back to me and tended to the fire.

"Cauterization, really? Was it that necessary?"

"If I had told you, you wouldn't have let me done it. And it was bleeding too much for stitches, and besides, I have more faith in my ability to cauterize wounds then to stitch them up."

I sighed. "True. But I would have been okay, really."

"No, Teddy, you wouldn't have been." She kneeled right next to where I was and her cerulean eyes stared into mine. "You may be strong, Teddy, but you are not invincible."

I sighed as she walked away and leaned my head back against the tree. "It was worth it."

"But at what cost?" She picked up my jacket from where I had collapsed earlier. "Teddy, you've saved others countless times. It's time you let someone save you." She gripped my arm and placed the jacket around my shoulders, then turned around and tossed another log onto the fire.

She was right. But that's what happens when you become responsible for other's lives. When you place theirs above your own.

Sometimes you'll get hurt.