Page 27 of Victoria's Discovery

Victoria was very, very worried he'd suffered some kind of life-threatening head trauma, and there wouldn’t be anything she could do to help him. The only thing she’d learned in the first aid class she took was not to move people with head injuries, nothing about how to make them not fucking die.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

Using the sleeve of her dress, she gently wiped the blood off his eyelid and part of his cheek then started to move his head to a less awkward angle before she froze at the last second and jerked her hands back.

“Fuck. Don’t move their heads. I know that. Shit.”

Biting her lip to hold in useless tears of fear and worry, she gave him one more searching look. Still nothing. Blowing out a hard breath, she left him there and hurried to Thegan.

Crawling around his massive, prone body so she could see his face, she knelt in the pebbles and bent to cup his cheeks.

“Thegan. Come on, wake up, please wake up.”

He didn't have any wounds that she could see, and a quick scan of his body didn’t show anything that was obviously broken or injured. Running her fingertips through his hair, she carefully felt his skull. There, a lump on the back of his head.

Sitting back on her heels, she scrubbed her hands down her face and gazed around at the people and animals filling the cages, all of whom were either hurt, scared, or both.

To her horror, some even appeared to be dead.

“What the hell happened?” she breathed.

They’d obviously crashed, but why? How? Where were they? How the hell were they going to get out? Were any of the fish people alive to free them or help the countless beings who’d been injured?

If not, that meant everyone down there had just been condemned to a slow death, either from their injuries or starvation.

Helplessness and fear hit her so hard it made her stomach cramp.

Swallowing convulsively, she turned to stare back down at Thegan’s slack features.

Focus on something small.

Now, do something to make it better.

Chapter 15

Determinedly pushing aside the feeling of helplessness, Victoria focused only on doing what she could to help her giants.

Getting to her feet, she started toward the mostly empty water trough only to gasp as pain shot through her ribs, hip, and thigh at the first step.

Vi’kail’s pet, who’d shrunk back down and was halfway through the hole in the ceiling, gave a startled chirp and flew at her. It landed on her shoulder and proceeded to chitter anxiously, directly into her ear, as she bent and lifted the hem of her dress just far enough to see the black and purple bruise starting at mid-thigh.

Standing back upright, she turned and offered the worried little cutie a shaky smile, partly to reassure it and partly in the hopes that would make it stop yelling at her, then reached up to stroke a finger over the top of its head.

“I’m alright. Just a bruise and some sore ribs. You did really good being a bubble. I don’t know that I would’ve survived if you hadn’t.”

Oddly, it looked like it understood her and immediately calmed down, letting out a little puff of air that very clearly, and kind of alarmingly, communicated, ‘don’t scare me like that, I thought you were really hurt.’

“Oookay. That was, uh, expressive,” she faltered, gazing at it in surprise. Tilting her head, she regarded it seriously. “You’re a smart little critter, aren’t you? Like, unusually smart.”

It gave a purr that sounded distinctly pleased and puffed up, pushing its chest out and raising its pointed snout in the hair haughtily. Her smile was less shaky and more genuine that time and the brief distraction went a long way in easing her fear and uncertainty.

Feeling calmer, she glanced back at the giants, over at an unconscious Vi’kail across the aisle, and at the other human women in the cages around her, assessing what, if anything, she could do to help.

She was still trapped, but it looked like she was one of the only people near her that was conscious, so she could at least call out to them and ask if they were okay.

“Alright, let’s get to work. You check on Vi’kail, make sure he’s not hurt too badly, and maybe see if you can wake up the women there and there. Sound good?”

It looked at where she pointed then gave her a single nod and pushed off her shoulder, flying out through the opening in her ceiling and over into Vi’kail’s.

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