Page 85 of Chasing Paradise

“Okay. Good. So, now, we just have to get it off of you,” I said, scooting down her body, getting low, and trying to push.

But there was no use.

It was too heavy.

There was no way one man could move it without some help.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“You have to go without me,” Vi said, tone small and sad.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“It’s too heavy. You can’t move it.”

“I’m gonna figure something out.”

The rain was slowing, and the wind wasn’t as fierce as I racked my brain, trying to think of what I could use to try to lift or roll the damn thing off of her.

“What are you doing?” she yelped as I grabbed handfuls of mud and started slathering it up her legs. More and more until she was completely covered, the mud wedging all around the limb.

“Seeing if I can get it to slide,” I said, getting low and pushing with my shoulder. Then, when that didn’t work, dropped onto my ass and used my legs.

There was a little movement, but even if I got the damn thing to slide down, it ran the risk of breaking her ankles as it slid.

Okay.

New plan.

A lever.

I needed some sort of lever situation.

There were plenty of old, fallen limbs around. What I needed was something to act as a fulcrum to put the limb over and use to lift the tree.

I fought past my swimming vision as the storm cleared as if it had never happened, the sun starting to shine, the heat returning, the birds chirping and squawking happily.

Violet grumbled as she moved to sit up, her keen-eyed gaze on me as I tried to get to my feet, and stumbled.

“Wick, you need to sit down. You had to have hit your head.”

There was no time to sit down, to wait for the dizziness to pass. There was no luxury of softness in a survival situation. I had to grit my teeth and endure.

Especially since we were actively being chased.

If we didn’t luck out and have those guys get struck by lightning or turned around in the storm or something, they could be closing in with each passing moment.

I had to get Vi free.

Then we had to keep moving.

I had a feeling we weren’t that far from civilization now. Maybe another half a day at a decent pace and we could start seeing some signs of reaching the edge of the forest.

“Duchess, I’m just gonna go find something to use as a lever and fulcrum,” I told her, forcing my legs forward, fighting past the dizziness to start my search.

I didn’t know a lot about crushing injuries, but I imagined that the longer a body part stayed under the object, the worse the outcome.

I found the limb that I’d use for a lever relatively quickly, but finding something flat and strong enough to work as the fulcrum wasn’t an easy task.

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