Page 4 of Miles

3

Miles

“Shit!”

She was falling, almost in slow motion. Or perhaps it was the way time seemed to slow down, dragging out like warm taffy.

I had no time to think. I could only react.

The calls of Dallas and Alan were only a whisper in the back of my mind as I shifted and allowed my dragon to burst free.

We took to the air, wings beating furiously as the body fell.

Faster, faster, catch her!

I elongated my body as much as possible and focused on centering myself beneath her.

The crash of her impact with my back knocked me off-balance, but I righted myself and sailed over the surface of the water, triumphant and frantic.

Warm blood spread over my scales, a warning. She was gravely injured.

Alan and Dallas were already ashore when I landed, allowing them to ease her off me before I shifted back to human form. They’d spread a towel out on the sand, and it was already stained dark red.

The girl’s leg was coated in blood which oozed from a compound fracture—her thigh bone stuck out, a stark, white splinter.

“We have to get her to safety.” Alan glared up at me. “You took quite the chance there.”

I slide into my cargo shorts, removing my belt as a second thought. “Does she need a tourniquet?”

“How the hell would we know?” Dallas snapped.

I thought it couldn’t hurt, so I looped the belt around her upper thigh, above the wound. When I pulled tight, the flow of blood appeared to lessen.

The dragon was pleased. As was I.

“Somebody could’ve seen you here on the beach, when you landed,” Alan insisted.

“Good thing no one did, then.” I looked around, trying to put a plan in place. “Do either of you know of a hospital nearby?”

“We’ve been here as long as you have,” Dallas pointed out, standing, hands on his hips, looking roughly as hopeless as I felt.

He was right, naturally. This was Mary’s resort. Not an area I was familiar with. Certainly not one Dallas and Alan would be familiar with. They’d been captives until we’d rescued them.

We were each as lost as the other.

There was no time to waste in attempting to locate a hospital.

“If we lift her in the towel and lower her into the bed of the truck, she might be able to make it through a ride back to the resort. Mightn’t she? We have to try.” It was the best I could come up with.

She had lost so much blood, and her entire right side was a wreck. Her arm was clearly broken in several places and beginning to swell, dark purple bruises standing out against her tawny skin. I didn’t dare touch her abdomen or ribs for fear of what I’d find there.

“What could they do for her?” Alan asked.

“There’s bound to be medical equipment there. They treated Klaus for his concussion, didn’t they? And any of you who required treatment, too. Phillip was a surgeon in the Army,” I added, flailing around for a plan. “We have to. We can’t leave her here to die.”

“She wanted to die,” Alan replied, his voice quiet.

“You don’t know that. I’ll take her on my own, if the two of you won’t.”

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