22Chapter Sixteen
My shins were screaming bloody murder and my arm pulsed a thudding ache deep beneath the skin. Damn…
I tried to push myself up, sliding my limp arm around and grabbing onto the rocky walls. DAMN! Pain seared from my wrist, up my arm and stabbed into my shoulder blade. I collapsed back into the dirt, getting a lovely mouthful of it in the process.
Stupid, bloody, typical Katarina! Should've been paying attention! Should've just…
My muscles let go and I sighed into the dirt. There was no use going over what I should have done. I needed to focus on what in God's name I was going to do.
Painstakingly, I managed to shift over onto my side (much to the displeasure of what I was now sure was my broken arm). I hadn't realized I was crying until the water pooled in my eyes then spilled over down my cheeks, hot and tickling my ears. I sighed.
Well, this was wonderful, wasn't it? Darien was probably off somewhere desperately needing my help and here I was, useless as a third tit, stuck in a damn crevice with a lame arm and crying. Useless.
After a few strangled breaths, I reached up with my left arm (my good one) and tried to pull myself up again. My head felt as though it was splitting in half and jagged knives of pain were slicing through my bruised body.
I was suddenly reminded of Crystabel, when there was the large protest when they hung the priest. A woman said he'd tried to rape her. Nobody believed her. Everyone knew it was a setup because the priest had criticized the mayor's choice of government. Everyone also knew that the woman, Miss. Deloris Cambridge, had money problems since her father had died.
The police had set out, bludgeoning people near or to death if they protested. But some of the officers had taken it a bit too far, attacking people for no reason. I'd been walking through the park one night, looking for somewhere to sleep where I'd be hidden, when I'd stumbled on the bloody body of one of the local farmers. He was still alive… sputtering thick torrents of blood and vomit from his split lips. He looked up at me with wide bloodshot eyes, like the eyes of a cow just before it's butchered. This is what he must have felt like, but worse because he died moments later.
I shivered.
Now was not the time to go over the past. I had to get out of here, damn it! Darien needed me!
Now that I was sitting, I looked up at the light coming in from the top of the canyon. Blast… at least a twenty foot drop. How was I going to get out of this one?
A centipede slithered out of a crack and zigzagged up the canyon wall as if to mock me. Nasty little bugger, just a big show off. I looked around. I couldn't scale the bloody walls like he could, even with a hundred legs and there was nothing around but more rocks, dark, sticks, dark, the sound of some trickling water, dark, a few weak looking vines and, oh, dark.
I began trying to pull myself up, pushing my back against the rock wall. It answered by jabbing my in the fleshy spot on my lower back. I hissed and kept wrenching myself up.
My feet shook underneath me, my knees knocking together like to pieces of gnarly wood. I gripped the wall with a quivering hand. I was almost straight up, just about there…
I slipped and threw my hand out, cutting it against the rock.
"SON OF A WHORE!"
My voice echoed off the walls and came back to me. I almost laughed, but the blood gushing through my fingers stopped all hopes of happiness. I gritted my teeth. Lovely…
Ignoring it for a moment, I turned around, now standing erect. I tugged at a nearby vine. It had a little ease to it, but it seemed to hold fast well enough. I hopped around on my burning legs and grabbed at a vine on the other side. It was about the same, only a tad bit longer. Staring up into the mouth of the hellhole I was standing in, I saw that the crevice grew a bit wider as it went up. Hmm…
"I can do this…"
Before I even tried to reach out, my arm began to bark its protests. The muscles in my face scrunched up and I quickly dropped my arm. Blast… I was going to need to use it.
I tried again; grunting through tightly pressed lips as sweat beaded my grimy forehead and trickled down my face and neck. The pain channeling its way through my arm was too much. I gasped and dropped my arm again. It couldn't support itself, I needed something to hold it up, a sort of… sling.
A wardrobe was really the least of my worries at the moment. I quickly shredded a long strip off my "skirt" and using my teeth as well as my good arm, I wrapped it under my right armpit and over my neck and (with a large amount of difficulty and three gallons of sweat) tied a knot in it. My arm now stuck out at a slightly odd angle, but an angle that directed it at the vine. Before I went any further, I ripped off another strip and balled it into my mouth. Screaming would only make me lose energy, and if I bit my tongue, so help me God, I'd fall again. And then I would bloody lose it.
I shifted my shoulders, and got my feet firmly (or as firmly as possible in their shaking state) on the ground. Then I achingly curled my fingers around the vines and began to climb.
It was slow going at first, my feet and left arm doing most of the work, then soon, I fell into a pattern, moving my way slowly but surely up.
At one point, my foot slipped and I nearly choked on the grubby fabric in my mouth. My arm burned as it supported my weight. I dangled for a moment, staring down at what I was sure would be the last place I ever saw if I fell again. I squeezed my eyes shut for a white hot second, waited for my heart to stop playing a bloody tribal rhythm in my chest, then reached out and began to climb again. Darien needed me!
About three quarters of the way up, the wall to my right was too far away to be of any help. I swung back against the left wall, wincing as my right arm crashed against the rock side. I clung to the vine, praying silently in my head that it didn't choose this moment to snap its frail little spine and send me clawing back down.
The edge came into view, so close I could nearly reach it. Which is exactly what I tried. Unthinking, I stuck out my right arm and clutched at the edge, letting go with my left arm. Immediately I regretted it. I screamed in agony, the wad of fabric tumbling out of my mouth and floating to the ground. I swung my left arm up, the world becoming dotted with tiny pinpricks of purple and yellow.
My fingers gripped at the edge, my nails digging painfully into the rock. My feet searched frantically for a ledge, finally finding one. My toes curled over it, shaking worse then ever.
I glanced nervously over my shoulder into the deep abyss. I quickly whipped my head back up and shut my eyes, trying to shake the dizziness from my spinning head.
Okay… there was no way around it. I'd have to pull myself up. I paused… anticipating the pain before it happened. I thought of Darien, felt his lips, cool against my own, heard his soft lilting laugh and saw his wonderful green eyes. He needed me. I couldn't let him down.
With a wild yell, I pulled myself up, slowly lifting my body up and over the edge of the cliff. My arm threatened to snap, a strange pressure pushing at the skin in my forearm (I felt sick to realize it was the bone trying to push its way through). Suddenly, gravity decided to take my side and I tipped over onto my chest above the canyon.
Heavy gurgling breathes escaped me, and I began crawling away frantically, clawing a path with my left arm.
I lay on my back, panting, my chest heaving up and down. I'd made it! I'd bloody well made it!
This time I did laugh out loud. I'm sure I looked mad lying there in my own dirty blood and sweat, my wild hair and broken body, but I'd bloody well made it! I said a little prayer, thanking God, and promising I'd never bloody curse again.
When I managed to calm down, my mind sunk down from the clouds.
Darien was still missing.