Dead Man’s Hand by Giulia Lagomarsino
Antonio
Ilocked eyes with her for just a second before the car slipped. I couldn’t see the color of them, but they were wide and frightened. I tried to grip her hand tighter, but there was nothing I could do. One second, she was there, and the next, the car slid off a small cliff on the side of the mountain.
The crash was deafening, but there was no explosion. I shouldn’t care. I should go back to my truck and go home. I didn’t know her. She didn’t mean anything to me. But as I turned to walk away, something stopped me. Looking back over the ledge, I knew there was a chance she survived. It was about a twenty-five foot drop, but the car had landed on its trunk and then fallen onto the top. I could still see one of the tires spinning.
“Fuck,” I swore under my breath, looking for a way down. With the conditions as they were, I wasn’t even sure how I would get her back up to my truck if she were alive. And if her injuries were severe, there would be no way to get her back down the mountain in this storm.
Without any gear, I started the climb down, careful where I placed my feet and where I gripped with my hands. Luckily, it was more like chunks of land had been carved into the side of the mountain, almost like steps. I at least had a chance of getting her out of there.
Almost at the bottom, I jumped down, nearly slipping on the slick snow below me. It wasn’t a thick covering yet, but enough to be icy. The car was crushed. The window I had broken was now smashed down to a nearly impossible size. The back window was my best option at this point, mostly because the window had been smashed out when the car landed on the trunk.
Brushing away the glass, I climbed in through the back window, searching in the dark for the woman that had just escaped my grasp. Her body was thrown between the two seats in the front, resting against the passenger side. I brushed her long hair away from her neck and felt for a pulse. It was there, but it was weak. Streams of blood rolled down her face, which wasn’t all that uncommon for a head injury. If we were lucky, the cold from the storm would only help.
If she had an injured spine, I would hurt her trying to drag her out, but I had no phone on me, and there was no chance of finding one in this mess. Sliding my hands under her armpits, I started to drag her out the back of the car. Her head flopped back, hanging at an awkward angle. She was covered in blood, and I didn’t even know where to start with that. I’d have to wait until I got her home. If she died, I’d have to call the police, which would only bring questions down on me. After laying her down on the ground in the fresh snow, I contemplated what to do. Getting the police involved wasn’t an option. If she died, I’d have to bury her out in the trees somewhere. Maybe an animal would get to her before she was discovered as missing.
Sighing, I looked at the cliff I now had to scale and back at the girl. There was no way I could climb that cliff with her, even with the rocky steps on the side. I climbed back into her car until I found her suitcase. Dragging it through the glass, I opened it and pulled out whatever I could use to tie her to my back. Difficult was an understatement. My fingers were freezing and the snow was soaking through my jeans, but as I really looked at her, I knew I couldn’t just leave her behind.
By the time I was done creating a rope to tie her to me, I was freezing my ass off and ready to call it quits, but I was no quitter. I started the climb, which was even harder than I expected. Every time I leaned the wrong way, I risked tipping us backward off the cliff edge. My hands finally felt the ledge, and I pulled us up, then rolled her off my back, undoing the ropes I had made. I laid huffing on my back, staring up at the dark sky as I thought about the rest of the climb I still needed to make with her. When my muscles started to protest, I knew I had to move now or risk getting stuck out here myself.
Standing, I lifted her in a fireman’s carry and started the trek up the mountainside, slipping and sliding all the way. By the time I got back to the road, I half expected someone to be waiting by my truck, but no one had stopped. Yanking the passenger door open, I laid her as gently as possible inside, then walked around to my side. I had to stop for a minute once behind the wheel, just so I could catch my breath. My body was exhausted, and I felt like I could go to sleep, but I wasn’t too much farther from home.
The rest of the drive was uncertain to say the least. Every turn in the road and every slick spot had me wishing I had never gone out today. When I finally pulled down my driveway, I wasted no time getting her out and into the house. She was still alive, that much was clear, but if she was still breathing in the morning, that would be a miracle. With no place else to put her, I laid her down on the couch in front of the fire to warm her up. I briefly thought about putting her in my bed, but there was no fireplace in the bedroom.
After hauling in the groceries, I got to work on getting off her wet clothes. It didn’t escape my notice how beautiful she was. Her long, chestnut hair and fair complexion made her a beauty, but her body was a piece of art. I briefly wondered if she was a model, but shook the thought from my head as I got back to work undressing her. I’d like to say I was a gentleman and didn’t look, but I couldn’t help it. She had cuts all over her body that needed to be tended to. After what felt like hours, I had her bandaged as much as possible, and several large gashes sewn up as much as I could. I was no doctor, so it was lucky for her that she was already passed out. I tucked a blanket around her and headed for my bedroom, grabbed fresh pajamas, then went to the bathroom to take a shower to warm up. I was fucking freezing. I stayed in there longer than I normally did, just trying to work some warmth back into my bones. When I got out, she was still passed out on the couch.