33 BULLETS

I ached like I ran a marathon, muscles sore and tight, but I was comfortable in a soft bed somewhere. The gentle trace of a blanket over the top of me. A calming fire cackled in the background. Scent of roasting meat seeped into my nose.

My eyes opened and it took a second for me to recognize my surroundings, but when I did, I screamed.

It was the cave of the assault!

I skimmed around for my gun.

The werewolves were after me again!

"El! El! Shhh. Shhh!" Thann's face was in my view then, hushing my throat.

My breaths came in quick bursts and I remembered that I should be okay. I had killed those werewolves. They were not coming back after me.

"What... what's going on? Why are we back he..." was all I got to before I tried to swing my legs off the bed and felt the agony of thousands of pins and needles coming alive in my right leg.

It knocked the breath clear out of me.

Like fifty daggers pressing into my leg, from my knee down my whole leg stung with the scorching bite.

I didn't scream, but I made some kind of garbled cry and immediately froze any movement.

The pain dulled.

"Thann?" I begged. "What happened to me?"

Memories of being on the rock and then being dipped in acid came inching back.

The pain wasn't as intense now, and more of a deadening ache.

I pressed a toe down and the pain split open again. I screamed out. It was like my foot had been asleep for a hundred years and now it was slowly coming back. The sharp stabs of life cutting through me at any insignificant movement.

Tossing off the blanket, I looked down over my leg.

I almost expected it not to be there.

But it was.

Just barely.

I was not wearing jeans or shoes, and my entire leg from the knee down was covered in black tar.

Recoiling from the sight, I began to panic. "Thann! My leg!"

He grabbed my face in his hands, letting the heat seep in to calm. But he wasn't calm himself. "El hurt. Medicine. Sukumah."

My eyes pricked with tears and I sniffed my pains back as I looked into his eyes. I never realized that he had such dark brown eyes before. Even flecked with gold. It was striking.

The pads of his thumbs caught the wetness at the corner of my eye and he pulled me into a hug.

His relief was like a wave over me and then his hands roved down my body to rest over my belly.

Another worry dawned on me. "Thann, is the baby okay?" I glanced over the bump that seemed visually bigger, even to me. "How long was I out? A month?"

Couldn't be more than a day. Two?

My hand came beside where he'd placed his cheek and I breathed out in relief when the heat still shown brightly there.

"She's okay," I exhaled, making up a gender on the spot.

He leaned back up and looked down my leg. His face still yelled of the worry on his heart.

I bent and thumbed through the tar. It was a paste thick as wet concrete and black as night. "What is this? Medicine?" My face shown skepticism. Was this what hurt me instead?

"Medicine," he agreed.

With a bit to my nose, there was a floral and earth odor about it. Almost pretty. And with the silky feel between my fingers, it had a mud like quality to it. "Is this activated charcoal? We have something like it on Earth. It's healing. It draws out poisons."

Looking back down my foot, I tried to press my toes to a point and again clenched in an unbelievable invisible scream.

My foot was still scorching like it was asleep.

I could breathe, only as long as I didn't move it an inch.

I pointed to the leg in hopelessness. "What is it? What happened?"

"Sukumah," he spoke gravely.

I knew the word, but I couldn't remember what it meant.

"Sukooma?" I asked.

He reached to the side and I turned to see my gun and pouch there. He grabbed my pouch and stroked the skunk fur. "Sukumah." And then he fanned over my leg.

"What?" I asked in surprise. "Wait. A skunk did this?"

I didn't dare move my leg again as I let it sink in. A viper skunk.

The snake fangs hinted at venom, and I had even had the random thought that viper skunks maybe shot venom instead of stink.

That pop.

Was that what happened?

A skunk was wandering around the rock and then my holler to Thann scared it and it sprayed me?

How bad was its venom?

Did I dare look?

Did I need to look?

I bit my lip. "Is it bad?"

I leaned down and tried to swipe the charcoal away from my calf.

Thann grabbed my hand before I was fingertips in.

"I need to see," I spoke cautiously.

He gave a growling sound low in his throat, but nodded nervous eyes.

With another exhale, I pressed through the sticky mass and where my leg should have been, I could dip in two inches extra. Something hard stopped my sink and I tapped it. The simple tap shot a zing all the way up my leg with burning lightning.

Bone.

Unburying my fingers and sitting back in scare, I looked in horror to Thann and panicked. "How deep? It burned my whole leg away?"

Watching over my blackened leg, I tried to get my breathing under control. It wasn't working.

"It's freaking burned away!? It doesn't hurt! Why does it not hurt?" No hurt!

Thann shook his head and palmed down my cheek like I was about to die. "Big hurt."

There had to be some kind of nerve damage that didn't sync until I moved. Testing my theory, I twisted my ankle only millimeters to the side. It had me crying out in pain again, the pins and needles back with a vengeance.

Thann kissed my forehead and tucked me against himself. If he would allow himself to cry, I'm sure he would be at this moment.

Was I going to die?

After all the mess I'd been through, a skunk was what was going to end my time here?

Thann sure made it seem so.

Really? A skunk?

A stupid skunk.

I'd fought dragons and werewolves!

I licked over my dry lips and leaned back against the cave wall.

At least I had the medicine on my leg. Thann knew a lot more about the healing herbs on his planet than I did. Maybe he could do something. Maybe I'd still survive.

Maybe I was looking into his curving in frame too much. Maybe he was just sad that I got hurt. Or that the baby could have been hurt, and all on his watch.

He hadn't taken as many disappears since we'd found out I was pregnant and maybe this run was an extension of that.

He probably felt like it was his fault.

I rubbed over his hand. "It's not your fault Big Guy."

He was sure going to think it was his fault if I did die though.

Maybe I wouldn't.

Maybe I would get better.

Yeah right. Regrowing a whole leg. You're not a lizard Eleanor.

How do you regrow muscle?

Maybe I would survive, but be all deformed with no calf muscle or skin.

Ew.

Just the idea was grossing me out.

At least it didn't hurt when stationary.

"Thann? Can I have some water or something? I don't want to think about this anymore. Water?"

He nodded and lifted, walking back into the cave and returned with a water pouch and some bread.

It lifted my spirits a little to see the bread and teased a soft smile to my lips. "I guess there are positives to being back in the wolf cave."

Thann crouched beside me and handed me the items, smiling himself. He kissed my forehead. "El safe."

"Maybe," was all I grumbled back. I really wanted to say I was dead. Dead Eleanor to add to the list of people that this planet has taken.