Chapter 10: The next stop

"What the hell kiddos?!" Sullivan seemed to be in smaller state of shock as he helped Sam get into the hydroplane. "You two look horrible!"

"Thank you, Sully..." Heard Rose the weak answer of the man coming from the inside of the plane as she was stumbling upon the stairs of the flying vehicle herself as well.

Her injured knee was getting worse with each passing minute. The pain started to become unbearable and the joint became so stiff it was hard for her to even just slightly bent it. In fact, it felt like her leg didn't really want to obey her anymore.

When she got in, she saw Sam sitting in one of the backseats, Sully kneeling beside him, observing the wounds on the man's shoulder.

"You gotta tell me what the hell happened to you." He said in disbelief as he was now looking at Rose's leg.

"We will, but I think we should leave the place." She said, thinking about not just the beast but Huxley's man also wondering around in the jungle, who knows how close to them.

"Yeah, you are right. Can you handle him?" He asked as he sat into the driver's seat, pointing at Sam over his shoulder.

"Yes, I'm in a much better condition than him, don't worry." Answered Rose but she could barely keep herself together. She felt extremely tired and weak and the pain was sucking away her last pieces of strength but she had to take care of Sam's wounds as soon as possible.

She stumbled next to the man, pressing her teeth together trying not to look too weak again and took off her backpack as she sat in the seat next to his. She looked for the spare t-shirt she packed the day before to somehow make a bandage out of it and a bottle of water to clean the wound and her hands with.

"Hey, milady." Said Sam, a weak smile laying across his face as he watched the girl sitting next to him.

"Hey." She answered and couldn't help but smile softly in return. Her eyes wandered towards the wound under the ripped clothes on his shoulder. It looked horrible and definitely needed proper treatment once they landed - some water and a t-shirt won't do much - it was too deep and long and seemed sore already.

She tore the fabric of her t-shirt in a way so that she could use it as a bandage and when she was done

she leaned towards the man. Pieces of his ripped shirt was stuck in the wound and Rose couldn't clean the gash properly either so she sighed and said: "We gotta take off your shirt." She already felt her cheeks burning up slightly but she tried not to think about it too much as her hands reached for the bottom of the shirt.

"Can you raise your arms a bit?" She asked and Sam did as the girl said. He sat up straighter and rose his arms up as much as he could - this way Rose could carefully pull the shirt off of the man's torso in no time.

Even though he tried not to, he still huffed in pain and his face distorted into a painful grin as he leaned back against his seat.

"How's your leg?" He asked between two breaths.

"I'm fine..." lied Rose and opened up the small bottle

of water to clean her hands before starting with Sam's shoulder. She didn't want her dirty hands to cause a nasty infection on top of it all. While washing her hands as much as she could, her eyes wandered towards his chest that had both sweat glistening and hair all over - and another tattoo. A star right under his left collarbone. She wondered what the meaning behind this one could be?

She immediately felt her cheeks turning into a deeper shade of crimson but couldn't help herself - her gaze travelled a little bit further down, towards his stomach, where she could see the scars of the three bullets that once penetrated his body, and also a happy trail of hair leading down towards his...

"You like what you see, dear?" Sam asked and on his face there was his signature grin again - though this time it was weaker than usual.

"Don't call me that." she answered without looking

into the man's face, she was sure he could see how red her cheeks were but still attempted to hide them. "And just so you know, I wasn't staring." she added while wetting a piece of fabric. "I was just looking at your wounds..."

"Now come here." she said and stood up - despite all her efforts not to, she still let out a small moan when she put her weight on her injured leg - and sat on the armrest of Sam's chair. She cleaned the margin of the wound first. She had to muster her courage before getting to the deeper parts and needed to take deep breaths to help her stomach back to its original place. When she was done she reached for the bottle again and this time poured the water straight into the gash.

Sam's body twitched in pain as the cold water washed the jungle's dirt out of the open sore and Rose could see the blood leaving his face. When she felt sort of that the wound was clean enough she got

the remainings of her t-shirt and carefully wrapped it around the man's shoulder. She tried to make it tight enough to keep the gash closed but not too tight to stop the circulation of the blood.

"All right. This'll do." for a while - she thought but didn't say that part out loud. Something didn't feel right about that wound - it was deep but seemed to be worsening faster than normally and this worried her quite much.

"Thank you, Rose. " said Sam and looked into her eyes. She looked back at the man and the way he said her name made her mind wander back to the bush, deep inside the jungle for a second, but then she stood up. He needed to sleep, so that he could heal a little.

"Get some rest. I'll speak with Sully." she stepped away but then she felt a warm hand grabbing her right arm and softly pulling her back.

"Stay..." Rose stopped and glanced back at him. The butterflies, the damn butterflies came to in her stomach again, but this time they were so fast and wild, they felt more like birds in there. She looked into his eyes and wanted to insist but by the time she realized, she was sitting in her seat again, her intact leg pulled up, close to her body, Sam's hand still clenched onto her arm. She looked at him again, but he was now fast asleep and Rose felt like she couldn't fight her own eyelids any longer either.

She took a deep breath and by the time the warm air escaped through her lips, she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

xxx

Rose wasn't sure how long she slept and really hoped it wasn't precious long hours she wasted when, she woke up to the hydroplane softly vibrating

around her. After everything, it is more than sure that Huxley is always just half a step behind, not letting them taking a break at all.

To her left, there was a small window through which she saw the thinning trees of the jungle under them, being replaced with more sand and less green, somewhere in the distance, there laying a smaller mountain range - the Roncador Mountains. Sam must have told Sully where to fly when they were getting into the plane.

Rose looked at the seat beside her where the man was still asleep. Little drops of sweat were glistening on his forehead - he must be having a fever - she thought and this worried her quite much. What if the sore gets even worse? What if they need a hospital? Maybe they should turn back and get Sam help instead of going even further... Maybe that would be the right thing to do...

She carefully stumbled upon her feet and made her way towards the passenger's seat next to Sullivan.

"Hey, kiddo." He greeted her right away. "How's the leg?" He asked and gestured his head towards the injured limb.

"The pain is not that strong anymore but it constantly feels numb. To be honest, I can't decide if it is getting worse or better..." she answered looking at her own, awkwardly held right leg.

"I'll take a look at it once we are on land." Said Sullivan with an encouraging smile on his face.

"Are you some kind of a doctor as well?" Asked Rose but her question made the man burst out in laughter.

"Me, a doctor." He laughed. "I guess it would have been useful, but nah. With Sam's brother, Nathan by your side you see everything on the way though. I

know how to patch and fix a few things up, that's all."

"I've heard some stories about your adventures with Nathan." Rose admitted.

"Speaking of stories, don't you wanna finally tell me what the hell happened to you back in the jungle?" Sullivan asked finally and Rose did so as the man asked - she told everything to him starting with the big rotating rock well hidden under the leaves, the underground tunnel and hall, the carvings on everything, the beast that attacked them and ended a lot of Huxley's men and how it almost ended Rose and Sam too on the riverside and how they'd manage to overcome it in the end. And also the small artefact they'd found and was now laying deep inside Rose's backpack..

"Thank you for saving his ass out there." Said Sullivan after finally digesting everything Rose had told him

about.

"He saved me more than once, really." Rose answered as she remembered all the countless occasions Sam did really save her life already.

"Yeah, I know that he is a capable man, and that he knows what he's doing. But Nathan's got all the luck in the family I'm afraid." He said with a bittersweet smile on his face. "For Sam, there has been too many close calls already... It's good that he's finally found someone who can back him up."

The sun outside the hydroplane was still up high when Sullivan started to direct the flying vehicle towards the ground. Due to the area being rather like a flat savannah with bushes and some trees here and there, they didn't have to park the plane too far from the mountain for which Rose was extremely grateful.

She honestly had no idea how'd she be climbing a mountain with her leg, let alone walking long hours before it. It was still sort of impossible without the walking part anyway. She could only hold it in a strange position now and even the shape of her knee seemed strangely off - though she hoped she was just hallucinating the last part because of the exhaustion and pain.

"I'll go and wake Sam up." said Rose when they landed but before she could even stood up, she heard the man's voice behind her.

"No need. I'm awake." his voice was hoarse and dry but he looked a tiny bit better than before - though he still seemed a little bit paler than normal. He was still sitting in his seat, trying out his injured shoulder - though he didn't give voice to it, Rose could se his face flinch in pain with every move he made.

"Good morning, princess!" teased him Sullivan,

placing a cigar into his mouth just to light it up right away. "Now we just need to have a look at Rose's leg and you are both good to go."

So now, a few minutes later, Rose was sitting on the last step of the hydroplane's short stairs and looked at her own, really distorted looking knee in a bit of a shock. She had been sure it was just a bruise up until they slowly rolled her jeans above the body part and they could all see clearly something wasn't as it should have been.

"That's a dislocated knee right there, kiddo." stated Sullivan the facts while stepping on the butt of his cigar. "You are lucky it is not broken - and that I have already fixed countless dislocated body parts in my life." he said as he stepped closer and kneeled beside Rose. He grabbed her leg but before doing anything he gestured his head towards Sam who'd been leaning against the side of the plane.

"Would you mind?"

"Of course." said Sam and stepped by the girl himself as well.

"Would you mind what?" Asked Rose, shifting her focus from one man to another. This silent conversation between the two scared her.

"Hang on tight." he heard Sam's voice coming right next from her left ear and felt his huge arms locking onto her upper body in way so that she couldn't jump up or move too much.

"I'll tryna make it quick..." said Sullivan and without any warning he placed one of his hands on her ankle, firmly pulling it towards himself, while massaging the popped kneecap with his other slowly back into its original place.

It wasn't longer then a couple of seconds, really, but

it hurt so damn much and was so sudden that Sullivan was lucky Sam held Rose with all his might.

"What the..." she yelled and tears immediately filled her eyes but by the time she could finish her sentence, the pain was gone.

"It's as good as new." said Sully proudly, slapping his hands together as he observed his "work". Rose could also feel Sam's arms letting go of her (though she wouldn't have minded him keeping hold of her for the rest of the times).

At first she just tried to bent it slightly and very, very carefully - and it worked! Of course it still hurt but it wasn't something she couldn't have handled. She was now standing up, and even though it hurt, felt weaker and stiffer than usual, she could finally walk without the agony.

"It is really as good as new!" She said, happily

walking in a small circle. She was limping sightly but she was sure, with time that would go away as well. "Thank you, Sully!"

"It's nothing." He smiled in return.

By the time she rolled her jeans back down, Sam was already standing next to her, reaching her backpack towards Rose.

"We are all set then." He said as the girl took the bag from him.

"We are." She nodded in agreement as she looked at the mountain in front of them. It wasn't the biggest mountain in the world, but standing in the warm and humid air right at its foot, it seemed way too huge.

"Okay guys. This time, please take better care of yourselves..." said Sullivan as he reached a walkie

talkie towards Sam.

"I can't promise anything." Answered the man with a cheeky smile on his handsome face, tugging the radio in the backpocket of his jeans.

"Than just keep in contact at least!" He was joking but both Rose and Sam felt a little scolded as they started their way towards the Roncador Mountain, only knowing they were looking for an entrance of the cave, racing a whole army lead by a crazy man.