Chapter Six: How to save a life

"I think we need to talk," Richard said, standing from his kneeling position and turning to face the other two.

"I agree," Holden said, dispirited. "There is something I've been meaning to talk to you two about."

Even as they spoke, The Three slowly moved themselves to a secluded corner of the cave and lowered their voices. "Is it Trevor?" Richard asked, sighing at Holden's subsequent nod.

"Yesterday, he was continuing to be sick and rejecting everything we put in him. So I did a brief examination of his abdomen. He has definite abdominal swelling, which is not good, and I believe I felt something that could have been a mass."

Richard and Ronnie passed a worried glance at each other. They weren't doctors, but even they knew what that meant. "Are you sure?" Ronnie finally asked.

"No," was the doctor's surprising response. "I can't be sure without an x-ray or ultrasound, or stool test, or blood work. It might be inflammatory bowel, where his intestine is infected and therefore inflamed and that's what I felt. It could be a mass, as I said. It could be gallstones. It could be ulcers. It could be appendicitis. It could be cancer. Without the ability to run some diagnostic tests, I can't know for certain what it is. All I can be sure of now is that he is a 19-year-old male who has reportedly suffered from a weak immune system most of his life, he has had trouble keeping anything down for the last several days, he's experiencing sharp stomach pains, a fever, nausea, his abdomen is noticeably swollen, and upon examination, my fingers seemed to work out the edges of what felt to be a mass of some sort."

Again, Richard sighed. He turned his head to look out at the group, trying to process all of that information, and he found himself empathizing with the doctor and his plight. It reminded him of the frustration he first experienced when moving to St. Marie and discovering that they had no forensic or ballistic resources on the island. Like Holden, he knew what it felt like to have a very important job to do, but to be impeded by a lack of access to the right materials and technologies. It was a very hopeless and infuriating feeling, and hearing the echoes of it in Holden's voice now was like tasting the first bites of a meal you forgot you hated.

As Richard aimlessly scanned the crowed, his mind far afield, he accidentally made eye contact with a little girl, the same one he had seen crying earlier during the Kent-Fry scuffle. She wasn't crying now, however. In fact, when she noticed Richard looking at her, she grinned brightly and waved at him. A tiny smile tugged up the corners of his mouth and he waved subtly back.

"Is it life-threatening?" Ronnie asked.

Holden shrugged a little, formulating his response. "Under normal circumstances, most of those things I mentioned shouldn't be life threatening."

"But these circumstances are far from normal," Richard noted, looking back at the pair.

Holden nodded. "If these symptoms persist, I'm afraid he's going to starve to death. This is now his third day of vomiting everything we give him. The only thing his body seems to accept is water, and even that, only in small quantities. But if he keeps rejecting sustenance, he will die from this."

"So what does he need?" Ronnie asked.

The doctor slightly scoffed at that and answered emphatically, "He needs a hospital! And most probably a surgeon." Holden huffed in frustration and covered his face with his hands.

"Doctor?" Richard said sympathetically, grasping the other man by the shoulder and just waiting.

After a moment, Holden lifted his head with a strong intake of breath. "If he has a mass, and it can't be reduced through medication, then it will need to be removed surgically. He's too weak to be moved, not to mention the fact that the hospital would be almost impossible to reach even for a healthy man, so it would have to be done here." He paused at this point to look at the other two men and gauge their reaction, but he only found support and patience in their expressions.

"In which case," the doctor continued haltingly, "I would need…a scalpel, sutures, anesthesia, lots and lots of gauze, clamps, forceps, some means of sterilization..."

Richard cut him off there. "One moment," he said, walking over to his little mat with great purpose. He grabbed his book and ripped out the last page, the one in printed books that is always left blank. Then he found his old briefcase and retrieved a pencil. Armed with these two things, he returned to Ronnie and Holden and held the items out to the doctor. "Make me a list."

"You?"

"Yes. In fact, make me two. On the first, I want you to list all of your dream supplies, everything you just mentioned and more. Then, on the second, I want you to try to think of…shall we say 'creative substitutes,' in case I can't find the ideal option."

"Hold on," Ronnie began. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Honoré general. Obviously," Richard answered with a minute shrug.

"Sirs!" Owen called from his position as lookout. The Three turned, and found the unmistakable look of alarm on the man's face. They were at Owen's side as quickly as possible, following the point of his finger to look out at the jungle.

At first, Richard didn't notice anything, but then Owen whispered, "There. The other side of that bush, watch." Waiting just a few seconds longer, Richard finally saw it. A crypto was hurrying its way through the underbrush, cutting across the forest floor in a diagonal trajectory towards the cave.

After Owen's initial alert, several people had gathered near the mouth of the cave to try to get a glimpse of what was out there. Now, Richard turned back to the group. "Doctor, get everyone as deep into the cave as possible. Fidel, Dwayne, Lily Shaw, you stay here."

Holden immediately obeyed and started getting everyone to hasten to the back of the cave. Ronnie was already loading the weapons, but Richard went and grabbed the machete, taking it over to Owen. Richard took Owen's rifle and replaced it with the machete. "It's a lot to ask, I know. But you have to be our last line of defense. Do not let anything past," he said gravely.

Owen, to his credit, kept a steady hand as he took the weapon and just nodded resolutely. Before the surfacing, Richard had regarded Owen as little more than a beach bum. He slept in a hammock beside a little hut where he offered parasailing trips during the tourist season. What Richard didn't realize about him was that he was also quite technologically savvy and worked as an "app maintenance coder" during the off season. And, as Richard had come to learn during the last three months, he was also a good man with a level head and a great deal of courage.

"Sir, another one," Fidel stated.

Richard looked back out the mouth of the cave, only vaguely acknowledging as Ronnie came up and traded him a handgun for the rifle. Richard angled the gun towards the ground while his eyes focused on the movement developing outside. Sure enough, there was a second crypto following the same path, but nestling down in the brush a few paces away from its partner. Richard cocked the weapon in his hands while he scanned the remaining landscape. To his surprise, the two creatures came to a halt and crouched down in the underbrush. But there were only two of them. That was peculiar. Cryptos usually hunted in larger packs, five or six.

"Where're the rest of them?" Fidel asked, reading everyone's mind.

Richard looked again at the animals, as still as statues and with their backs to the cave, just waiting. "It's an ambush," the detective realized. Then again, "They're setting an ambush. There are people on their way here, likely being chased, and they're about to run headlong into a trap!" Of course. He had read about parties of lionesses employing this same tactic when hunting as a pack in the savannah. Richard had found it fascinating then, reading it in a book. He found it terrifying now.

"People headed here?" Lily repeated in wonder, but Richard was already moving on.

"Alright, eyes here," he said, holding out his hand flat and causing the tiny group of warriors to gather around. Richard began drawing invisible lines on his hand as he laid out the plan. "Here's the mountain. Ronnie - Fidel - Lily, you three will spread out here, near the base. Ronnie, take the middle. Dwayne, you and I will advance into position further out here. Ronnie takes the first shot with the rifle. Make it a good one. Dwayne and I will open fire on whichever one Ronnie didn't hit. Fidel and Lily, you have to use your best judgment with the guns you have; fire on whatever is in range. Once we get started, we have to take them both down quickly, before they have a chance to respond." Richard looked up at the group and was satisfied to see comprehending nods and resolute expressions.

Finally, he concluded his instruction by saying, "Move into position quietly. They don't know we're here; let's maintain that advantage as long as we can. But if they startle," here he looked at Ronnie.

"I'll take my shot," the bigger man finished.

After that, the group all cocked, aimed their weapons at the ground and slowly started filing out of the cave, led by Richard and Dwayne.

The terrain to the immediate exit of the cave was a moderate slope covered in many loose stones. To make their way over the rocks without being heard, everyone had to move very carefully and slowly. Richard bounced his eyes between watching the cryptos and watching his step, breathing steadily through a gaping mouth. Eventually, he made it past the danger zone and could increase his pace a little bit. Then, one of the creatures lifted its head and Richard raised a fist to bring the team's movements to a halt, but it was too late. The crypto turned its head just enough to catch Richard out of the corner of its eye, snapping its head to face him fully.

BANG!

Ronnie's shot echoed through the mountains and dozens of birds high up in the trees all scattered at the noise. The shot hit its target and sunk deep into the crypto's back. It cried out in its piercing, gravely, shriek (a sound Richard had heard plenty of times over the last several months, but which he would never grow accustomed to) and the creature stumbled forward, floundering to the side.

The second crypto spun around, facing the cave and the origin of the shot, and then sprung to action, heading straight for its attackers. Richard and Dwayne opened fire, landing a few shots, but with it moving at top speed, the creature rapidly stole itself out of their range. Richard could hear the three gunmen back at the base open fire while he turned his attention back onto the first crypto. It was wounded, but no longer disoriented, and was splitting its attention between Richard and Dwayne.

"Dwayne!" Richard called, reclaiming the man's focus, and then opened fire on the beast before it could charge. The other officer got the message and joined his boss in tag-teaming the creature to finish the job. After only a few rounds each, the crypto was dead.

Richard was about to turn back to help the rest of the team take out the last one when a flash of movement caught his eye. A woman, clutching a toddler, came running out of the woods.

Richard was stunned for a second at first, having not seen an unfamiliar face in the last three months, but he regained his senses presently. "Here! Over here!" Richard cried, waving his arms at her in an effort to correct her slightly askew trajectory. The woman saw him and came running, a crazed and panicked look in her eye.

Then another person, and another. People emerging from the thick of the jungle, all in a frenzy. Richard ran up to them and pointed back at the mouth of the cave, seeing that the last crypto had been successfully defeated. "Go! Up into the cave, you'll be safe," he instructed, and the group carried on with a new burst of energy, seeing a light at the end of their terrifying tunnel.

Richard turned back to watch the stream of people come in, repeating his message for everyone as they passed. Then, he did a double blink when his eyes settled on a face he knew.

"Catherine!" he called, and the woman looked up when she heard her name.

Her eyes landed on Richard and there was a second of blank confusion before recognition finally dawned in the woman's eyes. "Richard?" she asked in awe, hurrying towards him.

Richard nodded and opened his arms, letting Catherine crash into a relieved hug. "I can't believe it," he heard her speak over his shoulder. "She knew. She knew you'd be alive."

Richard pulled back from the hug and grasped Catherine by the shoulders. There was a certain, wild look in his eye as he asked, "Camille?" Catherine nodded and Richard hurried onto his next question before she could even add a verbal response, "Where is she? Is she here?"

Again, Catherine nodded, this time, pointing back in the direction from whence she had come. "In the back," she said. "She was holding them off with the others."

Even before the words were totally out of the woman's mouth, Richard was lifting his eyes and looking over her head, scanning the line of trees for any sign of Camille. Then he heard a gunshot echoing out of the jungle. "Go," he told Catherine. "The cave at the top of that incline. It's safe."

Separating himself from her, he was about to head off deeper into the woods when he caught the sight of someone falling out of the corner of his eye. He and Catherine both headed over to the older man, who had tripped over a branch, and helped him up. Richard helped the man get steady on his feet and then hooked his arm around Catherine's shoulders. "Get him up there," he ordered and then turned back to find Camille.

It wasn't a long search.

He saw her. Coming out from the foliage, limping and relying heavily on the brawny man who was supporting most of her weight.

And the world came to a halt.

"Camille," he said, with all of the reverence a mortal has when seeing an apparition. He spoke the name again as his feet began to carry him to her. With every footfall against the firm forest floor, time began to speed up, eventually reaching its natural rate as Richard hurried through it, towards the woman he'd thought he'd lost.

"Camille!" he cried a third time, this one loud enough to be heard, and she looked up, their eyes finally meeting for the first time in three months.

"Richard?" she asked faintly, and he was finally close enough to notice tears in her eyes.

He reached out and cupped her cheek with his hand, trying to take in the full sight of her, but that was hard to do when his brain kept insisting that she wasn't real. She couldn't be real. Except here she was. And his fingers were definitely touching something. And there were those eyes, just as he remembered them. Except, she was crying. Why was she crying?

"What's happened to you?" Richard finally asked, looking down at her leg, seeing how she held it gingerly off of the ground.

"She tripped and rolled her ankle, trying to help me!" Camille's comrade supplied, reminding Richard that he even existed and that Camille's arm was presently wrapped around his shoulder.

"They're coming, Richard. We gained a little ground, but they won't stop following us," Camille spoke, and god how he had missed that voice, that accent.

Richard looked past the pair of them, back where the tree line got thicker. "And the rest of your people?"

"Dead."

Richard looked at her gravely, and then he understood the tears. "Then go," he said, turning to the other man. "Take her up the incline. Get her in the cave."

"What about you?" Camille asked.

"I'll be needing this," he replied, taking the scoped rifle that had been hanging from Camille's shoulder by a strap. He tucked his own handgun into the back waistband of his trousers and inspected the new rifle. He could tell Camille was about to say something else, but when a snap sounded from somewhere deep in the jungle, it cut all conversation short. "Get her out of here," he whispered, and immediately, the other man started carting Camille away.

Richard turned his head and took a second to locate Dwayne; he found him directing survivors where to go. Richard loudly whispered the other man's name to get his attention and then nodded for him to come with him. Then, after passing one more glance at the back of Camille's head, Richard took off to move into position. The cryptos were close, he could feel it.

The detective sprinted farther down the slope and put out a hand to catch himself against a tree, quietly lowering himself to one knee, rifle pointed up to the sky for safety. A few yards to the north, Dwayne landed at a parallel tree and crouched behind it. The other man poked his head around the tree and then ducked it back. Looking over at Richard, Dwayne held up three fingers.

Richard nodded in understanding then began a series of motions of his own.

Holding up one finger, Richard mouthed "FIRST ONE" followed by a pointing motion with his full hand, two points back towards the cave, mouthing "LET IT PASS." Then to explain, he pointed back and forth between Ronnie, Fidel, and Lily back towards the cave, mouthing "TO THEM."

He watched Dwayne's face carefully to make sure he was following the message. He appeared to be, so Richard held up two fingers, mouthing "LAST TWO," and then pointed back and forth between himself and Dwayne, mouthing "YOU AND ME."

Dwayne nodded broadly at that. Good, he got the message. Now they just had to be quiet.

Richard concentrated on his breathing and tried to slow his pulse rate down from his short sprint. He let his jaw hang loose and cupped his lips into a wide O to minimize the amount of sound his breaths made. What felt like several eternal seconds ticked by while they waited for the first crypto to pass. When it finally did, it didn't pass between them, as Richard had expected it to do. Instead, Richard heard it slowly creep past behind his back. Based on the wide-eyed look from Dwayne and the gesture to "Shhhh" that he gave him, Richard could only deduce that it passed him at some proximity. He stayed still for as long as he could, until he saw the creature reach the edges of his periphery. Then, stepping out minimally from his hiding place, Richard slowly leveled the rifle at the remaining two cryptos out in the distance.

Because of his angle, he had to aim the rifle in a left-handed stance, not his dominant one. He nestled the butt of the rifle into his left shoulder and dipped his head forward to peer through the scope with his non-dominant eye. The cryptos were staying low to the ground, slowly stalking forward like the monsters that they were. Richard remembered to breathe and kept his breaths slow and even. One of the cryptos opted to climb over a rock instead of moving around it, and it was enough to put the creature easily in Richard's crosshairs. Then…

A barrage of loud banging sounded from behind him as Ronnie and the others opened fire on the first crypto. The loud noise startled not only Richard, but also his prey. The two remaining cryptos stumbled in fright from the threatening sound and staggered backwards, about to flee.

"Ahhhhhh! HEY! LOOK AT ME! LOOK HERE!"

Stunned, Richard turned to see Dwayne, stepped out from his cover, jumping up and down and waving his arms in the air. Richard snapped his head back towards the cryptos to see the inevitable: Dwayne had got their attention, and now they were both making a bee line for him at top speed. Richard lifted the scope to his eye again and panted against the stock of the weapon as he desperately tried to refocus one of the beasts within his crosshairs. But it was hopeless. They were moving too quickly and he couldn't keep up with them.

Throwing aside the rifle, Richard drew his handgun and walked out from his cover. He opened fire on the first one at the same time Dwayne started to do likewise. Between the two of them, they took it out and the creature collapsed to the ground like a ragdoll, skidding across the jungle floor in a flurry of flying leaves and sticks. Richard then turned his attention to the second crypto, which was still barreling towards Dwayne, who fired on the creature mercilessly.

The whole time this had been happening, Richard had been instinctively moving in on Dwayne, and when he realized that the second crypto wouldn't be killed in time, he dropped his weapon and took off at a dead sprint. He leapt in the air towards Dwayne in the same moment that the beast did, and by only a fraction of a moment did the man make it to his target first. He tackled Dwayne to the ground just before the claws of the crypto could close around him.

The two men went tumbling across the jungle floor one way, and the beast went tumbling across the next. Lying on his back, Dwayne regathered his bearings first and threw out his arm, pointing his weapon at the animal once more and opening fire again. This time, he was aided by shots coming from the camp as well. After a deafening display of firepower, the last crypto finally sagged to the ground in defeat.

Richard watched as Dwayne's arm dropped to the ground, his energy totally spent. The man lolled his head over to the side to look at Richard, and for a moment, both men just stared at each other in total awe, hearts pounding loud enough for them both to hear. After a moment, Dwayne grinned at him and then burst into a frightened laugh, his chest heaving up and down.

But Richard was not in a laughing mood. He scrambled to his knees, lunged at Dwayne a second time and clasped him by the shirt with both hands. "What, the HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!" he screamed at him, shaking him by the shirt in anger.

"They were going to run off!" the other man answered, all laughter completely gone from his voice.

"Which is what we wanted them to do!"

"No sir! We have to get those buggers off our island. We had the upper hand. We had to kill them while we had the chance!"

Richard's eyes were wild, his pupils tight with panic, and they bounced back and forth between both of Dwayne's. He took a second to understand Dwayne's words before saying, "No! It was stupid, and reckless, and could have gotten you-" he didn't even have it in him to finish the sentence. In a show of strength that frankly surprised them both, Richard dead-lifted Dwayne off of the ground by his shirt and hauled him into a crushing hug. "I thought you were about to die…God, I really thought it," he said in disbelief, heat welling up in his eyes.

Richard felt an arm slap around his back and hang on, and he heard Dwayne's sober words, muffled against his shoulder, "I know. Thank you, Chief."

After a moment more of that, Richard finally let go and Dwayne was lowered back down to his elbows. The anger flashed back through the detective inspector's eyes as he said sternly, "Don't you EVER do that again."

"Sure thing, Chief," Dwayne said, his cheeky grin back in place.

Still shaking, Richard stood and began looking around for the weapons he had thrown away. Hyped up on adrenaline, his brain had shut down to only focus on one thought at a time. Weapons. Important resources. Cannot lose them. It took him a moment, but he eventually found both of his discarded guns and then he and Dwayne made the slow climb back up to the cave.

Fidel came down halfway to meet them and threw his arms around Dwayne in relief. He reached out and clamped a hand down on Richard's shoulder while he was still hugging Dwayne. The detective and the sergeant shared a look that communicated both "He is such an idiot," and "Thank God he's not dead." Richard patted Fidel's hand and continued to walk past him.

Ronnie then was there and slapped Richard heartily on the back. "Doesn't get much closer than that, does it?" he said, vibrato in his voice (and not the sort that comes from confidence). Richard had no words to say, just looked at Ronnie in a way that thanked him, handed him the weapons, and then moved on.

He made it through the mouth of the cave and his vision blacked out from the lack of light. He couldn't see anything right away, but he instantly heard the sound of applause and cheering and only then assumed that Dwayne and the others must have walked in behind him. He blinked hard a few times, enough to hastily make out the faces that were coming up to him, shaking his hand, congratulating him. He pushed by all of them with little interest, his mind still fixated on a single task at a time. He was looking for…

There she was. She too pushed past a few people and hurried to him. His hands were still shaking even as he reached out for her. His fingertips made it there first and he yanked Camille forcefully towards himself, pulling her into the tightest hug of his life. He held the back of her head and pressed it into his shoulder, listening to her weep into his neck. He couldn't even cry. This was all just a dream to him. And could you even cry in dreams?

"I can't believe it," she said over and over again. "I can't believe you're alive. I thought I would never see you again."

As she spoke, all he could think was that she was reading his mind.


Author's Note: I honestly love this chapter so much. There are so many little moments that I could point to as my favorite. It was thrilling to write the action sequences and I loved the relationship moment it accumulated in for Richard and Dwayne. This chapter was also the one that most closely resembles the dream I had which inspired this whole thing. So the entire time I've been posting this story so far, I just kept thinking, "I can't wait for them to read chapter 6!" So I really hope you enjoyed it!

There's a whole lot more story coming up and, in my opinion, it just gets better from here (now that a certain individual has joined the ranks of the cave people). So I am excited to share that with you soon, and in the meantime, I am excited to hear what you thought of this chapter!