The two began their trek down the woody mountain trail, this time not caring about the beautiful scenery. Jesse was looking over his shoulder practically every two seconds.

"Jess, relax! Over-reacting and panicking isn't going to get us down any faster. Besides, you're making me nervous."

"Yeah, well you would be too if you were being stalked by murderers!"

Steve exasperatedly sighed and walked ahead of Jesse, who was still panicking. *I wish he would get a grip.* But Jesse's fears were made manifest when they both heard something behind them. Steve quickly spun around into a defensive stance, his hand on his gun at his side. Jesse on the other hand, not being quite so dexterous in all his panic, whirled around and fell to the ground, landing hard on his strangely twisted foot. Meanwhile, a bullet zipped past the place where his head had been.

"Jesse, get in the bush, quick!" Steve ordered, dragging his friend into the shrubs that just happened to be so handily located behind them. He subtly peeked out from behind the bush to check for any more eminent danger as he not quite so subtly yelled at Jesse. "Jess, you're lucky you fell when you did! You almost got shot in the head!" Steve just now looked over at his friend, who was clutching his leg in pain. "Jess, what's the matter?! What happened?"

Jesse's voice squeaked with the pain and tears glistened in his bright gray-blue eyes. "It's my ankle! I-I twisted it when I fell! Ohhh, it hurts!" he whimpered. "Steve, I don't know if I can walk!"

A million thoughts raced through Steve's head as he tried to do something for his injured friend. "Okay Jesse, calm down, you'll be all right." He began to rumage through Jesse's pack. "Where's that ten-pound first aid kit?" He found and opened the large box of medical supplies and retrieved an elastic bandage while Jesse carefully began unlacing his shoe and oh-so-painfully took it off, assessing the damage. The throbbing ankle was swelling and beginning to turn purple.

"Oooo, is it supposed to look like that?" Steve tried to humor his buddy.

Jesse didn't get the joke (for once in his life.) "Well my other one doesn't, if that's what you mean," Jesse hissed as he scrutinized his swollen foot. He then realized what he had said and attempted an apologetic grin. "It's a bad sprain, but I don't think it's broken. It's hard to tell though."

Steve took the bandage and wrapped it around Jesse's ankle. "Too tight?"

Jesse shook his head. "Fine."

Steve finished wrapping the bandage. "Do you think you can put any weight on it?"

"I could if I had those crutches that you made me leave behind!" Jesse snorted, smirking. He put it aside and got serious as Steve glared halfway menacingly at him. "I'm not sure, help me up." Steve pulled his injured friend's arm around his neck and lifted him off the ground ... all the way off the ground.

Jesse grimaced at him. "Heh, this isn't gonna work."

Steve lowered him back to the ground on one unsteady foot. Jesse attempted a tentative limp on the toes of his sprained foot, sending even more pain shooting through it.

Steve caught Jesse as his ankle gave out and he started to collapse. "Do you think you can make it down?" he asked hopefully, gently lowering Jesse to the boulder behind him. "It's pretty steep."

*Stupid question,* Jesse thought as he looked down the precipitous mountain. "Steve, I'm not even sure if I could make it down anyway. It looked a lot less steep on the way up."

"Jess, that was the trail on the other side of the mountain. This way was much quicker." Steve thought for a moment, a bit exasperated. "Well, I guess we'll have to try to make it over there and get down that way. But we have to get moving." He again helped Jesse to a foot and took his cell phone out of his pocket.