Kick Start by Michele Martin Bossley

Author:Michele Martin Bossley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459818156
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2019-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

I jumped off my bike, letting it fall against a tree. “Kelsey!” I leaned over her. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer, but she opened her eyes. I touched her shoulder. “Kelsey?”

She winced in pain. “Don’t move me,” she gasped.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” I asked.

“I crashed,” she whispered. “No biggie, but I landed on that stump on my back.”

I looked at the tree stump behind us and said a few really bad words. “Can you move?” I tried hard not to panic.

“My arms and my legs,” she said, reading my thoughts. “I’m not paralyzed.”

I gave silent thanks for that.

“But I’ve been lying out here for a while. It feels like hours,” she said. “No one stopped. I figure the sweepers must be coming soon.”

I’d forgotten all about the race. “They should be, unless they’re somewhere else on the course.”

“There’s a bad spot a few miles back. A bunch of guys got stuck getting up a hill in the mud,” Kelsey whispered. “They’re probably all there.”

“I could ride back there to get help,” I said.

“It won’t help. There’s no cell service, so they can’t even call 9-1-1,” Kelsey said. “And anyway, there’s no way to get an ambulance up here.”

“What about the emergency helicopter?” I suggested.

“No place for it to land.” Kelsey tried to sit up, her breath catching in her throat. She was in too much pain to even cry.

“Be careful.” I tried to support her, but she shook her head.

“I think my ribs are broken,” she said. Her body was shaking, and her hands were cold. I stripped off my dirty gloves and tried to warm her fingers in my palms.

“I could ride back to the camp. We could get a stretcher and come up on foot.”

“That will take hours. It’s probably twenty miles back to camp. I can’t wait out here that long.”

I knew she couldn’t. I don’t have a lot of medical knowledge, but I know about shock. A person can die from it, and Kelsey was already shaking and pale.

I didn’t know what to do. I could wait here with her—eventually someone would come. But each passing minute meant more time without a doctor’s help.

“I’m going to ride,” Kelsey said.

“What?” I snapped to attention.

“I’m going to ride,” she said again.

“You can’t ride with broken ribs! And you might be bleeding internally—we don’t know.”

“We can’t just stay here,” Kelsey said. “I have to get off this mountain or I’m going to die out here.” She said this calmly, like she was discussing the weather.

I stared at her. She stared back. “Can you do it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Help me?” She looked terrified. I knew I was.

“Of course. Tell me what to do,” I said.

“Help me stand, but don’t put any pressure on my body. Just put your arms under my armpits to keep me steady.”

Any other time I would have made a joke about deodorant, but this was not the moment. My mouth felt as dry as cotton as I slipped my arms around her. I didn’t want to hurt her.

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