[Kiowa Warrior]

Once again sorry for the delay in writing the next part, but real life has just been killing me lately and I have next to no free time at the present!

Not my best chapter I don't think, and it's more filler than anything else really...but filler in the non-light hearted sense though, lol.

Anyway hope you're good fbf, haven't spoken to you in a while

The Problem of Pain

I can’t say that I’m worried about my cut elbow getting infected at all, since if the two deeper slashes on my upper arm managed to heal so quickly and cleanly I doubt that this lighter one will.

And what was it John said to me the other day?

They heal quicker here…

Why on earth that is I don’t know, but I believe him.

Why on earth I believe him is something else I don't know.

I bring my elbow up to have another look at it, wincing as the movement stretches the wound and produces another sharp stab of pain along my arm.

‘We ought to get that wrapped up for you as soon as,’ Ethan remarks, both needlessly and a smudge too brightly I immediately think with a flash of irritation.

And almost as immediately I feel guilty.

He’s only looking out for me, I argue to myself, even if infection is not one of my greatest worries at the moment.

And his suggestion to get me back to the beach was the perfect excuse to turn away from her and get to thinking.

‘Yeah I know, it’s starting to sting,’ I say truthfully. But also uncomfortably, since it's just a superficial laceration after all and I don’t want to be thought of as the kind of weak and pathetic woman who comes over all flustered and teary eyed at the sight of a trickle of her own blood.

‘But it’s not that bad at all really,’ I add, straightening my arm and making an effort to keep my face straight as my abused skin shoots out another protest at such a jarring movement.

But he still has that bland - yet somehow probing - half smile on his face, and I unconsciously lick my suddenly dry lips as I feel a need to fill the silence he’s created.

‘And besides, cuts and things heal quicker around here anyway, so it’s not like you’ll have to operate on me,’ I joke, knowing how lame it sounds the second I close my mouth.

‘…what?’ He says, making his mouth into an even more relaxing smile as his eyes almost imperceptibly narrow and brighten, his dark pupils focusing on me.

‘Nothing,’ I laugh dryly and unconvincingly. ‘Just, you know, I’ve noticed that my cut arm healed a lot quicker here then it did when I sliced it open last year back home, so at least I won’t have to guide you through the finer points of transhumeral amputation any time soon.’

I know I’m rambling I know I know and I kick myself for it, feeling a rush of heat to my face as I rub my good arm with self-conscious embarrassment as Ethan tilts his head slightly as he continues to stare.

Well done Ellie because, once again, you just can’t keep your mouth shut when you have to. Why can’t you just blush and turn your head away from it all, rather than desperately try to fill the void with explanations and descriptions and anything else your rambling mind can cook up to try and explain away what you’ve said.

‘…transhumeral amputation?’ He questions casually. Well tries to question casually, but I note the fine layer of steel underlying it.

I swallow, wondering where he’s going with this.

‘Yeah, it’s not like you’re going to have to borrow a hacksaw from anyone oh just shut or anything from everyone, not while we’re on the Magic Island at least.’

Oh God now he’s narrowing his eyes and tightening his mouth. You’re such an idiot, must be the stress of nearly being skewered by a flying knife that’s making you ramble and-

‘Magic Island?’ He questions sharply. Knowing he said it sharply and instantly trying to soften his features but I saw it.

I saw the flash of uncertainty and power illuminated by a fierece intelligence for all of half a second before he shut it down.

‘Well maybe not magic in the proper sense of the word magic,’ I pathetically try to back-pedal. ‘Magic in the sense that we all survived the crash and are still living and you know…’ I trail off and see him respond politely - respond correctly - by smiling and nodding his head in agreement, as if he had never expected any other reasoning behind my comments.

But we both know that isn’t true.

We walk in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, as I realise that the sun and sweat and dirt and blood plastering most of my body in unequal amounts doesn’t feel that strange any more.

Uncomfortable yes, but strange…not as oddly unsettling as it first was. I don’t feel…well, I don’t feel that out of place at this very moment in time I guess…

I shake my head, knowing that I just haven’t had enough water or sleep or nights without someone dying recently.

I feel a twinge of discomfort that Ethan is still walking quite close besides me, and I wonder if it’s best I ever so politely distance myself from him. Maybe I can make an excuse to go and get some water from John, or even confront her…

…Ashley, that’s her name. And I’m not sure-

‘You a doctor?’ Ethan asks suddenly, quietly, and I’m whipped out of my thoughts on my accidental attacker as his voice enters - far too closely - into my ear.

I shuffle half a pace away from him, trying to make it look natural as we cross over a fallen log.

‘Why do you say that?’ I ask, for some reason drawing back and not wanting to confirm or deny anything about myself to him right now.

‘Because most people would just say ‘at least I won’t have to guide you through the finer points of chopping off my arm above the elbow’ rather than use the correct terminology.’

For a second I don’t know what he’s talking about, but then it comes back to me.

Transhumeral amputation.

Not that I ever performed any, but everyone even thinking about going to medical school would know that term.

Which might mean…

‘Are you a doctor as well?’ I question more suddenly than I had intended.

Ethan just smiles, and politely excuses himself on the pretext of talking to Ashley to see how she’s doing.

I continue walking, confused, wondering how I managed to get myself surrounded by the strangest people on this island. But there’s something else: something else niggling at me from Ethan, besides his manner in general.

It’s only when we reach the end of the jungle and have the beach in sight that it hits me:

‘Are you a doctor as well?’

It hits me that I confirmed his question before he blatently avoided mine.

The sun is still strong and the humidity has soaked me through, but I shiver and feel a tingle run along my freshly cut arm.

***

Another night, another fire, another round of pain to puzzle over.

Not just the physical pain - my elbow cut is now clean and covered - but rather the other types.

After going back to Locke and Ashley Ethan didn’t say another word to me, and once he’d refilled his water bottle at the beach he’d gone into the jungle and hadn’t been seen since. I haven’t bothered to ask John where he might have gone, not least because I don’t think I really want to know at the moment, but because right now he’s talking with Ashley.

I’m not sure irritation is the correct emotion to be feeling when I think of that, but there we go.

Not a lot of things are correct any more anyway.

Irritation that she hasn’t bothered to come and check on me since she nearly stuck a knife in me? That she hasn't apologised again and again, because that's exactly what I'd do? That John thinks she needs more attention than I do? That I haven’t had the guts to storm up to her and demand that she bloody well stop lying and tell me the truth about what happened in the jungle?

I sigh, not knowing if it’s all or some or none of these things.

But I do know that she’s lying, that’s for damn sure.

I quite like running too, but in the park with my mp3 player in my ears, not through a strange jungle with a huge knife in my hands. If she wasn’t running from something then she was running towards something instead, and the paranoid part of my brain - the part that immediately skips to the worst possible case scenario with a desperate hope to find a solution to it just in case - wonders if I really was her intended target for something, and that she would have then dealt with my body and the questions that would follow the best possible way she-

Stop it stop it, it’s not fair to think that of her, you don’t even know her.

And it’s a damn good thing too, a nasty voice in my head immediately rasps.

Something’s the matter with her no doubt about that, but what?

Like with the plane crash - the crash that seems to have happened months ago - I didn’t lose it with her: didn’t start shouting and crying and demanding to know just what the hell had happened and what have I got to do with it all?

Not my style.

Not really out of choice either, since I often wonder if it would be better if I could have a release like that straight away after a shock a tragedy a terror but I don’t.

I can’t.

So I just looked at her instead, looked and tried to distance myself from the scene to try and figure it out objectively as my heart hammered painfully and I felt dizzy and sick from fear and adrenaline.

And she didn’t like that, not one bit at all. I could tell.

I could tell because I don’t like it when it happens to me.

I sigh again, knowing that if I don’t do it now it will just be harder to later. I don’t really want to do it and I don’t really have to do it, but I know that it will rest on my mind, lightly at first, but then burrowing deeper and deeper until all my thoughts are consumed and defined by it and then I have to do it, and it could be - as it often has been - at the expense of something more important.

The glorious symptoms of minor OCD I congratulate myself sardonically.

If Ashley didn’t like my looking at her she certainly isn’t going to like this, but I know that I will eventually do it anyway, so it may as well be now.

Why fight destiny right?

Especially if it’s a destiny of your own making.

I get up from the sand slowly, knowing where he is and take my time to walk as casually over to him as possible.

Which is probably not casual at all; it’s probably like when you’re drunk and know you’re drunk but don’t want to appear drunk, so you make an effort to walk as upright and normally as possible but just succeed in drawing attention to how pissed you really are.

Oh I must reek of regret right about now...

I come up to where he’s sitting outside his tent and stop, waiting respectfully while he lowers the book he’s reading from the light of the flickering fire at his side.

‘Help you sweetheart?’ The man called Sawyer asks slowly, looking at me curiously as I clasp my hands behind my back and stand up straighter.

‘Yes,’ I reply crisply, my eyes leaving his to travel over the dark horizon as I take a breath.

‘I need one of the hidden guns you keep denying you have, and if you can guarantee your silence I have something very worth your while to give in exchange.’

*****