MacAlister let out a hiss of pain as his companions hefted him into the boat.
“I’ll get his boot off,” Emily said as the other sailor moved to the boat’s controls and started the engine. She unlaced the boot and began to gently ease it off his foot. MacAlister’s clenched teeth were enough to tell her it was painful.
“Sorry,” she said, wincing as she pulled the boot away with a final tug. She stripped off the thick sock. Beneath it she could see his ankle was swollen and there was some bruising around the joint. Gently, she ran a finger over the swelling, expecting MacAlister to cry out in pain, but he didn’t even wince. “No pain?” she asked.
“Just a little,” he replied. “Not too bad.”
“What the hell happened back there?” said Parsons.
Emily began to explain, but MacAlister interrupted when she stumbled over her words describing the fate of Rusty. “She saved my life is what she did. If it hadn’t been for Emily, those little bastards would have been chowing down on the both of us, as well as Rusty.”
“The little ginger bastard didn’t deserve that,” Parsons said somberly. “I hope he gives the fuckers food poisoning.”
“I don’t think the ankle is sprained, but without an X-ray, I can’t be sure. There’s some mild swelling, but your boot probably saved you from a severe sprain or a broken ankle,” said Amar. They were in a room on the ground floor of Building One that had been designated as a makeshift medical center. Amar had been using it to treat the inevitable cuts and scrapes that the crew had incurred since landing. The majority of the HMS Vengeance’s sick bay had been destroyed in the sub fire, so Amar had resorted to some painful probing of MacAlister’s ankle. “I’ve given you a tetanus shot for the bite and stitched the ear and other bites. You will live… probably, but you’ll need to keep off your feet for a few days at least. We’ll keep an eye on the swelling and assess accordingly.”
Emily had also received a tetanus shot for the injury to her hand. She scratched absentmindedly at the puncture wound on her butt from the injection. It itched worse than the bite.
“Will I still retain my dashing good looks and cutting wit?” MacAlister asked good-humoredly.
“Unfortunately, you will remain just as bloody ugly as you’ve always been, there’s no cure for that. As to the cutting wit, that’s been dead for far too long,” Amar fired back, then added, “Rest, understood?”
MacAlister nodded. He lay on a cot, his injured foot elevated on a pile of manuals they had liberated from an unused room, an icepack wrapped around his ankle to help relieve the swelling.
“How long before he’s able to walk?” Captain Constantine asked.
“He needs to keep off it for a couple of days, just to be sure. Like I said, he was lucky.”
“Captain, it’s nothing. I’m okay, really.”
The captain gave MacAlister a long appraising stare. “I know you, Jimmy. So I’m giving you a direct order: Stay off your feet for the next few days. You’ll be no good to us if you make that injury worse, do you hear me?”
Emily could see the reluctance in MacAlister’s face as he nodded his acquiescence.
“Rhiannon and I will keep you company,” said Emily. “You won’t be bored.”
“I found some new books,” said Rhiannon from the opposite side of the cot.
MacAlister threw up both hands in mock surrender. “Alright, I give in. I’ll stay put.”
“Great,” said Rhiannon, “what would you like me to read to you first?”
Jimmy MacAlister had always known he had wanted to go to sea.
When he was growing up in Rosyth, he told Emily, he would spend every free hour wandering around the navy yards and docklands, watching the ships come and go, listening to the different accents and languages of the sailors as they disembarked, wondering where they were coming from and where they were bound.
At nineteen, he’d joined the Royal Marines, the elite amphibious infantry branch of Britain’s Royal Navy. He was a natural soldier, not because he was good at killing, but because he was good at not getting himself or the men who inevitably fell under his command killed. Moving up to the Special Boat Service, the Royal Navy’s Special Forces, was the next logical step in his career. He’d failed on his first attempt, but a few years later, he tried again and was accepted. He’d been with them ever since.
“My dad left when I was just a wee lad, I don’t even remember him,” he told Emily on the second day. “And my ma died when I was twenty-two. No brothers or sisters, so there was never anything to tie me to my hometown. The place was a shithole, anyway. So, the navy became my family.”
Emily was surprised at how at ease she felt around MacAlister. So much so that she found herself sharing her own past with him. Perhaps it was because he was such a willing listener (or a captive audience, she wasn’t quite sure which). He was never judgmental of any of the decisions she had been forced to make. Which was why, on the third day of his recuperation, she told him about what she had done to Rhiannon’s little brother, Benjamin. How he had slowly transformed. How she had taken the pillow and suffocated the boy.
Emily found herself crying at the memory. Her shoulders heaving as she sobbed quietly into her hands.
MacAlister reached out and eased her hands away from her face. “There’s no shame in doing what you have to do to survive,” he told her. “You chose the only option that made sense under the circumstances. You made the right choice to ensure you and Rhiannon survived.”
“But he was just a boy,” she whimpered.
“We’ve all done things we regret, Emily. We try to make the best decision we can when we’re faced with a shitty choice. I would have done the same thing in your situation. This world is going to be nothing but hard choices from now on. Most people would not be able to make them, they would not be able to do what you did. They would die. You, you’re a survivor, Emily. Survivors are always the ones that make the hardest choices.”
Emily wiped away the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, leaned in, and kissed MacAlister on the cheek. She began to pull back but stopped and moved in closer, kissing him lightly on the lips.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Am I intruding?” came a voice from over Emily’s shoulder. It was Amar, the medic.
“No,” she said and forced a smile to her lips as she pulled away. “Come on in.”
“Does it hurt at all?” Amar asked as MacAlister took a few tentative steps with his injured ankle, Emily on one side of him, Amar on the other, lending support.
“I’m not going to be playing soccer anytime soon, but, no, there’s not too much pain.”
Amar bent to check the elasticated support sock he had slipped over MacAlister’s ankle. “Lift your leg up,” Amar ordered. “Good, now move your foot from left to right.” MacAlister did as he was ordered. “Okay, now up and down… good, good. Let’s see if we can get the foot into your boots.”
MacAlister sat down and Emily helped to ease his boots on. “Feels good, doc,” he said as he cautiously stood up, shifting his weight slowly from his good foot to the injured one.
Amar looked pleased with the results. “Good,” he said. “Now for God’s sake, try to be more careful from now on, will you?”