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“Damn you!” Lauren snarled, falling back against the tree where she was tossed. Her head struck the trunk. The echo of it rang in her ears. “I said leave him alone!”
Bigfoot pulled off his mask. He turned around and roared at her. The man’s face had been painted around the eyes to help conceal the fact that it was a mask. It gave him a menacing look. The fact that the guy was as big as a mountain didn’t hurt anything either. “You bit me!” The Bigfoot protested, holding his arm. She had, too — as hard as she could. Blood welled up under the marks left behind by her teeth. “You’re always mean to me. I don’t like you.” He moved to strike her, but he didn’t.
“You!” Suddenly, everything came flooding back to her. She’d run into these two before. It hadn’t been Bigfoot that captured her. It had been this ... this ... hoax-monger in a monkey suit. Jess’ voice reverberated in her ringing ears.
“Shut up, Billy!” The other man snarled at the fake Bigfoot.
The giant seemed to cower. “Sorry, Mitch. Ain’t it bad enough I already got a cut on my hand from that metal at the campsite? I don’t need her biting me too.”
“You obviously didn’t learn your lesson last time. She already kicked you in the gonads,” Mitch said.
“I’ll teach her another lesson if she bites me again.” Billy drew back his fist to strike her again. He didn’t. Lauren set her jaw and stared him down defiantly. She realized he was pouting more than anything.
“We’ll just have to teach her a better lesson this time, Billy,” Mitch said.
“What are we going to do?” Billy’s eyes widened. He lowered his hand and stepped away from her.
“We’ll take ’em down the lava tube. We’ll take em so deep they’ll never find their way out. We’ll leave ’em there.”
Billy shrugged. He put his mask on. He collected the unconscious Rowan and slung him over his shoulder with little effort. Rowan moaned.
“You’re hurting him!” Lauren sneered.
“Look at how strong I am.” He gloated to Lauren. “I’m stronger when I’m Bigfoot. I’m like Superman or something.” He growled. “I can do a lot of things. I can pick up heavy stuff better. I can run faster. I can climb trees better. I can do everything better.”
“Zip it already, dork.” Mitch snapped angrily. He came over and stood in front of Lauren. She refused to stand. “You gonna walk, or do I have to carry you?” He asked. When she refused to follow his order to stand, he threw his hands down. “Fine.” He reached down to pick her up by her shoulders. He hadn’t expected her reaction. She came up fighting. He’d left himself exposed. She took advantage of the situation to ram her knee into his groin, then bust him over the head with her bound hands. When he buckled, she kicked him in the face. He fell to his knees.
She ran over and kicked the Bigfoot in the back of the knee. He roared as he fell hard, dropping Rowan, who howled in pain as his ribs shifted. Jagged bone grated against tender flesh. She shoved the giant down and pinned him to the ground, catching him in a sleeper hold. Lauren knew she couldn’t defeat a brute his size in a battle of strength. If she could take him out before he could get back on his feet, then she had him.
Lauren never saw it coming. A fist caught her across the side of the face. Her grip loosened as she slumped. Stars danced in her eyes. Mitch stood, still buckled over. His eye was starting to swell shut. He’d sucker punched her just the same. The darkness came for her. The last thing she remembered was seeing him draw back his fist to strike again.
* * *
When she came to, it was in complete darkness. She could hear a deep voice groaning beside her. “Rowan?” She roused fully. She reached for him. She found him in the dark. He yelped when her hand found him. “Rowan, are you okay?”
“What the hell? I thought I saw Bigfoot.” He groaned. “What the hell hit me?”
“That was Bigfoot’s buddy, Mitch,” she said, pushing herself up to seated, realizing her hands were still bound. “You’re wheezing.”
“I can’t ... catch my ... breath.”
“Think your ribs may be broken?”
“Oh, I’m sure of it,” he groaned. “I’ve got to sit up.”
“Let me help you,” Lauren said.
“Where ... are we?” He asked. She caught his arm, trying to help him sit up. He sucked in his breath as she helped him “Ow...ow...” He wheezed as he leaned back against Lauren’s chest.
“I don’t know. A cave?” Lauren said, resting her head on his shoulder. “Are your hands tied?”
“Yeah,” he said. “My feet too. You?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I have an ace in my sleeve.”
“You do?”
“A Swiss Army knife in my pocket, actually,” she said, getting a hand into the side pocket on her cargo pants. “Idiots made the mistake of binding my hands in front of me, instead of behind my back.” A moment later, her hands were free; then her feet. “We have to get you out of here. You need a doctor.” She took the knife and carefully cut him loose.
“Where’d the Bigfoot go?” He gasped.
“You mean the hoax-monger in a monkey suit? Billy is what the other one called him.”
“Oh.” He groaned. “Just a couple of guys?”
“Yeah.” Lauren said, disappointed by that fact.
“Where’d they go?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I got sucker-punched too.” Her face was throbbing. It was everything she could do to keep it together. Right now, getting Rowan out of here before his condition deteriorated was her only priority. If he did have broken ribs, the wheezing suggested a lung might be punctured. She didn’t have to be a trained medic to know wheezing like that wasn’t a good sign. She desperately hoped he wouldn’t succumb to a tension pneumothorax. She’d taken a human anatomy class in college and had to dissect a human cadaver. Their subject, a vagrant who’d been struck by a car, had died of one. She cringed remembering the look of the dead flesh and the trauma she witnessed.
“Got a flashlight too?” Rowan asked.
“I wish. We’ve got to get you up. Can you?” She got to her feet. It was an effort to get him to stand. He growled at her, clutching his injured side with the other arm. “Watch your head. There’s not a lot of clearance.”
Had he been able to stand to his full height, he might have whacked his head on the cave ceiling. Instead, he leaned heavily on her. He doubled over painfully as he shuffled.
Lauren put out a hand to feel the cave wall, so she didn’t hit her head or Rowan’s. They worked their way along the narrow passageway, but within a few yards, he was gasping for breath.
Lauren paused. “Take a minute.”
“Yeah,” Rowan panted, but dropped to one knee. “You may have ... to go without me. Get help.”
“I am not leaving you, Rowan.” Lauren was firm in her resolve on this matter. “If we’re down in one of those lava tubes I may never find my way out. Even if I do, I may never find my way back.”
He couldn’t argue with that logic. “Okay ... okay ...” he said trying to keep his breathing slow and shallow. “Go slow ...” he willed himself back onto his feet.