Page 2 of Legacy Found

The moment I put my weight on it, the world tilts. My foot skates out from under me on the wet stone and my stomach does that awful drop, but I catch myself — palm slamming down, fingers clawing into a crack, one knee catching hard on a ledge.

"Oops," I gasp.

For one bright, stupid second, I think I've got it. My heart's slamming but I've got a grip, I've got a knee down, I just need to breathe and reset and —

The rock under my hand shifts.

Just an inch. Just enough.

And then I'm falling.

There's no time to be graceful about it. The ledge disappears. My hip hits stone. I scrabble for anything, and there is nothing, and gravity drags me down the scramble in a clatter of loose rock and flailing limbs.

My arm scrapes something. My palms shred. The world is elbows and sky and the bright white shock of pain, and I come to a stop in a heap at the bottom of the steep bit with my ankle folded underneath me.

The pain arrives about half a second late, and when it lands, it lands.

"—okay," I hear myself wheeze. "Okay. Okay."

I lie there breathing, taking inventory the way the first-aid course taught me. Head — fine, didn't hit it. Spine — fine, I can wiggle my toes, thank God. Hands — stinging, gravel-studded, one long scrape up my forearm beading red.

Ankle.

I look down at my ankle and my whole body says no.

I try to stand anyway, because I am, apparently, an idiot. I get my good foot under me, grab a rock, and push — and the second any weight touches the bad ankle, the pain whites out my vision and a sound comes out of me that I'm glad no one's around to hear.

I sit back down. Hard. "Right," I breathe. "Not that, then."

I assess the situation with the cold practicality of someone who refuses to panic. Two miles in. Alone. On a Wednesday, on a trail that’s empty. My ankle is the size and color of a small aubergine and getting bigger. I could crawl — I actually get about four feet of dragging myself along before my shredded palms and my screaming ankle hold a meeting and veto that plan.

Calling emergency services because I fell down is embarrassing. I work at a hiking store. I tell people how to layer socks, be safe, take the trekking poles. And now I get to explain to a very patient dispatcher that I've been defeated by a wet rock.

I call for help.

The paramedic who reaches me is named Priya, and she is a godsend. "Tell me what happened," she says, kneeling by my ankle.

“I slipped on a rock and went ass over teakettle.”

She laughs. Good. At least someone is enjoying this. They splint me, clean the gravel out of my palms, and load me onto a stretcher I feel absurd on, and then it's the ambulance and England sliding past the little window while I clutch a foil blanket and try to look like I've got this.

"You're taking it well," Priya says.

"Practice. Being embarrassed is basically my hobby. That and hiking — which, as you can see, go great together."

She grins. "First fall?"

"First one where I had to call you guys."

The hospital is too-bright fluorescent light and that smell every hospital on earth shares. The X-ray says what I already suspected — no break, just a bad sprain. The kind that comes with crutches and stay off it for a few weeks and a look from the doctor that says he's seen a thousand of me and we all think we're the exception.

A nurse cleans my cuts, then reaches for a little tray. "Just a quick blood draw, and we'll get you sorted."

"Is that standard?" I ask, because I like knowing why things happen.

"Routine, love. New protocol — everyone who comes through gets a panel now. Health authority thing." She ties the band, taps for a vein. "Barely takes a second."

"Ah." I look away, because I'm brave about ankles and a total coward about needles.