Page 76 of Spears and Shadows (Defenders of the Light)
“Yeah,” Adam managed to wheeze between breaths. “I’m very lightheaded.”
Drew reached up and ran his fingers deftly over Adam’s throat. It looked to Nora as if his Adam’s apple had pushed off to the left side.
“Shit,” Drew plunged his hands back into the supply kit, searching frantically for something. “His lung is completely collapsed from the air getting in. It’s shifted his lungs off to the side and it’s compressing his heart.”
Now that Nora looked, Adam’s exposed chest was only expanding on one side with each of his labored breaths, and his normally bronze skin had taken on a ghostly quality.
“A tension pneumothorax,” Thad said, nodding quickly.
Drew paused for the barest of moments and looked up from the supplies he was organizing on Adam’s stomach in surprise.
“I did read the modern emergency medicine books you brought me you know,” Thad retorted.
“Then you can help me with the needle decompression. We need to puncture the chest to let the air out.”
Nora picked up Adam’s hand from where it rested in the snow next to her and squeezed tightly.
“Will he be okay?”
It was Odelle who asked the question everybody had been thinking. She had managed to scoot over from where she was seated in the snow and now came up next to Nora.
Drew nodded, busily palpating the location of Adam’s ribs before wiping his chest with alcohol wipes.
“If we let the air out, the lung should re-expand, and he should stabilize. Then we can get him to a hospital and put a proper chest tube in.”
Drew nodded to Thad, who put one hand on Adam’s shoulders and the other on his hip to keep him still.
“I suspect I’m not going to like this,” Adam panted, staring apprehensively at the excessively long needle that Drew had just unsheathed.
“Probably not,” Drew admitted. “But you’ll like being alive to tell the story.”
Nora gripped Adam’s hand tightly in both of hers. Odelle put an arm around Nora comfortingly, and Nora leaned into it. It was a far cry from her younger sister’s earlier hostility, but Nora wasn’t going to question it at a time like this.
Carefully, Drew inserted the needle between Adam’s ribs. Adam hissed in pain and jolted, but Thad’s firm hands kept him steady until the needle was fully inserted, and the small red stopper on the end of it was pressed against his chest.
There was a quiet rush of air like a small pressure valve being released, and Drew relaxed next to her.
“I got it,” he murmured, sounding relieved. “It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these in the field.”
Within moments, Adam’s chest began to expand more evenly again, and the labored sounds of his breathing decreased. The color started returning to his cheeks and Nora almost threw herself across him to hug him in relief, but she stopped herself when she realized it probably wasn’t a good idea to jostle him just yet.
Instead, she contented herself with giving Adam a watery smile and holding his hand to her still armored chest. Drew was now moving over to Odelle to help her re-strap her prosthetic leg and make sure she wasn’t too banged up. Nora stayed where she was, knowing Odelle was in good hands.
The snow was now drifting down slowly, and it would have been almost a serene picture if not for the blood staining the snow beneath Adam. He smiled back at her and she knew from just that look that he was proud of what she had accomplished today. Through their love, they had managed to push the Shadow back and claim a victory for the Light.
Adam’s face began to blur before her eyes, and she frowned. She was finding it hard to stay upright on her knees. It was the feeling of when the danger has passed and the adrenaline drains from your system, only magnified a thousand times.
Nora’s ears rang, but large hands grasped her shoulders even as Odelle’s worried voice repeated her name.
“She’ll be fine; she’s just exhausted,” came Ezra’s voice from very far away. “She’s never used the Light before. It’s taken a lot out of her.”
“The what now?” she heard Odelle ask before she didn’t hear anything else.
