He came up on his elbow only high enough to assess the damage. He took one look, then lay back down. “Your bad. You missed the artery.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know how to kill a man.”

Even though she’d missed a major vessel, the wound was quickly filling up with blood. She pressed another folded square against it. He spat an obscenity, then clamped his jaw so tightly the bones stood out. She guided his hand down and placed it over the cloth. “Keep pressure on it.”

Moving hastily, she retrieved the pocket knife and opened the blade, then doused it with water from one of their remaining bottles. They were down to only three bandanas. She used the knife to cut one of them into strips.

“What are you doing?”

She begin tying the ends of the strips together. When she was done, she pulled all the knots tight, then gauged the length of the strip she’d formed against his waist size. “It helps that you’re slender. Raise up.”

He must’ve realized what she had in mind. He lifted his hips high enough for her to thread one end of the strip behind his back. Pulling it taut, she tied the two ends over the square covering the wound.

“That’s the best I can do until you let me call 911.”

He closed his eyes and breathed hard through his nostrils as though to stave off waves of pain. She pushed four Advil tablets into his mouth and uncapped a bottle of water. “Here. Drink.”

He raised his head to take a few sips. She poured too quickly and water dribbled from the corners of his lips. Without thinking, she wiped the trickles off his scruffy chin, off the C-shaped scar, then off his neck.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She sat back on her heels. “Shaw—”

“Forget it.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say.”

His eyes remained closed. “No, but that’s the first time you’ve addressed me by name, so I know I won’t like anything you say that starts that way.”

“Let me call for help.”

He merely shook his head.

“Please.”

“Turn out the light.”

“No.”

He opened his eyes. “You’re using up the…the batteries, and they’re all I’ve got.”

“Sure they are.”

He sighed. “I swear.”

He seemed close to passing out. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open and focused. His speech was slow, as though he had to search for each word, and holding a thought seemed increasingly difficult.

He repeated softly, “Turn out the light.”

Since she hadn’t found extra spotlight batteries anywhere in the car, she reasoned that he might be telling the truth. She switched off the spotlight, plunging them into darkness.

For a time neither said anything, then he murmured, “If I go under, will you take off?”

“In all honesty? I haven’t decided.”

“Sucks to be you, Jordie Bennett. Always torn between morality and self-interest.”

“Perhaps I should become more like you.”

“Amoral, you mean.”

“If you were amoral, I would be dead.”

“Greed has kept you alive, not morality.” He shifted his weight slightly and moaned. He panted through the pain like a woman in labor. After a minute, he said, “If I pass out, will you turn this place inside out looking for the car keys?”

“Probably. And my phone. What did you do with my phone?”

“It’s a secret. When did you find that propeller blade?”

“While I was washing.”

“I shouldn’t have been so nice to you.”

“It was wedged between two boards in the wall. I couldn’t get it out while you were counting down. I had to leave it there.”

“When I discovered the arrow—”

“I never saw the arrow until you broke it over your knee.”

“I thought I’d trumped you.”

“So did I. I knew I had only one chance to get to that broken propeller.”

“And you took it.”

“Yes.”

“That was brave. But remember…if you’re ever in a similar situation…”

When his voice faltered, she prompted him. “What?”

“Go for the kill.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

She heard the rustle of the tarp beneath him as he moved restlessly, then he lay still and silent for a time. Finally, he said, “You…you…”

She pulled her legs out from under her hips and leaned down closer. “Yes?”

“You could have killed me a dozen times over by now. What’s kept you from it?”

“I told you, and I meant it, that I didn’t want you to die.”

“Because of the kiss?”

“The kiss?”

“You remember it. Sexy as hell? When we went from zero to sixty in about a second and a half? Virtual foreplay?”

“I don’t recall it like that.”

“Hell you don’t.”

“I just don’t want you to die, that’s all.”

“Okay, okay. Thanks for that.”

He groped in the darkness until he found her left hand, drew it to him, and laid it on his chest. The hair on it was soft, the skin hot. It was rising and falling rapidly and erratically. He rubbed the back of her hand and rolled slightly onto his right side, the one uninjured.

“But in case…in case you were to change your mind…”

Too late she realized what he was doing. He clipped the plastic cuff around her left wrist and his right. She made an inarticulate sound of outrage, mostly at herself for being so easily tricked by talk of sexy kisses.

She pulled hard on her hand, knowing already that it was futile. Then she remembered the knife. She had set it down after using it to cut the bandana into strips. She began searching for it with her free hand.

But he was ahead of her on that, too. “It’s in my seat pocket,” he said, “where the cuff was. It was careless of you to set it down within my reach after you used it.”

“I was trying to keep you from bleeding to death!”

“If I do, you’ll be able to roll me over, get the knife, and cut yourself free. But the only way you’ll get to it is if I’m dead.”