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And this time, she connected. I saw them scythe open his clothes and shred through his skin and muscle like tissue paper. He howled in agony, rolling away just in time to dodge a second swipe, leaving a trail of blood on the floor as he rolled and rolled again. When he came to rest on his back a couple of feet to the right of the bear, he had a chunk of granite in hand—a piece I had thrown at her. This time, when she bounded at him, one paw raking at his face with vicious speed, he rolled away again so the attack missed. As she lunged down at him, intending to savage him with her jaws, he swung the hunk of rock with all his force, levering his body over into a half-roll. I heard it crack against the side of her jaw and saw her thick skin and the fat under it split open wide enough that the ivory of her teeth showed through.

He smashed again and again, and again, screaming until his voice went hoarse.

Shaking her head and bellowing, the bear finally staggered backward. She pivoted and ran, then, still bellowing and roaring, and I heard the pitter-patter of cub paws vanishing after her.

"JAX!" I screamed, tossing my useless bit of stick aside and throwing myself at him.

Moaning, Jax rolled to one side, and I saw the extent of his injuries.

My heart squeezed.

It was…bad.

He had five deep gashes spaced unbelievably far apart, spanning from his hip to his lat muscle in a ladder up his left side. He was bleeding profusely, and I knew I didn't have a lot of time to waste on panic.

This, at least, was more familiar territory, unfortunately; I knew all too well what to do with bleeding men. I stripped his tee and flannel off; he’d had his hoodie still tied around his waist, and I wadded it up and shoved it against his side, pressing his hands over it. “Push, hard. I need to get the med kit," I said, fighting like hell to keep my voice steady. "I'll be back as fast as I can, okay?"

"Ah fuck, oh god, fuck. It hurts, Tea." His words scraped out of his hoarse throat and through his clenched teeth as he writhed on the ground.

"I know, I know. I’m so sorry, Jax. I'll be right back."

I sprinted back to camp, snagged the backpack, and sprinted back to Jax. We had a nearly full bottle of treated water in the bag, and the med kit came with a syringe. I drew water into the syringe and squirted it into the first claw-wound, rinsing the blood away so I could see how deep it was—to the muscle but not the bone, thank god. He'd twisted away enough, it seemed. I rinsed the others, refilled the syringe, and rinsed them again; I repeated the rinsing until I’d gone through half the bottle and was as sure as I could be the wounds were clean. I remember that being especially important with bears, since, as scavengers and even carrion eaters in a pinch, their claws often have all sorts of gnarly shit on them that can badly infect a wound.

I packed the wounds with gauze—gently filling the gaping gashes to absorb the blood. I then taped thick lengths of folded gauze over the wounds—and, considering we were in the wilderness facing who knew what until rescue found us, I taped plastic over them as well to keep them dry.

Through it all, Jax moaned, winced, and hissed, withstanding it as bravely as any operator I've ever met. Which is a metric fuckton.

"Can you stand?" I asked. "We need to get you back to the fire."

"Yeah. I think." His voice was tight, shaky, and clipped.

I moved around to his uninjured side and wedged my shoulder under his armpit. "On three. Ready? One—two—three."

With a low, teeth-gritted moan, Jax pushed himself to one knee, off-balance, leaning heavily on me. He took a few sharp, panted breaths, then huffed and nodded sharply. "Up."

I stood up, bracing my core and pushing with all the considerable strength in my lower half to essentially deadlift his massive bulk upright. Once he was up, we both paused again, huffing.

"Jesus, Jax. You're even heavier than you look, big fella."

"You…you callin' me…fat?" He winced, groaned a laugh. "Ahhhhfuck, it really fuckin' hurts, Tea."

"Well, you did get your whole left side opened up by a goddamned grizzly bear," I answered, "so yeah, I'd imagine it would."

"Tell you what, I’m never eating a bear claw again."

"Oh, you've got jokes."

"I might be delirious."

"Understandable," I said.

With his one arm slung over my shoulder, I gripped his dangling wrist, braced my shoulder against his armpit, and helped him shuffle back to camp. Once we reached camp, Jax tottered away from me, one arm braced against his belly to gingerly cup his side, and then lowered himself to the ground, using the granite wall for balance. He fell the last foot to the ground, landing heavily with a coughing curse of pain.

"Well, hell, Jax, I could have helped you sit down," I snapped. "Or just throw yourself to the ground like an idiot and hurt yourself worse. My god."

He peered at me through pain-slitted eyes, sweating and panting. "Copping attitude again already, huh?" He winced, eyes shutting. "Not like I fought off a goddamned bear for you or anything.”

I nearly burst into tears at that, but I don't cry, so I didn't. "I can't help it," I whispered. "I'm sorry."