Untouchable ~ A Jared Leto/MARS Fanfiction

Chapter Three

Shelby makes her way toward where I'm crouching at the creek, a makeshift fishing pole in one hand, a grin on her face as with the other hand she holds up a string of three nice-sized rainbow trout for my approval. "One for each of us," she says proudly. "I hope he will wake up and eat. Where do you want me to put them?"

I nod my head toward the flat rock nearby, situated half in and half out of the water. "I hope he'll wake up, too. I'll clean them as soon as I'm done washing these clothes," I tell her.

"Good, cuz I'm hungry," she says and lays the fish on the rock. One of them flops a little, its mouth opening and closing, gills flaring with indignation at its fate. "Oh, knock it off," Shelby admonishes and lays her hand over it. "You're not going anywhere except in my stomach." She turns to me. "Hey, I found lots of wild grapes where I was fishing. I ate some. I'll grab a bag and pick a whole bunch of them."

I perk up. Grapes would be good; dried into concentrated, nutritionally-packed raisins, even better for traveling. "Pick all you can carry," I advise.

Shelby scampers to her pack next to the hut and sets her fishing pole next to it. She grabs a cloth bag from the side pocket. "Back in a little bit," she calls over her shoulder before running back where she came from.

Smiling, I turn my attention back to my task, scrubbing Jared's bloodstained pants and grimy t-shirt. Undressing him had been a difficult task, especially easing the track pants down over his shattered, splinted leg, but it had to be done. Wringing out the clothes, I shake them out and carry them to a tree where they'll hang in the sun until they're dry.

I stop for a second to admire mine and Shelby's handiwork. I can't even properly call our new and improved accommodations a shelter. Made of heavier oak branches, the chinks caulked with creek mud mixed with dead grasses and weeds, this is more of a hut, roomy enough to stand up and move around in. I even fashioned a crude kind of bed so Jared could lay in greater comfort than my sleeping bag on the hard ground could provide. It's narrow, not even the width of a cot, but it's better than nothing.

The job was an exercise in frustration and patience. Furniture-making certainly isn't in my area of expertise. When in the wilderness, normally I don't bother with any sort of luxury beyond my durable, down-filled sleeping bag and, when I'm feeling particularly self-indulgent, a pillow — which is actually a t-shirt stuffed with cattail down and tied at the sleeves, bottom, and neck. While I'm sure a mat of woven cattail leaves secured to a narrow frame of oak branches is hardly the pampered comfort Jared's used to, it's certainly an improvement over the hard ground.

It's been almost forty-eight hours since we found him, some of the longest forty-eight hours of my life. When not working on building a better shelter and his bed, the majority of those hours I've spent sleepless, watching the rise and fall of Jared's chest, obsessively checking his pulse, monitoring his fever, double and triple-checking his leg to be sure the stitches are holding and the splint hasn't shifted.

Jared spent the majority of those hours either unconscious or in a rambling and mostly incoherent delirium. Though a blessing for him in the beginning while I stitched and properly set his leg, as the hours dragged on I began to get seriously concerned. The fever was burning him alive and without sufficient fluids, dehydration would prove as deadly as the snakebite nearly was. Desperately I forced water into him a few times; other times during periods of semi-lucidity, he willingly drank from a straw I fashioned out of a hollow water reed. He grimaced throughout, and only took in a couple of ounces at a time. I kept pushing it anyway. He needed quarts, not sips.

During those early touch-and-go hours, I'd sent Shelby out, expanding the search for Jared's cell phone. I couldn't imagine a celebrity of his caliber venturing anywhere without his phone. But then, I never thought anyone of Jared's status would come out to a remote area like this by himself in the first place. Aren't famous people always surrounded by bodyguards, assistants, and handlers, even during their down time? I decided if Shelby found his phone and there was any battery life left in it, I'd make the call. And then at the first sign of rescue arriving, Shelby and I would vanish. We'd strike out to the northwest, deeper into the pine forested foothills. It's the opposite direction of our ultimate destination of Mexico, but that can't be helped.  I'm holding onto the hope that Jared won't remember much of anything about us.