“Maybe you shouldn’t,” I tell him. “If the others find out that you’ve been here, they might think you’re sick too.”
“I’ll take my chances,” he replies, sitting next to me and holding his hands out to warm them in the fire’s heat. “I spoke to them after you left. I told them that this sickness is clearly spread through bodily fluids. Saliva, blood, that kind of thing. Fortunately the fact that I used to be a doctor was enough to make them listen. I won’t lie to you, some of them seem to have abandoned all sense of logical and rationality, but they didn’t argue too much. I think they’ll come around by morning.”
“That still doesn’t explain how Mary got sick,” I point out.
“It doesn’t?” He pauses. “Oh. Then I guess you never spotted her and Emma making out behind one of the huts.”
“Mary and Emma?” I reply, shocked. “Seriously?”
“You’re shivering.”
Realizing that he’s right, I immediately force myself to stop.
“It’s okay,” he continues. “Shiver if you need to. It’s your body’s way of trying to regain some warmth. Let’s be honest, your fire isn’t so great. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d have thought you might be a little better at this sort of thing by now.”
“It’s getting bigger,” I reply, feeling even colder now that I’m forcing myself not to stay still.
“It could be better.”
“It’s getting better!”
“After how many hours of tender nurture?” He smiles as he holds his hands even closer to the flames. “I saw the blood stains on your tunic, Asher, but that’s all they were. Stains on fabric. It’s clear you didn’t ingest any of it, so I’m sure you’re fine. Besides, given the speed with which Mary got ill, you’d be showing symptoms by now. You’re not, are you?”
I shake my head.
Suddenly he reaches out and puts his hand on the side of my neck. I flinch and almost pull away, but after a moment I realize he’s checking my glands, squeezing hard to check that they’re not inflamed. To my surprise, I realize his hands are so much warmer than I’d expected, and I can’t bring myself to make him stop. Even the slightest extra heat is welcome.
“Seems good,” he mutters.
“I’m fine,” I reply firmly.
“You’re shivering again.”
I mutter something under my breath as I realize he’s right. Stopping myself again, I can’t help feeling as if the warmth of his hands is making the rest of my body feel colder.
“Then you’re in the clear,” he continues, letting go of my neck, taking the extra warmth with him. “All you have to do is wait out here so you can walk back into town tomorrow morning and prove it to everyone. You made the right choice by isolating yourself for the night, you showed them that you’re not scared to take difficult decisions. I think that’ll really discredit the doom-mongers and score you some points.” He pauses for a moment. “Of course, they’re still mostly bitter about that Deckard guy leaving, but they’ll get over it. If you can navigate the town through this sickness, you should regain everyone’s trust.”
“Is anyone else ill?” I ask.
“Not so far. Are your teeth chattering?”
“Then whatever it is,” I continue, ignoring that last question, “hopefully it was contained to just Emma and Mary.” Noticing that the fire is getting low again, I lean over to grab some more dry wood, but I flinch when I feel a flash of pain from my fractured ribs. The pain turns into a shiver, and it takes a moment before I can force myself to sit still again.
“Let me take a look at that,” Harold says.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re in pain.”
“So?” I place the dry wood on the fire, although I can’t keep from flinching again. “Everyone’s in pain on the island, I just—”
Before I can finish, I feel Harold pulling the side of my tunic up, and when I look down I see that he’s examining the large bruise at the lower part of my ribcage. I want to pull away, but for some reason I let him continue as he traces the bruise’s edge with a finger-tip. This is actually the most normal thing that has happened to me in a long time. I’d become so used to ignoring my injuries, it never occurred to me that they should be examined. Every time his hand brushes my flesh, I feel a rush of warmth.
“I’ve had some bad luck over the past few days,” I tell him, tensing a little in case he prods the bruise and makes it hurt more. “It’ll heal. It always heals.”
“Bad luck doesn’t really cover it,” he replies. “I also saw that you were limping earlier.”
“I was?”
“You didn’t even notice, did you?” he continues. “You’re so accustomed to getting beat up and bent out of shape, you just push on through. Typical ex-soldier.”
“I get by,” I tell him, not wanting to seem weak. My whole body is tense, due to the effort required to keep from shivering. The forest is so cold, and my fire isn’t nearly strong enough to keep me warm. “I’m not the only one. Go ask anyone in town and they’ll tell you they’re the same. We all have little knocks and cuts, it’s impossible to live in a place like this without getting hurt from time to time.” I wait for him to reply, as the fire starts crackling a little more, offering hope. “In a place like this,” I add finally, “you don’t get to sit down and nurse your wounds. A fractured rib is nothing. A few cuts are nothing. You’re going to have to get used to that if you—”
Suddenly he leans forward and kisses me again, and this time I let him for a moment, unable to reject the extra heat. Finally, however, I pull away.
“I lied earlier,” he tells me. “You don’t remind me of my wife. I just said that to cover my embarrassment. You’re nothing like her.”
“I think we—”
He kisses me yet again, and without even thinking about it I kiss him back. For a few seconds, our mouths stay locked together until finally he’s the one who pulls back. This time, I almost try to start the kiss again, to get a little more heat.
“You’re shivering,” he says yet again.
“I am not!”
“You—” He pauses, before smiling. “Okay. Whatever.”
“I’m not shivering,” I continue, while inching closer to the fire in a vain attempt to get warmer.
“When was the last time you didn’t feel like crap?” he asks. “I was in the war too, remember? I’ve been through the same things as you, even if neither of us remember them.” He pauses. “When was the last time you had even one moment when you weren’t nursing some kind of pain somewhere in your body?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, trying not to panic. I should punch him for what he just did, but instead I let him pull my tunic a little more to one side so he can examine my bruised back. “I don’t care, either. Maybe that stuff mattered in the old world, but right here and now it’s completely irrelevant.”
“So you have a fractured rib,” he continues, “maybe two. You were limping on your left ankle, but that’s probably not much more than a sprain.” He pauses, as if he’s studying me. “You have a bruised cheek, and a nasty-looking cut on your neck that seems to be healing pretty well.”
“So?”
“And a bruise on your back, just above the left shoulder-blade. I noticed that earlier.”
“I really don’t—”
“And there’s some discomfort in your belly, too,” he adds. “I’m going to assume that’s from when Ellis and the others gave you a kicking. You’re bruised all around the back here.”
Staring at him, I try to work out why he’s bothering to list all my injuries.
“I just need to know where it’s safe to touch you,” he says finally, before reaching out and putting a hand on my waist. “Is that okay? Any agonizing pain?”