“You get cold easily?”
“I’m a dainty flower. Also, it’s drafty by the door.”
I watch him walk to my ‘bed’ and pick up a thin, threadbare blanket. It’s yellow. I don’t know why that makes it sadder to me, but it does.
“You don’t have to sleep by the door,” I tell him faintly.
He turns slowly, looking at me with his large, golden eyes that see too much. “Where would I sleep?”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make it harder for me than it already is.”
He grins slightly, but then he nods. “Okay. Sorry. And yeah, if you’re okay with it, I’ll sleep next to you. I wasn’t sure you’d want to now that we’re here.”
I smile. “You mean now that we’re out of prison?”
“Is it weird that I don’t feel any freer now that we’re out?”
“Is it weird that I felt better in the Vashons’ prison than I did as a guest at the cannibals’ table?”
“You really hate them.”
I roll my eyes. “And you don’t? They’re disgusting.”
“They’re different,” he replies diplomatically.
“The bad kind, not the interesting kind. Except to Trent. He seemed fascinated,” I say sarcastically.
Ryan goes to the door to drop the security bar across it, locking us in for the night.
“Better to act fascinated than disgusted if we’re going to work with them. I don’t like the way Andy was looking at you.”
I nod in agreement. “He’ll kill me if he gets the chance.”
“See, I don’t feel like that worries you as much as it should.”
“Eh, I’ve made it this far. Trick is to never trust anyone. Never let your guard down.”
He sits down by the bed and begins unlacing his shoes. “Are you going to sleep with your knife on your hip?”
“I’d be stupid not to.”
“Should I be worried I’ll wake up with it in my gut the way I woke up to your elbow in my face?”
I wince, remembering the damage I did to him on Vashon Island. It’s reflex, I can’t control it! But I do feel bad about it.
“Maybe,” I reply weakly.
Ryan chuckles. “I’ll take my chances. I’ll keep my knife on me too, just so we’re even. Just in case you get handsy.”
“I won’t.”
“Not even a little? I’ll pretend not to notice.”
“Maybe you should sleep by the door after all,” I grumble, heading for the bathroom.
“Come on, I’m kidding!”
I don’t answer. I do my business slowly, freaked out by the strange feeling of not being freaked out. Trent is on my roof and Ryan is in my bed, and that’s okay. I’m eerily fine with that. Not even just fine. I’m… happy.
When I come back out I find Ryan lounging on my bed. He smiles up at me, golden brown from hair to eyes to skin, and there’s so much of that amber glow that it’s stupid. He’s ridiculously beautiful to the point of being annoying, but I still like it.
I plop down across from him. “So we’re siding with the psychos, aren’t we?”
He sits up slowly, his arms coming to rest on his legs and his hands held loosely together. “We don’t have another choice.”
“I don’t like it.”
“No one does, and that’s your problem: you think because we’re willing to work with them that we like them. I don’t. They freak me out but we need their help, and if we were seriously willing to do business with The Hive, we’re desperate enough to do business with these guys.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Joss,” he says emphatically, “we’re pretty freaking desperate here. Do you want to free your friends or not?”
“They’re not really friends,” I reply weakly.
“They were a few days ago.”
“A lot has changed since then.”
“Enough to make you change your mind about saving them?”
I bite my lip, worrying it between my teeth as I stare at his face. “You died,” I say quietly.
His expression softens. “Not completely.”
“Close enough.’
“It doesn’t change anything.”
“It does for me.”
His mouth tightens slightly. “What are you saying? You don’t want to try to save someone, basically everyone, because I got hurt?”
His voice is becoming agitated. He’s annoyed with me.
“How’s your shoulder?” I ask pointedly, feeling just as annoyed.
I still worry about that injury on him. I still wonder if he’ll get a fever someday soon and I’ll have to end him. It’s another reason I avoided people for as long as I did: it wasn’t just because I got sick of watching them die—I got sick of being the one to beat down their reanimated corpses.
“It’s fine. I’m always getting hurt, Joss. I got hurt before I met you and I’ll get hurt again in the future. So will Trent. So will you. Look at your arm. You think that doesn’t kill me to see every day? But you can’t let that stop you from doing what’s right. This isn’t just about the people in the MOHAI. This is about everyone. Everyone trapped in the Colonies, everyone living in the wild afraid of the roundups.”
I clench my hands together tightly, feeling my chest pinch and my skin go clammy. “You’re wo—” I try, but the words die on my tongue. It’s just too… much. It’s all too much. I stare down at my hands, finding the words easier when I’m not looking at his face. “You’re worth more to me than everyone else on the earth combined.”
He doesn’t answer. The room feels tight in the confines of pure silence. I keep my eyes fixed on the growing sunlight flickering over the skin on my hands, the scars and scrapes highlighted in deep shadows until my own flesh looks foreign and strange. I feel different. I feel afraid of my own body, unfamiliar in my own skin. I feel like I’m becoming something or someone I’m not sure I know how to be.
Ryan moves. He’s on his knees in front of me, his face hovering over mine and his eyes filling my vision. He’s all I can see, all I can hear, and the room suddenly feels like it doesn’t exist. Nothing exists beyond his face and the places where his skin touches mine. His hands are warm and dry on my arms, my shoulders, my neck, my chin. He pulls me toward him until my lips meet his and my eyes fall closed. I forget how to breathe, so he breathes for me. In and out, slow and even with the beat of his heart. I can feel it under my hand where I’ve rested my palm on his chest.
Thump-thump…thump-thump…thump-
It skips a beat when I rise up on my knees in front of him, my body coming in line with his. He freezes, inside and out, just for a second. Then his heart is racing, taking mine with it, and his tongue brushes across my lips as his hands lower to my waist. He pulls me against him until I can’t feel his heartbeat under my hand anymore. I feel it everywhere—I feel him everywhere—and it’s so thrilling and so claustrophobic I want to scream. I want to pull him to me until it hurts and I want to push him away so I can run down the halls until I find stairs up and out, into the air where I can breathe. Where I can find the shadows to hide inside that will keep me safe from everything I’m so afraid of. I fight with myself to stay put, to hold onto him, to find out how much I can take, while my instincts are telling me to run—that there’s more to fear in this world than zombies, cannibals, Colonists, and gangs.
Suddenly I’m under the boat again, with no breath and my heart in my throat. I’m in the water and he’s drowning. I can’t save him. He’s slipping from my fingers. I keep going under for him but I can’t get him free and Trent isn’t there to help me and Ryan is fading. His heart is failing as I’m failing him. He’s dying. He’s gone. It’s so real I can hear the water lapping against the hull of the boat. I can see the bubbles against my eyelids as they get smaller, fewer. As they burst against the surface, his life leaving him in tiny increments that I’m powerless to stop.
His pale face in the darkness. My heart slowing with his, confused and lost. Uncertain where to go without him. It aches in my chest and I know.
I love him.
I love him and I will lose him.