I raise a brow at him. “Not until you apologize.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry a thousand times over, okay?” he murmurs gently over my brow, pressing another kiss to my temple before staggering to his feet. He offers me his hand and I gratefully take it. He blinks a few times to try to clear blood from his eye but it keeps flowing.
“Here.” I use my glove to swipe as much away as I can before pressing a wad of gauze against it. “You’ll need to hold it there.” He obliges. I bite back the concern I want to express to him. It will have to wait until we get back to the bunker. We’re still working against time.
Cameron eyes my limp arm and firms his mouth. “I’ll have to set that before we start our ascension back up,” he says reluctantly. I knew it was coming. I’ve had to have my shoulder set before, and it never gets less awful.
I nod and look the other way, bringing my sleeve to my mouth to bite down on. Cameron secures my arm in the position necessary. “Ready?” he asks. I give him another sharp nod, and he pops it back into place without hesitation. I groan into my sleeve and take a few deep breaths before facing him again.
“That fucking hurt.”
He grins sympathetically. “Well, if you didn’t go falling off a mountain.” He chuckles. “We should get going, we’re running short on time.”
My head is spinning and my entire body hurts. I don’t want to worry him more than he already is, so I do my best to walk by his side. He lets me use his arm for support as we slowly make our way to the incline.
I glance up the mountainside and my heart drops. It’s so steep that it’s a miracle we’re both walking. The green light of the beacon glows and flashes steadily against the dark sky.
“How much time do we have left?” I ask, limping and looking for my rifle. It might even be broken if I fell on it at any point during my fall. I press my palm to my forehead and sigh,everything is so fuzzy. I remember going over the edge and then waking up to Cameron staring down at me and holding me tenderly.
My cheeks flush at the thought. I’m glad it’s cold out here and we’re covered in blood so that Cameron won’t notice.
He looks up at the sky as if he can tell the time by the stars. “I’d say an hour at the most. Can you climb?” His eyes draw back down to me and I firmly nod. A skeptical look dawns over his features, and he shakes his head with a smirk. “Come on, love, hop on.”
He lowers himself onto a knee. The gesture strikes my heart. Didn’t he proclaim at the end of the first trial that he’d never carry me like this? I smother a smile.
“I can do this,” I say lightly. He needs to keep his energy. I walk right by him.
Cameron catches my wrist, forcing my gaze back at him, and I find his eyes are nothing short of pleading.
I give in rather easily.
He carries me on his back as he zigzags on the least steep portions of the mountainside.God, and I thought only Montana had big-ass mountains like this.I take a deep breath and scent the pines mixed with Cameron’s earthy tones. The fresh air mingles them together brilliantly. It’s hard not to focus on his corded muscles moving between my thighs as he effortlessly carries me.
I rest my head on his shoulder and listen to his breaths. “Hey, Cam.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think what Nolan said about earning our cards out of the Dark Forces is true?” I trace a small circle on his vest.
He thinks for a moment. “Yeah, of course, why would he lie about that?”
Cameron’s been a part of the Dark Forces for so long and he’s not super motivated to be free of it, given that he’s so proud of being their lab rat, so I only nod at his trust in his superiors.
“It just seems odd that no one has earned them yet, that’s all.” I have an inkling that there’s more to it, but I’ll just have to wait until I’m actually on a squad before worrying too much about it. I might not even make it out of the trials.
My entire body is on fire, my shoulder throbs ruthlessly, and my leg is fucked. It’s going to take weeks for that gash to heal properly, and I don’t have that kind of time to heal. I’ll have to splint it when we get back and take a lot of pain meds.
I’m not numb like Cameron is. The third trial might be where it ends for me.
“Cam,” I murmur again.
He tilts his head against mine gently. “Em?”
“Thank you for coming for me.”
He only makes an acknowledging grunt, but he brushes his thumb over my ankle adoringly.
The rest of our squad isn’t at the summit where we last saw them, so we decide to press onward to the beacon. They couldn’t have gone anywhere else but there, surely. If they aren’t there by the time the trial is concluded, we’re goners.
