Tried to make deals with the devil for.
This journey has consumed her and ruined her, broken down any chance she might have had at that normal post-apocalypticlife that she was so certain she craved before Wade disappeared. And now, the very thing that’s driven her, that need to see him again, is within her grasp, and she’s not sure she can handle it without crumbling.
Luke’s lackluster pace has her frustrated. He wants to talk first and unless she’s eager to search every room in this compound on her own, which is tempting but would only take longer, she’s doomed to listen.
“He isn’t the same. I need you to understand what you’re about to see.”
“Then get to the point and move faster while you’re doing it,” she replies.
“He won’t speak. Tried to kill someone earlier for getting too close. Took three men to get him back here, and that’s before he broke a window trying to escape.”
Her gut sinks, mind racing with possibilities for what could have happened. She’d always known that being with Silas this long was no vacation. Tried not to spend her nights envisioning what awful reality Wade was living through while she laid cozy in her tent.
“Is he hurt?” she asks.
“Not physically. I mean, not anymore. Not really.”
“What are you trying to say? Just spit it out.” Her frustration boils over at Luke’s inability to state the facts.
“He isn’t himself anymore, Kara. That’s what I’m saying. He’s not safe to be near, not even for you.”
She huffs. “What did the note say?”
“What?”
“You said he had a note with him.”
“Seems you’ve left a trail of destruction in your wake while searching for him and Silas has decided it’s in his best interest to offload what you’re looking for.”
“Who. Who I’m looking for.”
“Right.”
“In here?” She points to the door they stopped in front of, not waiting for a reply before she flings it open, and in an instant, her heart stutters and threatens to grind to a halt.
He is filthy. Shoved in the corner of the room, face hidden by shaking forearms, but sheknows him. Knows the breadth of those wide shoulders and the dark hair that needs a cut more than ever. She’s seen him in her dreams for two thousand one hundred and twenty-seven days. She’d know him anywhere.
“Wade?” she whispers, moving closer.
Luke warns her from somewhere in the background, but that’s white noise now.
For a moment, she worries he’s a hallucination despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary. Needs to touch him. Hold him. Prove this nightmare is over when she can hardly trust her own eyes anymore. Rational thought is overrated. Fuck the warnings. Fuck it all. Wade is right here in front of her and there’s not a chance in hell she isn’t going to wrap her arms around him and breathe him in.
At least, that’s what she thinks right up until her fingers meet his naked shoulder and then she’s on the ground, gasping as he tries to strangle the life out of her. She claws at his hands, kicking out of reflex. What scares her most isn’t the outburst, but how easily he looks straight through her.
Two men haul him off her as he scrambles bare feet against concrete to reach her again. Doesn’t stop until they’ve pinned him to the ground with his hands behind his back and then everything goes still and silent. She’s never watched someone shut down so completely. It’s hard to look away and even harder to see. Her throat throbs, emotions so tangled she can’t pick one to run with, so she sits on her ass wheezing in one hard breath after another while Wade lays limp as if nothing happened at all.
“Get off him.” She coughs, scratching at her own neck.
No one moves.
“Get off him or I’ll make you.” She reaches for her knife, knowing damn well they could take her, yet more than willing to fight anyway until Luke sends them away.
She lingers a moment as the shock of getting everything she’s wanted for so long begins to morph into the devastation that this isn’t the happy reunion she expected. Not even close.
“Give him a fucking blanket,” she growls, getting to her feet to blow out the door and down the hall.
“We tried. He won’t use it.”
