But before anything else, he really needed a good cleaning.
Had he ever bathed? It really didn’t smell like it. Or look like it. Dirt and blood had been caked onto his skin for so long it looked like it might actually be painful to scrub off. Like it might take his skin with it.
“I’ll be careful,” I told him. I shifted him in my arms, sliding one under his legs to support him, and carried him toward the bathroom.
I’d already set out some of my old clothes for him from when I was younger and smaller. They were the only things I owned that might fit him. I’d had to make my own clothes after growing bigger than Dad and Grandpa.
I kicked the bathroom door open and set him down, propping him against the wall. I kept a hand on his chest as I picked up the washcloth and dipped it into the bowl.
I wished he was awake, but I couldn’t wait for that. He needed to be cleaned right now. And even if he was awake he’d fight me tooth and nail and make a run for it as soon as he could. With a wound like his, he’d die without proper medical care. He needed time and a safe place to heal, and I could give that to him.
I cradled the back of his head, studying his face. The muzzle was going to make it hard to clean that area properly, same with the collar around his neck. I wanted to use my bolt cutters and take them off him, but it scared me to use them so close to his skin. Those were vital areas, and if he woke up, he’d flip out and get seriously injured. He’d also been terrified when I brought them out earlier. It was better to wait until he understood that I just wanted to help him, until he agreed to let me get them off him.
I set his head down gently so I could soap up a washcloth. I brought it to his face, brushing aside the tangled strands of hair,and lightly wiped it down his cheeks. It came away dark brown, almost black—like soot—and there was still more grime beneath.
I worked slowly, not wanting to hurt him, and trying my best to get all the dirt off his skin. As the grime was washed away, deep, white grooves around the edges of the muzzle showed up. They were smooth, like the skin had gradually worn away, like he’d been wearing this thing for a long fucking time.
Would I find the same kind of marks under the collar?
My stomach lurched at the thought of him being kept captive like…like some kind of feral animal. Like one of the infected. Like he wasn’t anything more than a possession. Athing.
The infected weren’t the only sick people in this world.
I was glad I had this bunker, that it was in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Great-Grandpa had chosen well, building it in a place that was difficult to access.
So how had he found it? How had he gotten up here with nothing but his bare feet and hands?
I smoothed the cloth down his cheeks, noticing that he had a faint bit of dark fuzz dusting the sides of his face that went down to his jaw in small patches. Once his face was clean, the hair on his cheeks and jaw became a light blond color that confused me. The hair on his head was brown, so shouldn’t his facial hair be the same? Or at least similar? It was so light.
After just ten minutes, the water had turned a muddy brown, so I emptied it and refilled it with clean water.
I wrapped my hand around the nape of his neck and dipped his head back into the bowl to wash his hair. He made a little sound of distress that startled me, and I paused as I hovered over him. His brows drew together and he smacked his lips, but he didn’t open his eyes.
His cheeks were flushed a deep scarlet, and when I felt his forehead, it was alarmingly warm.
I waited for him to wake up,wantinghim to wake up because what if he di?—
No. I wasn’t going to think those things.
He didn’t wake up, and he didn’t make any more noise after that, or open his eyes, so I continued washing his hair. He might as well cut it all off, knotted as it was. But as I kept soaping it up, rinsing it off, and repeating, the brown started to turn into a light golden color, shiny and bright.
It was pretty, that color. I’d only ever seen that shade in pictures before, and now I didn’t want him to cut any of it.
I probably had a brush somewhere. I kept my hair short enough I didn’t need one, so I’d never looked before. But there was so much crap in that storage room, how could there not be a brush in there?
When his hair was as clean as I could get it, I turned my focus to his arms, removing the layers of filth until his pale skin was visible. He had a light dusting of hair on his forearms, blond like that on his head. When his arms were clean, I moved to his chest. Beneath the dirt was pale skin with light patches of golden hair in wispy curls that trailed down his stomach, past his navel, to the thin waistband of his tattered pants.
That was as clean as I was going to get him for now, so I gently moved him to the quilt I’d laid out, bundling him into it.
I wanted him to open his eyes, to speak to me. I wanted to hear what his voice sounded like. All the sounds he’d made were low and raspy, like he didn’t use it very often.
I wanted to ask him where he’d come from, what he’d been doing all this time. Why was he wearing these things? Why was he so dirty?
What was his name?
I carried him to my room and laid him down on the mattress, unwrapping the quilt and using it to dry him off.
His left ankle was swollen and red with dark bruising around the bone. Was it broken? Or just sprained? Hopefully the latter, because if it was broken, he might never walk on it again. I had no way of fixing that.
