"It's going to hurt more," she says, obviously needing the last word.
"Do what you need to do." She takes the small bottle of rubbing alcohol I threw in my bag and pours it over my head. Every nerve in my head feels like it's in shock or on fire, and dammit to hell, I can't even remember my name right now.
Although regardless of not being able to think straight, I sure as hell feel the needle piercing back through my skin again. "Just tightening it back up."
"Wasn't it already tight?" Jesus. I'm shrieking like a girl at this point and if the circumstances were different, she'd be laughing at me for reacting this way. Shit, that hurt. "Are you done?"
"Yes, you big baby," she says, blowing on the spot gently. My body can't take much more of the dizzying sensations hitting my skin right now.
"Just stop, please. Thank you." I stand back up, feeling out of sorts again. This has to stop. I did not need this. We didn't even get much food out of it and we're both starved nearly to death at this point. We need to find something to hunt, which is why we need to keep walking. The prisoners have cleared this place of any animal years ago. The only place we have any hopes of finding anything is at least fifteen miles from here, and I don't know if I can even make it that far at this point.
She puts the medical supplies back inside my bag, zips it up and hands it over to me. "Sorry for going through your stuff. I shouldn't have."
Great. Now I'm the ass. "It's fine."
She takes her bag and places her pistol into her pocket.
"Is the safety on?" I ask, and she looks at me with confusion. I guess that means she wasn't actually a murderer before finding herself condemned to this place. I reach into her pocket and pull the pistol back out. "See this?" I point to the safety switch, showing her how to lock it in. Looking embarrassed, she takes the pistol from my hand and slips it back into her pocket.
"So, it's at least a fifteen mile walk, , but I'm hoping we'll find food and water there."
"Hoping?" she replies.
"There are no guarantees here, Reese. I think you've learned that over the past couple of days. All we can do is cross our fingers and hope for the best right now." I begin walking alongside the dam in the direction away from the main camp. I hear her following in my footsteps and I'm gathering she doesn't want to talk too much. She's probably regretting everything that just happened between us. I took her virginity and she's probably sore and shit. Plus, I'm acting like a dick. Is there really any other way to act here, though? I reach my hand back to her, waiting for her to succumb to my assholeness. A minute passes, but I still hold my hand out, waiting for her to take it.
She finally slips her small hand into mine and grips her fingers around mine. Without much to say, I bring her knuckles up to my lips and kiss her gently. I hear a sigh of relief expel from her and I pull her into me. "I'm sorry," I say. I don't know why I said sorry or even what I'm really apologizing for, but it felt like something I needed to say.
"I didn't know you were capable of speaking such a poisonous word," she replies under breath.
"I'm capable of more than you give me credit for," I remind her. "Look, Reese." I stop walking and bring her in front of me. "We haven't had much water and hardly anything to eat in days. I've got an infection and—"
"What are you saying?" she snaps. "You promised me we were going to make it out of here, Sin. You promised me. That's why I'm here with you. I was ready to give up days ago. I was ready to give up in the shed, actually. Do you know how many times I tried to…to—"
"To what?" I growl.
"End it all. The pain. The starvation. The thirst. Did you know a person can go a couple of weeks without eating or drinking before—before your body shuts down? I do. I know this because I tried it. At the end of it all, during the days I started hallucinating and wondering how long I would have to lie in the middle of the cold, wooden ground, waiting to die. And then I realized I couldn't sit there waiting for it to happen, so I began to eat the rations I had stored. I made myself sick for a week after. I thought my stomach was going to explode or implode—I couldn't determine what I was feeling. I just thought I was going to actually die from eating due to whatever damage I must have caused while I was trying to starve myself to death."
I can't get mad at her. I did my own stupid shit. Locked in a dark cell, with no light, I tried to convince myself I was dead a number of times, hoping it was just true. It never was. It made me feel crazier by the day. "I get it."
"So don't sit here and give me your stupid death warnings because neither of us are dying here. We would have already died if that was our destiny. So, sorry, you're stuck with me, and you're stuck with your stupid hot body and your even stupider cocky personality. Suck it up, Sin. We're finding food and water, and then we're getting the hell out of here."
I can't help the small smile biting at my cheeks. I don't know why this girl was brought here, but with as many shitty hands that life has dealt me, I sort of won the royal flush with her. I continue pulling her ahead into the blinding sunlight.
"Do the prisoners come down this far?" she asks as we turn a slight bend in the path.
"Not usually. Why?"
"Do you know who that is?" she asks, pointing up at the tree.
