Our energy bled out with every step.
Sweat stung my eyes. My lungs felt raw. The silence between us was an old, mean dog, gnawing at the ankles until one of us broke.
She tripped again. I didn’t reach for her this time.
Mercy was wasted on Amelia Langston.
But I kept checking, every ten steps, to make sure she hadn’t vanished. No matter how much I told myself I didn’t care, that she could rot for all I gave a shit.
She belonged to me, in this. Suffering, survival, hell or whatever came next. I couldn’t stop protecting her if I tried.
She scraped her wrist on a rock. I heard herbreath hitch and clench, could smell the blood before I saw it. She glared at me, daring me to comment.
I didn’t. Too tired for clever. Too wrecked for anything but trudging through the next patch of black tangle, the next wall of brambles.
The deeper we went, the darker it got. I felt her getting slower, weaker. I slowed, too, barely. Had to. If she broke down for good, I was fucked. There was nothing else out here. Just us and the endless, suffocating need.
I slowed up at a boulder, pausing, pretending to scan the terrain. Really just waiting for her to catch up without having to admit it. She stumbled into view, raw-boned and pale, arms scratched to shit, hair a wild halo. She could barely look at me without her lips curling.
“Getting tired, princess?” The words slid out. I wanted them to draw blood.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Maybe if you stopped acting like a mountain goat on steroids, we wouldn’t be lost.”
I grinned, wolfish. “If you’d kept up in the first place, we’d be drinking beer at the resort. Instead, we’re watching you break down in real time. It’s a show.”
She slumped to the ground, back against the cold stone. I didn’t know if she was crying or just too empty to care. Her chest shivered with every breath. Watching her fold in on herself did something to me. Not pity, but close, like the ghost of it, sifted through contempt.
I wanted to leave her. Just walk on, let her rot in the green. But something in me locked up. I hated it. Hated how much I kept checking her, listening to make sure her breathing didn’t stop.
I crouched beside her, my shadow blotting out the fading sun. She flinched, lip curling. “Don’t touch me.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” But my hand hovered anyway. Fuck.
She stared up at me, eyes glassy, empty. I nearly spat on the dirt, just to break the spell. “You want to survive or not? ‘Cause if you’re giving up, let me know.”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “You’d want that, wouldn’t you?”
“Not really.” Each word was a stone in my gut. “If you die,they’ll blame me. I’m not going back to that fucking town with your ghost hanging off my neck.”
She tried to laugh, but it sounded like choking. “You’d probably just kick my corpse into a ditch.”
I imagined it. The weight of her, limp, weightless. The anger that rushed in at the thought. “Don’t tempt me.”
Our eyes locked for a second. I hated how it made me feel. Like I could break her. Like I could save her.
The thought made my molars grind.
I straightened, looking away. “Get up. We don’t have time for your melodrama.” I expected her to spit some bullshit, slap back with some sarcastic retort, but for once she just sat there, sucking air, eyes locked on my boots like she wanted to die at my feet. Good. At least then I’d have proof I’d done something right.
She finally got her balance and stood, wobbling, hair falling around her face in a mess of snarls. “You just love bossing people around, don’t you?” Not her best, but whatever.
“Better than watching you wallow in self-pity.” I turned and pushed on, not giving her the satisfaction of looking back, but every step I could feel her behind me. Always behind. My own shadow might as well have been her.
Then she stumbled. Again. Of course.
“Careful. Hate to see you brains-out on a rock before I get the chance to kill you myself.”
She glared, teeth bared. “Fuck you, Caiden.”
