“I said that hurts, buddy,” Wyatt groans when little paws kneed his good leg like bread dough.
“He’s worried, too.” Addison plucks the cat off him and into her lap, pulling a blanket over her legs to shield her from well-intentioned claws.
“More like he’s tenderizing me in case he needs to eat me later. Maybe we should make sausage outta him first.”
“Wyatt!” she gasps.
He snorts.
The attempt at humor doesn’t last long before it’s replaced with another hiss of agony.
“There are some pills in the drawer. Get ‘em for me?” he pleads.
Her brows raise in surprise when she fishes out a small bag of drugs from the side table.
“It’s from that safe zone. I took what I could, just in case, before it got overrun. I was gonna save the antibiotics until I got a fever, but that knife he got me with was dirty as fuck.” He swallows two pills, then another, leaning back against the pillows with a sigh.
“The last one was to knock me out for a while. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking tired, but I can’t sleep.”
“It’s okay.”
“You don’t have to stay with me”
“I know.”
“But you will?”
She nods gently, not missing the hint of hope in his tone. “I will.”
“You blew stuff up today.”
“I didn’t think it would work.”
“Never had a doubt,” he whispers, as he begins to drift.
She’d seen it in a movie but figured it couldn’t be so simple. She doesn’t do that sort of thing. Doesn’t make waves, doesn’t take initiative. She sits back and waits for someone else to make the decisions. That’s how it’s been most of her life.
Vincent brainwashed her into thinking any idea she came up with had to be stupid, but Wyatt doesn’t think her ideas are crazy. Never told her she’d fail if she tried. He said she could do it, and she believed him long enough to make it happen.
The rush of shock after having killed someone probably gave her a shove, too.
Her skin still crawls from the weight of a stranger pinning her down. How awful his breath smelled when he told her what he had planned. Wyatt’s right, he deserved her knife through his eyeball, and she doesn’t regret it. It’s still shaken her to the core, though, if only because she never thought herself capable.
It’s not only the world that’s changing.
The world is changing her.
She isn’t sure how she feels about that yet.
Most of the day has flown by in an adrenaline-fueled rush, but it’s quiet now. Moonlight illuminates them while the cat purrs and Wyatt wheezes. She feels so alone, which is silly because he’s right here. For the first time, everything rides on her. If he offered to let her crawl into that bed with him, she’s so damn needy at the moment, she might take him up on it.
Addison runs her fingers through soft brown fur instead. When the cat nuzzles against her hand, she lets her tears fall onto its back.
Tomorrow she’ll be okay. Tomorrow they’ll both be fine. She’ll pick herself up and keep going. Keep looking. Keep hoping.
Tonight, she is terrified of losing this man that she’s grown attached to and even more terrified that she lost her best chance at finding Emma.
It’s not until the following day that the fever sets in, and Wyatt lapses into frightening hallucinations. Soon, her every waking moment is consumed with trying to help him reach the other side of a devastating infection. She’s getting an even deeper look into the ghosts that haunt him and isn’t at all prepared for what she sees.
