I might have passed out, I wasn’t sure, only that when I finally managed to open my eyes, I found him still working on me. Feeling sluggish, I lifted my head enough to peer down my body, and froze. My shirt had been torn open straight down the middle, baring my breasts to him.
Horrified, I looked to him as the tang of vomit rose up in my throat. But he appeared oblivious to me and my nakedness, still busy with my injury.
“This is going to hurt,” he remarked in a bored voice.
The pain that followed his words ricocheted throughout my abdomen. Every nerve ending flared to life, causing my body to involuntarily bow off the couch.
“Lay still!” he shouted, and his hands came down hard on my shoulders, pinning me to the couch.
The pain had faded but my anxiety had not. Still dizzy and nauseated, I choked as the sudden onslaught of pain worsened my rising gorge. Coughing and gagging, I barely managed to turn my head to the side before the contents of my stomach emptied.
“Motherfuck!” he bellowed, and his hands were suddenly gone. It couldn’t have been much; I hadn’t eaten in days, and what little I’d drunk hadn’t even been enough to satisfy my thirst. Even so, I found myself retching again, my world spinning as blackness threatened to overtake me.
And then ... nothing.
• • •
Slowly I opened my eyes and blinked, not recognizing anything, not understanding ...
The pain was everywhere, but worse than the pain, I was uncommonly cold, so cold that I could feel the cold in my veins, in my bones, burrowing deep into every nook and cranny of my body.
The realization of my reality came back to me in bits and pieces, only worsening both my pain and the cold. The noises, the smells, that tiny room, the bath, the blade, the blood, the man in the field. I’d been hungry, and because I’d been hungry, I wandered too close to other people, and that mistake had cost me everything.
A face appeared above me, a man. The man who’d carried me here, to his house.
If I could have run, I would have. If I could have moved, I would have. He was even more terrifying than I remembered. The darkness of the room only emphasized his angry countenance and his large, broad body, tense and primed for a fight. Maybe once upon a time he could have been considered attractive, but those days were long gone; his anger was now permanently etched onto his features.
“Are you thirsty?” he asked, his words clipped. “Hungry?”
I didn’t answer; I was unable to. I could only lie there staring up at him, my teeth chattering furiously. His frown grew, his expression turning more uncomfortable than angry. Then he was gone, and I wondered if I’d only imagined him there.
The sharp, sickening scent of vomit and coppery tang of blood hit my nose. Beyond that I could smell the sweat from my body, and the dirt that clung to the couch. God, there were so many smells. The biters would come. They’d come for me; they’d come for us all.
My panic rose, and the room began to spin just as the man appeared above me, holding a thick green blanket. I stared at him, then at the blanket, suddenly desperate for it. A full-bodied shiver passed through my body, making me ache for that blanket, making me ache for my home. Not my cave, but my home. My real home.
The man dropped the blanket on top of me and disappeared again.
Thankful he was gone, I closed my eyes and reveled in the feel of the blanket covering me, warming me. Cold and in pain, I desperately wanted to sleep. I blinked, my eyes so heavy they closed of their own volition. I tried to keep them open because I didn’t trust this man; I couldn’t trust this man. After all, he was one of them.
But he’d saved me from being found in that field. He’d cleaned my wound, and now he was hiding me here. Maybe I could trust him. Maybe I could close my eyes, just for a little while.
A loud knock echoed throughout the otherwise silent space, and I flinched, stopping short as pain ebbed across my midsection.
Cursing and loud footfalls followed the knock, and then metal clanging against metal and the squeal of a door.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“There’s been an incident.”
“Yeah? So what?”
“Liv told us ...,” another man said, then cleared his throat. “Liv said your help is required. And we need to search your house.”
The newcomers were afraid of him. Both voices had held a good amount of tremor and caution.
A long pause followed, and I swore I could hear the man’s breathing pick up speed, short staccato breaths that turned into long, purposefully drawn-out ones. Almost as if he was trying to calm himself.
“Not a chance in hell. You can all fuck off.”
