AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No. But you’re hurt.”
He breathes a sigh of relief. “Cut myself getting out from underneath that damn car to get to you. It’s no big deal.” He staggers forward and falls onto the seat next to me, his gaze latched onto my face. Then his expression turns dark. Angry. “What the hell were you doing?”
Rotters pile up outside the door. The van groans beneath the weight of them as they push, trying to get in. “We need to get out.”
He pushes me down against the seat and lies on top of me. It’s not a crushing feeling like with the rotters. It feels surprisingly safe and protective. He places a hand over my mouth and presses a finger to his lips to indicate silence. But it doesn’t matter. They’ve heard us. They’ve smelled us. They know there are living people in here that need to be torn apart and infected.
The van tilts. There are so many rotters piling up outside that they’re going to push us onto our side. Roll us over and over again until we’re dead, too. We need to get off the seat and to the other side, or we’re going to be hurt when it tips over. I shift to pull his hand away from my mouth when my fingers brush against something wet on his side. I raise them to the light streaming in through the windows and see the sticky red liquid coating them. He presses his palm harder against my mouth to keep from telling him how injured he really is.
Griffin lowers his mouth to whisper in my ear. “It can be dealt with later, princess. Right now, we need to be as quiet as possible and hope they go away.”
My hand falls back down to his side and I press my palm against the wound to apply pressure. He lowers his head and groans against my neck. My other hand lifts to rest on his back and I grasp his shirt, holding onto him as tight as I can.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is so low and muffled that I’m not sure I heard him right. “I’m sorry I forced you to stay with a monster like me when you could have been back with your friend by now.”
The moans outside the van multiply. The van rocks harder and every second gets us closer to tipping over. I look behind me and there are rotters outside the window there, too. They’re everywhere. We’re surrounded. Even if we do tip over, we won’t be able to climb out of the top. At least they can’t get to us in here…for now.
Griffin’s hold on me loosens as his strength wanes. I hold my hand against his wound as hard as I can and hope the bleeding has stopped. I can’t move, and I can’t look down to check. All I can do is close my eyes and hope for a miracle.
Music blasts from somewhere far away and the van falls back down onto four wheels again. My eyes pop open. The rotters that were pressing against the van move away toward the sound.
“Come on out and dance for me, pet!” Max’s voice rings out, filled with laughter. Griffin’s hand falls away from my mouth.
“He did it. Max got them to go away.” I push against Griffin, but he doesn’t budge. “Griffin?”
He doesn’t answer me. I push against him as much as I can until I’m able to slide out from beneath him. Holding his face between my hands, one of which is covered in his blood, I lean in close. His eyes are closed and he looks like he’s asleep.
“Griffin, answer me,” I urge.
I look out the windows. The rotters are gone now, chasing the music that Max put on. He probably found a working car radio somewhere down the road. Griffin isn’t at risk of getting infected and his friends will come for him soon. The path for me to flee is wide open. After all, isn’t that what he’d said? That whole you’re not leaving me unless I’m physically unable to follow crap he’d spouted not long ago. But this isn’t what I had in mind. I was thinking more in terms of locking him in the trunk while I drove away. I can’t leave him after what he did. Not now. Not after there’s a chance he could die, all because he exposed himself to save me.
Laying his head back onto the seat, I press two fingers against his neck. There’s a faint, but steady thrum of his pulse. He’ll be fine, but not without help.
I stand and look at him, lying there on the seat so helpless, one whole side of his shirt now stained with blood. I mutter a curse and climb on the seats to pull myself up onto the roof of the van.
The first aid kit I’d thrown up to William is still up here, still unopened. I look out in the direction he ran, but I don’t see him. Worry gnaws at me, but I can only worry so much in a single moment, and right now I need to deal with the only thing I’m able to. So I reach out, grab it, and drop back down into the van, ignoring when Max calls out to me.
I tear through the kit and then cut open Griffin’s shirt to expose the wound. Blood coats his skin like a macabre painting. There’s so much blood. I scramble around the van, searching through everything until I find an unopened bottle of water. I try to twist off the cap, but I can’t get any friction with how slick my hands are from the blood. There’s so much blood.
The door crashes open with such force that I’m surprised it doesn’t tear clean off, and William stands outside looking like a blood-covered shirtless savior. Why is everyone covered in blood right now? Oh, yeah, that’s right, he’s hurt too. Everyone’s getting hurt because of me. Blood drips from the cut on his arm, but he does nothing about that. Instead, his eyes zero in on my hands.
“How bad is it?” His concern is misplaced.
“I’m not bit.”
Relief floods his face, and he grabs the edge of the door before pulling himself inside. Buddy dashes in behind him. I’m thankful he let him out of the car. “Let me look at your hands. Where does it hurt—” He sees Griffin passed out on the couch and then drops to his knees at his side, running his hands over his body. He sees the wound on his side. “Is he?—”
“No, he’s not. At least, I don’t think so. He said he cut himself on something when he was getting out from underneath the car to get to me.” I wipe my hands on my pants leg, then try opening the bottle again. I don’t have a rag, so I hold my knife to the bottom of my shirt and cut off enough fabric to use as a rag, then douse it in water.
William makes space for me to kneel beside him, and I clean Griffin’s wound. I wipe away the blood from around it in order to see what I’m working with. I hope it’s not as bad as I fear. “We can’t stay here. That music drove them away, but it’ll only draw in more of them from farther out.”
“I know, but he’s in no position to move right now. And look at you, I still need to patch you up, too. You’re both a mess.”
William rummages through the first aid kit, avoiding my eyes. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
He snorts. “I’m in much better shape than Griffin is, at least.”
