Page 138 of Juniper Unraveling

He’s shaking his head, but I can see the contemplation in his eyes, so I continue.

“We’ll make a deal with Szolen himself. Keep Ericsson out of it. Szolen can be the hero, the one who discovers the cure and saves the world.”

“And what do we get out of it?”

“We get to walk away. He agrees to let all the prisoners in Calico free. And we make our own wall to keep everyone safe. I just need to get inside. To get my hands on that antibody.”

“What makes you think it’s there? What would make you risk your fucking life and suffer the most brutal death, for something that may not even exist?”

I shrug and look out over the mountains. “Hope.” My gaze falls to his once more. “What kept you alive in that place, when you knew you should’ve been dead?”

His brows flicker with a frown. An argument, no doubt. “I’m not—”

“I can’t watch you do that again,” I interject. “I’ve spent an entire night trying to figure out why I haven’t run from you. I mean, killing is one thing, but …” The sting at the rim of my eyes threatens tears, and I cast my gaze toward the cracked limestone beneath my boots to keep from seeing the hurt in his eyes.

“What do you need to hear, Wren? That he put a bullet through the skull of a twelve-year-old girl last night? And Crank, too?”

“The torture, though. How are we any different than them?”

“We? You didn’t do anything. I did.”

“I could’ve stopped you, and I didn’t. I didn’t want to. And all I can come up with, is that we’re both fucked up and I can’t walk away from you. I won’t.”

“You know I wouldn’t stop you from leaving. If that’s what you truly wanted.”

“Please, Rhys. Let down your guard. Just a little.”

His shoulders sag in defeat, as if he’s about to hand over his soul to me. “Do you not have any idea what you mean to me, Wren?”

“I thought I did. I was certain I could pull you from that dark place inside your head. But I’m not strong enough. You and I seem to be of the same thread. Infected with the same evil that damaged us.”

“I knew exactly what I was doing last night. I didn’t do it for pleasure, or some morbid form of entertainment. I did it for you. Because he hurt you. And your pain is my pain.” Still wearing a frown, he rubs his hands together. “I spent years in that hell, battling voices inside my head that I couldn’t escape. Until I heard yours, and everything else silenced. When you found me all those years back? I don’t even know if I was considered human. Felt more animal than anything. I saw you, and I was certain God had it in for me. Sent his best angel to try and save my soul.” His eyes soften a bit, but he doesn’t smile. “I don’t even believe in all that religious shit, but I was convinced you were there for me. To walk me through death. And I couldn’t fucking wait.” He sniffs and glances away from me. “Turns out, I was wrong. To the rest of the world, you were just a girl. A lonely girl from the other side of that wall. But to me, you’ve always been more than that. The air when I couldn’t breathe. My voice when I couldn’t speak. When I couldn’t feel anything anymore, I felt you. Goddamn, Wren, you were my heart, pumping life into a body that was mostly dead. You were everything to me. You are everything.”

Tears fill my eyes, and I blink to keep them from falling.

His lips press to a hard line. “So, yeah, I killed him. I showed him how it feels to be at the mercy of the merciless. Whether that makes me a bad man, or a good man, don’t matter to me. I’m willing to be whatever I need to be for you.”

I want to believe him, but pain tells me not to trust love. “What’s to keep you from punching your fist into my chest and ripping out my heart?”

He shakes his head and rubs his thumb across his palm. “Because it isn’t your heart, anymore, Wren. It’s mine. You’re my life. If you die, I die.”

I run my fingers over the scar at my wrist, and the tears distorting the long white line slip down my cheek. In the past, my ties to those I’ve loved have been severed, or frayed, and I feel his words wrap around me, creating tight knots across my heart. I want to tug at them, to make sure it’s strong enough, but part of me doesn’t care how fragile this is.

The world isn’t what it was in the days when two people professed love with frivolous gifts and words. Now, it’s about living and surviving together. And to survive the predators who would eat us alive, humankind has to be stronger. Faster.

Willing to become more frightening than the monsters.

Like Rhys.

I sniff and wipe the tears from my cheek. “I felt nothing for Ivan. No pity. No mercy. I’m glad you punished him the way you did. And I’m glad he’s dead. I want to believe that we’re not like them. But maybe we are.” I shrug my shoulders, toying with the leather string of my shirt. “Maybe we have to be. I’m not afraid of you, Rhys. Not even after what you did. However fucked up that makes me, it’s the truth.”

He pushes to his feet, standing before me, and tucks the hair behind my ear. The corner of his lips kick up to a mirthless smile. “A match made in hell, yeah?”

A loud beep and a garbled voice interrupts him, and he lifts the walkie-talkie from where it lies in the crumpled shirt beside him.

“Prisoner’s gone. Hear me, Rhys? He’s gone! Son of a bitch took Lea!”

Rhys’s eyes shoot to mine, and the expression on his face turns my blood ice cold. “What have you done, Wren?”