19. Griffin

19

The sun is practically blinding, as though I haven’t seen it in days. I feel like I’ve slept for weeks and could still use more sleep, but I can’t stand being so immobile. So vulnerable. Emily will yell at me if she finds me off the couch and moving around. So I’m going to go find her.

William is tending to the fire, and he looks up when he sees me, but he doesn’t scold. He simply nods and throws on another log, so I keep walking, following the sound of grunting.

Piles of dirt soar into the air out of a large hole. I walk around to the side and look down to see Max digging. “Don’t tell me these are our graves,” I grind out. “I’m not dead yet.”

Max looks up with a manic grin. “I can dig one especially for you if you say please.”

I roll my eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Those bodies next door will get pretty ripe soon. Since we don’t know how long we’ll be here for, I figured I’d take care of it.”

“Have you been digging all night?”

He sticks the shovel into the ground and leans on it, wiping sweat from his brow. “Not all night. I got bored watching everyone sleep, so I figured hey, why not dig some graves to pass the time? I’m spontaneous like that.”

“Need any help?”

He lets out a laugh. “Emily will skin me alive if she finds out I put you to manual labor your first day on your feet. She can be scarier than you.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Care to put that to the test?”

“Should you even be moving around so much? I know nothing about stitches, but I know she doesn’t like it when we go around opening our own wounds and all. Especially right after she went through all the effort of patching us up. Something about wanting us to stay alive for whatever reason.”

“Yeah, imagine that. Have you seen her?”

He points his thumb in a direction and then gets back to work digging, so I walk away. I don’t like that neither of them have an eye on her. She could be miles away by now. She could’ve changed the tire and driven the next state over, leaving us in the dust. She could be—right in front of me, cradling a flower?

I walk up behind her as silent as can be and observe. She’s sitting next to a small patch of crushed flowers like someone stepped on them, and she’s trying to get them to stand upright. She’s even using water from her own water bottle, sprinkling it over them to get them to pep back up. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t confuse the ever-loving fuck out of me.

“For a woman who claims to be so badass and doesn’t flinch in the face of death, you’ve got a surprisingly soft side.”

She squeals and turns around, falling over onto her butt. Then she panics and looks down, but when she sees she landed on grass and not the precious flowers, she turns a scowl onto me. “Don’t sneak up like that. Shouldn’t you be resting? Go back to bed.”

“I’m rested enough,” I lie. Truth is, I could still use a lot more sleep and I might fall over soon, but I can’t make myself lie back down. I’m tired of everyone telling me to rest. That’s getting old real fast. Plus, I’m too interested in what she’s up to. “What are you doing?”

Motioning to the little patch of flowers, she follows my sight. William had told me about her being a botanist before the dead rose, and last night she regaled us with stories as a florist, but I’m still surprised to see her tending to some random flowers in the middle of nowhere.

“Do you know what this is?”

Frowning, I shake my head. “Weird looking flowers?”

She scoffs at me.

“Hate to break it to you, princess, but I haven’t carved out time in my day-to-day survival to learn about plants, unless you count what berries we can eat and which to avoid.”

“Well, that’s a start,” she grumbles.

“Come again?”

“I said you’re an idiot.”

A grin crosses my face at the insult. I can’t help it. She’s fun to rile up. “Fine. So what is it?”

“Roses.” A grin splits her face so wide that I’m not sure I heard her right.

“Um…aren’t roses supposed to be red?”

“Not all of them. There are a few colors they appear in naturally. Lavender is my favorite. Right after the corpse lily.”

Okay, now I’m sure I didn’t hear her right. “A... come again?”

“Corpse lily. They’re rare and mostly found in Indonesia, but when they bloom, they smell like rotting flesh.”

I scrunch up my nose. “And to think, I always thought girls liked a bouquet of roses. No wonder I could never keep a relationship.”

“That, and your sparkling personality.”

“Never been one to sparkle.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Let’s go back to flowers that smell like rotting flesh. That’s disgusting.”

“Did you know that if you were to cover your body in entrails from a rotter, then you’d be able to walk right by them if you didn’t make a sound?”

“Do I want to know how you know this?”

She thinks about it for a moment. “Probably not.”

“Not convincing enough. How do you know this?” Leaning forward, I kneel and rest my elbows on my knees, trying to trying to picture this corpse flower. It blows my mind that something like this exists in the world. Then again, the dead don’t stay dead in this world, so I really need to lower my bar for mind-blown moments.

“When that guy almost killed my friends—friend—and I by stealing our supplies and leading the dead in, I got a little carried away with my anger and slashed one up pretty good. It fell right on top of me, so when I stood up, I was covered in its guts and none of the other rotters paid me any attention until I screamed for my friend.”

My body temperature rises when she mentions this betrayal. I really want to find this guy and end him. “This guy who betrayed you. Where do you think he is now?”

She shrugs. “Hopefully dead somewhere. No, hopefully alive and starving and cornered by a horde with only a gun that ran out of bullets.”

“Harsh.”

“Not enough.”

“Touche. So does this corpse lily look anything like a rotter? Because I can’t imagine putting one into a vase on the kitchen counter.”

Her eyes widen. “They’re beautiful. Besides, add one into your rose bouquet and you’d have every girl in the country after you.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“I get it, you’re boring.”

“I’m not?—”

“So anyway, lavender roses.” Her eyes light up when she turns back to the flowers that brought us to this moment. I smile. I can’t help it. Seeing her excited about something so mundane as random flowers is a breath of fresh air I didn’t realize I needed. “They’re beautiful. I think someone stepped on one and I was trying to pep it up again.”

“Don’t flowers in the wild take care of themselves?”

“Well, yeah, but we don’t need to go around trampling them.”

“So you’re going to spend time out here tending to them, then?”

She shrugs and works on propping up the lavender rose again. “Might as well. You’re no longer dying in my arms, so I can give some of my attention to something else now.”

“I wasn’t dying in your arms.”

“However you want to phrase it. But yes, you were.” She looks at me with wide eyes. “That means I’m your hero. You practically owe me your life.”

“So I’ll repay you by helping with this flower. What do you want me to do?”

She recoils as though I suggested we set it on fire. “What do you mean, you? You’re big and clunky and might end up crushing it more.”

“Big and clunky? You think I’m big and clunky?” I grab her wrist, making her squeal. She leaps up to get away from me, but her foot catches on a raised root and she trips, sailing straight back to the ground.

I tighten my hold and spin us around so that I’m hovering overtop of her with her back on the ground. Well, sort of. I have one hand behind her back, holding her up over the flowers with my other hand pressing against the dirt.

Her chest rises and falls with each breath, and my face is close to hers with a smirk. “Say I’m big and clunky again, princess.”

“You’re big and clunky.”

I frown. “You weren’t supposed to actually say it.”

“Thanks for saving the lavender roses.”

“You’re welcome, princess. I guess this means we’re even now.” Lifting myself up, I pull her up and away from the flowers, and it gives me an idea. A surprise for her.

I smile at her, and this time it’s a genuine smile. Not joking, not laughing at her, but impressed. She’s impressing me. And that’s a first for anyone.

Emily told me to go lie down and rest, so of course I’m looking through the other buildings in this small abandoned town instead. There’s a bakery and a diner, but the stench of rotting food made me close the door and keep walking. The stench of rotting people is already more than enough to deal with.

The next building I see looks to be an old dentist’s office. That could be promising. I draw my knife and step inside.

Everything is calm. Eerie, even. Almost as though time has stood still, frozen in its tracks. Nothing overturned or broken, and no stains that I can see. I’m not used to finding a place so preserved. Every place I’ve stepped inside of for two-hundred and seventy-three days has looked like the aftermath of a massacre. I was told that Max and William cleaned up the area a little while Emily was working on keeping me alive, but this place is still unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s almost livable.

In one corner is a large pot with a dead tree, the only sign that no one has been here to take care of it for a long time. The pot is too big, and probably too heavy, to transport. There’s a smaller pot on the receptionist’s desk, but that one is far too small. I turn in a circle and survey the area before spotting one that could be the right size.

Walking over to the pot I picked out, I reach down and grasp the edges with both hands. The plant inside is clearly dead. I’m sure Emily won’t mind that I vacate it’s home to help her new flowers.

The moment I tip it over, I bend in half from the pain in my side, my hand shooting out to cover the stitched wound. I’m gasping for breath, waiting for my vision to clear, when I hear the click of the door opening.

Soft footsteps reach me. “I knew you wouldn’t listen to me. You’ve burst open your stitches again, haven’t you?”

I pull my hand away and lift the bottom of my shirt to expose the stitch job. No blood. “They’re still in place,” I pant out.

“For now. We’re eventually going to run out of thread. How much am I going to need to baby you before you finally take care of yourself?”

I stand up straight, towering over her small frame. She lifts her chin, tilting her head back as she keeps eye contact. It’s something I’m getting used to, having someone around who doesn’t cower around me regardless of size difference. She puts up with my looks, my personality, and gives me shit at every turn. Truth is, I would have let her go free long ago after realizing my initial assumption of her was wrong, but I’ve been greedy. “I don’t need you to baby me.”

“You don’t know what you need. You’re so busy trying to take care of everyone else that you can’t even take a single moment to take care of yourself.” Her words catch me off guard, and I nearly stumble back at the blow from them.

“So you’re a shrink now?”

“No. I’m your prisoner and I would very much like to get back on the road, as I still have a mission to complete, but I can’t do that until you’re better.” Another blow.

“Well, princess, I’m up and moving around. I don’t need you or anyone on my ass day and night. If you want to leave, then let’s get to the car and leave.”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I will not drag you to your death. Zoey means everything to me, and I will find her insulin in time, but not at the cost of your lives. Because you three have made me care about your stupid lives, and it pisses me off.”

I take a step closer, but she doesn’t budge. “Why does it piss you off?”

“Because caring about other people never gets me anywhere but into trouble. So I’m going to need you to get better and be able to take care of yourself again.”

“Then let’s get at it.” I thrust the now empty pot into her hands and walk past her and out the door.

Max and William are carrying one of the dead men by the arms and legs over to the hole and toss him in on top of the other two before looking at me when I storm up to them. I grab the shovel off the ground and head toward the damn flower Emily wants so badly.

“Hey, I’m not done with that,” Max says.

“Find another,” I call out over my shoulder.

Stabbing the shovel into the dirt, I dig up Emily’s precious flower. My anger—no, annoyance—no…whatever I’m feeling, diminishes when I see her running up to me with the pot in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. Her long, dark brown hair flies around her face in the light breeze, the damn thing untameable, her eyes shining through between the strands that fly across her face.

By the time she reaches me, I have the flower ready to transplant. I lean on the end of the shovel with the tip in the dirt and wait for her to stop huffing and puffing.

“How did you move so fast?” she asks between pants.

“Have to move fast to avoid rotters,” I respond, my voice void of emotion. Leaving the shovel sticking out of the ground, I kneel and help her, shoving my hands into the dirt and surrounding the flowers in the pot with more dirt, and a few more flowers that I grab just because I think they look pretty. I haven’t seen flowers this shade of amber before. There’s something comforting about it. They’ll look nice among the lavender roses.

Emily adds water to the pot, dispersing around the dirt. The way she handles it is with such care that it surprises me. It’s not something I would have expected from someone like her.

Max storms up and grabs the shovel with a huff. “You interrupted me burying bodies so you can dig up flowers? Unbelievable.” He storms off without waiting for a response, but Emily looks at me and laughs.

“Where do you want to keep it for now?” I ask, more calm now and I don’t know if it’s because of her laugh or something else. The argument we had not too long ago seems so unimportant now.

She looks around, lingering on the general store where we’ve temporarily set up camp. “Outside to get some sunlight. That way, it’s right there to take care of, too.”

“Good idea.”

She gets ready to stand up and goes to lift the pot, but it wobbles in her arms. “We might have added too much dirt.”

“Let me help.” I reach out and take the pot from her and stand up with ease. “Show me where you want it.”

She gives me a small smile and then leads the way, and I follow behind her, noticing the way she sways her hips.

My hand glides across the wood. Fallen trees, branches, moss-covered stumps, trying to find the perfect kind for the task at hand. A smile graces my lips when I find a large branch of basswood. “This will be perfect.”

William swings the axe down and chops away at the chunk I want. After a few swings, he pauses, drops the axe, and takes a swig from the water bottle. “What is it you’re going to make?”

“You’ll see.” I pick up the fallen axe and wait for William to have another go, but he holds up his hand.

“Think it’s time for a bathroom break. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t piss on any good wood,” I call after him. He waves a hand over his shoulder, either telling me he understands, or to fuck off.

The sound of leaves crunching under careful footsteps has me pausing and I look behind me to see Emily standing there, watching. I raise an eyebrow. “Enjoying the show?”

Her eyes dart to my side and her lips part to say something. I assume it’s likely a comment about my stitches, but then she glances back up at me. “We have enough firewood for a few days. There’s no reason to expend your energy doing extra work.”

Standing up straight, I let the axe fall to my side and walk up to her. She has to crane her neck to look up at me. “You followed me out here to criticize how I decide to spend my time?”

“Well, no.”

I raise an eyebrow. Not used to this version of her. I can’t figure out what she’s wanting. “Then what is it?”

She chews on her bottom lip for a moment before answering. “I only wanted to say thank you. For saving my life, I mean. I know I’ve probably seemed ungrateful, and probably a nuisance with making sure you’re alright, and I wanted to let you know that I’m not. Ungrateful, I mean. I’m absolutely a nuisance, though.”

Her lips press together and she fidgets with the hem of her shirt, twisting it so it’s lifted high enough to see a sliver of skin above her waistband. William found this shirt for her in one of the buildings here, which is a shame. I preferred her old shirt, the one that she ripped a third of the fabric off of. This one covers more of her again.

I grin at her, and she reels back like she’s been slapped, so I frown. “What is it?”

“Nothing. I’ve just…well, I didn’t know you could smile.”

My frown deepens. “I can smile.” To prove my point, I grin as wide as I’m capable of, showing a full mouth of teeth. “See?” I say, still grinning. “I can freaking smile.”

She laughs, a melodious sound that rings out. It’s a delightful sound. “You’ve got jokes, too.”

“Jokes and smiling, that’s what I’m all about.”

“Beneath the gruff exterior?”

“Deep beneath the gruff exterior.”

She laughs again and shakes her head before bending down and picking up sticks. “How much firewood are you wanting to collect?”

“None.”

“None? Then what are you doing?”

I can’t help it. I chuckle.

“Now you’re laughing too? You’re really freaking me out.”

“Guess I’m just chock full of surprises.”

“Okay, I’ll go now. Whatever you’re doing, don’t burst open your stitches or I’ll make the next re-stitch hurt even more.”

“Deal. And princess?”

She glances over her shoulder, her amber eyes looking up at me from beneath her long lashes.

“It’s a hobby I’m thinking about getting back to. Maybe I’ll show you sometime.”

For a few long moments she doesn’t say anything, and I fear I might have said too much. Then she graces me with the smile I’ve only seen her give to William. “I look forward to it.”

She’s gone almost as suddenly as she appeared, and I swing the axe on the split in the wood that William was working on right when he comes back.

“You really are impatient, aren’t you?” He grabs the axe from me before I can have another swing.

“Shit, I forgot.” I lift my shirt and am relieved to see there’s still no blood and the stitches are fine. I got lucky this time. “All clear. Emily just now told me that if I open them again, then she’s going to make the next time really hurt.”

“She was here?”

“Yeah, she thought I was the one swinging the axe around.” I laugh. “It was worth it to see her reaction. She wasn’t pleased.”

“I can imagine.” William swings the axe again until the piece of wood separates and I reach down to pick it up.

“Perfect,” I say, holding it in the air and turning it around. I have so many failed pieces in the car that I thought I’d given up on it. But then a sudden strike of inspiration hit me today, and I wanted to try something else.

“Here, you’re going to need this.” William hands over a knife, knowing that Emily took all of mine away as punishment for trying to save her and Max so soon after my ‘surgery’, as she calls it. It would normally piss me off to no end to be at the mercy of a tiny firecracker, but I’ve found myself craving more from her. Each time she does something that angers me, I want to do it again, but worse. It’s a strange sensation. “Anything else you need?”

“Keep an eye on her and don’t say shit about my stitches.”

“Can do. I’ve been thinking about hobbies myself.”

“If you do that, make sure Max keeps an eye out for rotters,” I respond before grabbing the axe from him as well and then heading back to the general store that’s become our temporary home base.

There isn’t much in here that we haven’t already ransacked, so it doesn’t take long to gather the best tools that could help me. I lay them out along the countertop like a skilled surgeon before glancing over my shoulder to see William twirling Emily around the fire, dancing. He gets along with her so effortlessly. He always knows what to say, how to act.

With a sigh, I hop onto the counter to sit, face the window, and begin carving. Alone in the dark, watching Emily smile and dance in the sunlight.