12. Griffin

12

GRIFFIN

H er breaths fall in a slow, even rhythm, a faint sheen of sweat glistening on her skin. Angry blisters bubble across her feet, raw and red. How could someone get so many in one night? Maybe some were already forming before she left us, but losing that shoe had to have made things worse.

Before heading out to fetch more water from the stream, William dropped the mud-caked shoe he’d salvaged. While waiting for her to wake up, I cleaned up the shoe as much as possible so she can wear it again. However, I intend to find her a better pair. Ones that won’t let her feet get this bad.

Max stands nearby, on guard with Buddy, the occasional unmistakable sounds of him taking down another rotter drifting over. I’d offered to switch with him, considering he’s not moving too well after that tumble down the cliff, but he wasn’t keen on getting close to her—didn’t even want to be in the same area. He’s got his own issues to sort out. Right now, though, my attention is fixated on the woman sleeping in front of me.

After a night of relentless running, tracking her through the dark forest, and fighting off rotters and dregs at every turn, I finally had her. I only had a few moments when I pulled her into my arms, kissing her like I should have long ago, when her eyes rolled back, her body going limp. Panic doesn’t even begin to cover it.

She felt weightless when I scooped her up, carrying her to the best shelter we could find—a large, overhanging tree with thick bushes at its base. Options were slim out here, but the tree at least gave us some cover until she’s strong enough to move.

William thinks it’s a mix of exhaustion and dehydration. We’re all feeling it, but none like her. Knowing her, she likely gave every spare bit of food and water to Buddy or didn’t pause long enough to take any herself. I know how stubborn she can get when she’s on a mission like this. She won’t let anything slow her down.

Buddy keeps circling back to check on her. He’s her dog, through and through. When he sees she’s still sleeping, he heads back out to guard alongside Max, who, after his fall, isn’t as quick on his feet. For that, I’m grateful. He won’t let anyone help him, but he doesn’t shoo away Buddy.

My patience is wearing thin while I wait for her to wake. I could sit here forever, listening to her breath and watching her sleep until my vision blurs. The sun is already high, yet she hasn’t stirred. As I inch closer, a strand of hair, lifted by the breeze, brushes against her face. “I need you to wake up soon, princess,” I murmur. “I need to see those amber eyes of yours. You can still be mad at me, just…wake up.”

Nothing.

With a sigh, I peel off my shirt and grab a bottle of water. Not the one set aside next to her—that’s hers alone, waiting for when she finally wakes up.

Dabbing water onto a clean part of the fabric, I wipe her face with gentle strokes. Even with the cool touch of the damp cloth, she’s still as stone. Bit by bit, the dirt and mud give way to the soft skin beneath, but her chapped lips dry out faster than I can moisten them with drops of water.

I move to her arms next, removing her jacket and placing it beneath her head as a pillow. She had to have been overheating in that thing, but it at least protected her arms, though her hands are still caked in mud. As I clean them, cuts appear across one palm, small shards of glass embedded in the skin. Somehow, she fought off rotters with a hand like this. Anger courses through me at the realization that we should have been there to protect her. She shouldn’t have had to fight alone. She never will again.

A gentle breeze stirs, and I lean in to tuck that stray strand of hair behind her ear again, murmuring, “You won’t have to fight like this anymore, princess. I’m not leaving your side.”

It doesn’t matter that she can’t hear me. I’ll keep that promise. Regardless of whether or not she’ll let me.

Leaning back, I turn my attention to the cuts on her hand. They need to be cleaned. The last thing Emily needs is an infection. That’s at least one thing I can protect her from right now.

We’d sorted through our supplies earlier, including hers, laying everything out. The first thing I reach for is the First Aid kit, grateful she had one on her because we didn’t. Max used to have a hasty habit of getting splinters every other day, so I know for a fact there are tweezers in there. I can’t imagine trying to dig this glass out of her skin any other way.

No. That’s not right. They were here; they were just here.

Confusion fills me when I don’t see the small metal tweezers that I’ve watched Max use many times over. Picking up the small kit, I carry it the few feet to the bushes that surround our temporary hideaway and pop my head through the foliage to where Max is leaning against another tree, digging the tip of his shoe into the dirt. “Hey, what happened to those tweezers?”

Max makes a weird scoff-laugh sound. “Willie-boy stabbed me when he was getting a splinter out, so I ripped the tweezers from him and stabbed him back.” An eerie smile crosses his lips. “After that, he shoved the tweezers into a rotter’s empty eye socket and told me to never get another splinter again because we didn’t have any other tweezers. That was a fun morning. I think he was pissed because I almost died the night before.”

“You almost die every single day,” I point out. “So, we really don’t have any tweezers?”

His eyes brighten. “Does my pet have a splinter?”

“No, she fucking doesn’t,” I growl out before disappearing back into the tiny shelter, where my gaze finds Emily again. Seeing her lying there alone, unconscious, and injured, snaps the last thread of control I have and I throw the first aid kit across the ground, spilling the contents across the dirt. I throw my hands into the air and mutter, “Great, now I’ve gotta fucking pick all of this up again and clean off the dirt before packing it away. Fantastic. Way to go, Griffin.”

I’m halfway through collecting the contents from the spilled First Aid kit when I see Emily still lying there, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, her glass-splintered hand still palm-up by her side. Deciding she needs to be taken care of first, I dump the First Aid contents into a pile and return to her side. I run a hand through my hair while I think of what to do.

We have no tweezers, but there has to be something else around here to use. I mutter under my breath about William fetching clean water when he should be doing this instead. Sure, I insisted. I refused to leave her side. But damn, that man is far better at this than I am. He’s the gentle one. He has the steady hand she needs right now and would know what to do in this situation. I could wait for him to get back.

I reach out and, with a careful touch, I lift her hand from the dirt and set it in my lap. The skin around the glass is an angry red. No, I can’t make her wait. She took charge and took care of me when I needed it. Now it’s my turn, and I won’t let her down. Not again. So, I pull out a knife and place the tip against her skin, next to the largest piece of glass, and pry it out at an agonizingly slow pace. It takes every ounce of my concentration to not puncture her, but the shard of glass finally pops out with success. After dropping it into a small hole I’d dug in the ground that I plan to cover with dirt later so she doesn’t step on any of it, I crack my neck and move onto the next shard.

The process of pulling out the glass one at a time is long, but it goes smooth enough. Only one shard remains, the largest yet. It’s wedged in deep, but after a minute of careful work, I get it out and add it to the pile. I’m wiping sweat from my brow when her fingers twitch, and she stirs. My gaze snaps to her face, her expression tightening in pain. Did I hurt her? I hurry to dab away a few drops of blood from her palm, cursing myself that I should have been gentler.

Her eyes flutter and my breath catches in my throat. “Princess…” I whisper, every bit of my attention on her, waiting. Her finger brushes against my palm and I toss the knife into the dirt behind me and face her full on. Finally, everything else fades away when her beautiful amber eyes meet mine.

Gently lifting her, I slip my knee beneath her back to prop her up, twisting the cap off the water bottle and holding it to her lips. “Drink.”

To my surprise—and slight disappointment—she doesn’t argue. She drinks, greedily draining the bottle before stopping, coughing, and gasping for air. I hold her up, making it easier for her to breathe. The empty bottle rolls to the dirt .

Regret gnaws at me for using so much water to clean her up; if she needs more before William returns, we could be in trouble. Fuck it, I would carry her to the stream my own damn self if need be.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she rasps, clearing her throat. Hearing the frailty in her voice tears at me.

“I’m exactly where I should be.” I tuck that damn strand behind her ear again.

“Why?”

With one arm around her shoulders, I reach for her uninjured hand, my gaze locking onto her tired amber eyes. “You once asked me to trust you. It came from out of nowhere, but I could tell it was serious. I didn’t understand it back then, but now…now I get it.”

“You do?” Her words still come out in a croak.

“I’m trusting you, Emily. Trusting that you had a very good reason for not telling me about the colony. And I want to know what that reason is.”

There it is—the first time I’ve ever admitted to trusting anyone outside of Max or William. It’s true, though. I trust her. The only thing I need now is to understand her reasons. But I’ll still trust her even if she doesn’t want to explain, no matter how hard that’ll be for me.

Her lip trembles. Where is William with the water? The stream wasn’t that far; we saw it from the cliff. “Will you leave if you don’t like the answer?” she asks, her voice soft.

The question cuts me straight through the gut. “Absolutely not. If I don’t like the answer, I’ll only try harder to convince you to let me stay with you—wherever that might be. I watched you run once. I won’t let that happen again.”

A faint, tired smile tugs at her lips before failing. Fuck, how much did that one night take out of her?

“I was planning to ask them to let you stay,” she says, voice barely a whisper. “We’re forbidden from telling any outsiders about the colony in order to keep everyone inside safe. There are good people there, and I couldn’t risk it. Then I got to know you…”

“And you changed your mind. You wanted to tell us,” I finish for her.

She nods, then coughs, her voice strained. “I was the one who brought Nathan in. I thought he was just another survivor, someone who needed safety, protection…everything the colony could offer.” Her eyes close for a moment as though reliving pain, and then they open again with a fierceness. “But after what he did—taking supplies, leaving the gates open, letting rotters in—the colony barely trusts outsiders. He nearly destroyed us. We’re all still recovering from it. I was afraid if I brought you to the gates, they’d shoot first and ask questions later. I couldn’t let that happen. You weren’t something I was willing to risk losing.”

A single tear slips down her cheek, and I wipe it away without letting go of her hand.

“I was going to bring the insulin to Zoey and, if I couldn’t convince them to let you in, I planned to leave and come find you again.” Her free hand lifts to trace the scar on my face, her fingertips brushing against the raised tissue. My eyes close, and I lean into her touch, a touch I’d missed so much. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up, only to let you down. But I also didn’t want to lose you.”

This woman.

My breath comes out shaky, but my hold on her is steady. Leaning in, I press a soft, gentle kiss to her lips—softer than when I’d found her below the cliff. I don’t deepen it, but there’s enough there to let her know this is only the beginning.

As I pull back, I hover just above her lips, whispering my promise. “I’m not going anywhere. Wherever you have to go, I’ll be there. I’ll wait for you.”