Silas (28 page)

“
They’re coming,” I said.
“It’s going to take time, though. They only know the general
direction of the shot, not our exact location. We need to be
patient.”

So we were quiet.

Waiting.

In another ten minutes, we
still hadn’t seen anything.

I peered up at Christa. “So,
are we just going to pretend like last night never
happened?”

She furrowed her brow. “No.
But I don’t see why you’re bringing that up at a time like
this.”

I wasn’t sure either. It had
been really nice last night, making love to her. She’d been sweet
and wonderful, and I’d really enjoyed it. Last night, right
afterward, I hadn’t been thinking much about it. But now, with
nothing to do but watch the quiet woods, there were things that
didn’t make sense to me about the whole incident. “Well, we don’t
have anything else to talk about,” I said.

“
What’s there to
say?”

“
If I’d died, and you’d been
locked up here with Emmett instead of me, would you have jumped his
bones?”

“
Oh my god. You are obsessed
with the idea that I wanted to sleep with Emmett.”

“
Well, you did, didn’t
you?”

“
No,” she said. “You know,
every time Emmett comes up, you’ve got to connect it to what I
said. You don’t even think about the fact that he’s dead. That
doesn’t even matter to you.”

I sighed. “It does matter.
It’s just… you know, there’s nothing we can do about
that.”

She was quiet above me.
“You’re used to it. To people dying all the time. I don’t think I’m
ever going to get used to it.”

I toyed with the gun, making
sure I had extra shells. “I don’t want you to get used to
it.”

We didn’t say
anything.

I looked down at the ground
below. Everything was green. It looked cheery, and it annoyed
me.

I bit my lip. “Did you fuck
me for comfort? Would you have fucked anything?”

“
Yes, it was for comfort,”
she said. “That’s why you fucked me back, wasn’t it?”

“
I…”

“
I was freaked about what I
did to that guy. I just wanted to forget it.”

“
Right,” I said. “And I was
handy, so…”

She laughed. “Oh, I get
it.
That’s
what
this is about. You’re getting possessive. You want me to fall madly
in love with you. But I haven’t. And that’s driving you
crazy.”

I glared up at her. “That’s
not it.” But I had to admit it stung to hear her say that. It
wasn’t that I wanted her to be madly in love with me. However, I
wouldn’t have minded it if she at least liked me. I wasn’t sure how
she felt about me at all.

“
Is that what all the other
girls do, Silas? Do you wait for them to profess their undying love
to you before you dump them?”

“
No,” I said. “I’m not an
asshole.” I considered. “Okay, I’m an asshole, but I’m not that
much of an asshole.”

“
Right,” she said. “I’m not
going to be like those girls, Silas. I’m not going to follow you
around like a puppy dog.”

“
I don’t want you to do
that.” The fact that she was different was what had drawn me to her
in the first place, wasn’t it? “I don’t see how I can be possessive
when there’s no one else here besides you and me.”

“
Because you want to possess
me.” She giggled. “You want me to be yours and yours alone. You
want me to marry you and have your babies.”

“
No.” I clenched my jaw. And
then something occurred to me. My gaze snapped back up to her.
“Hey, um, about babies?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“
The serum means I can’t get
sick,” I said. “So, there’s no chance of STDs or anything, but we
didn’t use a condom, so, I mean, is there a chance that you and I,
like—”

“
No,” she said. “I get that
Depo shot. I’m not ready to procreate.”

“
Oh, good.” I breathed a
sigh of relief and turned back to the ground. I tried to not look
at the bright, happy green leaves and instead keep my eyes open for
the hunters.

“
I guess we get a pass on
not even talking about protection,” she said. “Since we’re running
for our lives and all?”

I looked up at her. “Yeah,
it wasn’t anything like a regular hook-up.”

She grinned at me. “Are you
disappointed?”

“
What? No.”

“
Oh, come on, admit it, you
kind of wish you’d knocked me up, don’t you? That would mean that I
was yours.”

“
I don’t want to possess
you.” I checked the gun again. She was starting to annoy me even
worse than usual.

“
Oh, poor Silas,” she teased
me. “You wish we could have woken up in each other’s arms and
whispered sweet nothings to each other, don’t you?”

“
No,” I said. But now that
she mentioned it, maybe it would have been nice to wake up close to
her. She hadn’t even slept close to me. There were tons of nights
before we’d ever had sex that she’d been closer to me while we were
sleeping.

Her laughter rang out above my head,
airy and amused.

I wanted to strangle her. I
twisted my head to see her again, fixing her with a glare. “So, why
didn’t you want me to play with your tits? You have some kind of
trauma or something in your past?”

She stopped laughing and
blushed bright red. She wouldn’t meet my gaze. “No. It wasn’t bad
what you were doing. It was only that it felt good.”

“
You don’t want it to feel
good?”

“
It made me feel out of
control. It made me feel vulnerable. I explained this to you last
night.”

“
No, you didn’t.”

“
Maybe you weren’t listening
because you were blissed out and half asleep.”

Now that she mentioned it, I
remembered her saying something about not letting guys touch her so
that she could feel powerful. “Wait, you mean you really didn’t
want me to do things that pleasured you because you were afraid
that I would have power over you?”

She shrugged
self-consciously. “I don’t know if I’d say ‘afraid.’ More
uncomfortable
,
really.”

I gave her a sarcastic
smile. “Well, that’s not fucked up.”

“
Oh, shut up, Silas,” she
said. “Like we’re not the same. You don’t want to be out of control
either. That’s the whole reason why you don’t have girlfriends, and
why you won’t let yourself think too much about the people you’ve
killed or the other horrible stuff you’ve had to go through. So,
sure, maybe I’m a little fucked up. But you’re fucked up
too.”

I hesitated, letting that sink
in.

Was she right? Was I a control
freak?

I had to admit that the
paranoia that I had stemmed from worry about people trying to hurt
me. That was something I couldn’t control, but I did my best to
control what I could. I remembered making sure Sloane had a gun the
night that I’d been certain Rolf was trying to break into my house.
I remembered checking on Christa, making sure she hadn’t been
hurt.

I guessed I did want to control
things.

But what she was saying. It
wasn’t the same as me. I opened my mouth to explain to her that
denying herself sexual pleasure so that she could stay in control
was a horrible idea, but then I saw the hunter.

He was walking directly
beneath our tree. He had on full camouflage. He crept along the
ground with his gun drawn, quiet and quick like a cat.

I looked up at Christa. She was staring
up at the sky.

I touched her foot.

She looked down at me,
annoyed.

I put my finger to my lips.

She nodded.

Then I pointed at the
hunter.

Her eyes got big. She made a motion to
get her gun.

I shook my head.

She furrowed her brow.

I held up a hand. I mouthed,
“Wait,” at her.

She looked confused, but she
nodded.

We watched the hunter.

He walked around beneath our tree,
straight past us.

After he was far enough away
that I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t hear us whispering, I said
to her, “He’s alone. We don’t want him. We want Rolf.”

“
So?” she
whispered.

“
So, let’s not shoot
him, let’s follow him. When we see Rolf, we shoot
him
.”

She considered.
“Okay.”

* * *

We kept back. So far back
that occasionally, the hunter disappeared from view, swallowed up
by the forest and the branches and greenery. It always frightened
me. I was afraid that when we moved forward, we
’d lose him entirely.

But we didn’t.

For the bulk of the day, he burrowed
deeper into the woods.

Around noon, he turned and went in a
completely different direction.

We followed him across the stream. He
walked south for a few hours.

I wasn’t sure if he was
still looking for us, or if he was heading back to meet up with
Rolf, or what.

We just followed.

After some time, he stopped to eat. He
opened a can of Coca-Cola and ate some peanuts.

We stopped too, some
distance away. We ate some of the other hunter’s trail mix and
jerky.

His meal finished, he stood
up and stretched. He picked up his gun and peered out into the
woods.

He swept his gaze around him, at the
forest surrounding us.

But then he stopped.

He was staring at us.

Or was he?

We were hidden behind some
thorn bushes and an old, hollow log. Was any part of us visible? I
looked around, trying to see what it could be.

But the hunter snapped the butt of his
shotgun to his shoulder, aiming at us.

Before I could react, he pulled the
trigger.

The shell burst into my
ankle, which erupted in a spray of blood and splintered
bone.

I cried out involuntarily. That was
what had been visible. My leg. My stupid leg had been sticking
out.

Christa unslung her gun from her
shoulder. She pointed the barrel at the hunter.

I fumbled for my gun as
well.

The noise of our movement pinpointed
our position.

He shot again.

It hit me in the gut—punched
a big bloody hole in me. I cringed. God damn it, I could really go
without ever getting shot again for the rest of my life. I gritted
my teeth, trying not to make anymore noise.

Another shot. Loud. Right next to my
head.

Christa had pulled her
trigger.

The hunter looked stunned.

Her shot had gone wide, but
he hadn’t expected to be shot at.

“
Wait,” I gasped through the
pain. “We need to find Rolf.”

“
Rolf will come to the sound
of the shots.” She popped another cartridge into the gun and pumped
it. She squeezed the trigger again.

The hunter let out a little cry of
surprise.

Blood blossomed on his
chest.

“
Nice shot,” I
said.

“
I hit him,” she said,
sounding pleased with herself.

I was feeling woozy.

The hunter fell to his
knees. His hand went to his chest. He looked at the blood there.
Stared at it—confused.

I clutched my wound. “This
is going to make me go dark,” I said to Christa.

“
That mean you’re going to
die on me?”

The hunter crumpled to the
ground.

I grunted. “Yeah, I think
so.”

“
Damn it, Silas.”

“
I’m sorry,” I managed.
“It’s not healing fast enough.”

“
You suck,” she
said.

“
Get his gun,” I
said.

She scrambled over me to the
body of the hunter.

“
Make sure he’s really
dead,” I called after her.

And that was all I knew.

* * *

“
You really are a feisty
one, aren’t you?” a voice was saying.

I struggled to open my eyes.
I was healed, but I didn’t feel a hundred percent yet. All this
dying and healing was taking a toll on my body. It needed proper
fuel and care to take this kind of abuse.

I groaned, rolling over.

“
You can stop that
struggling,” the voice continued. “You’re not going
anywhere.”

I opened my eyes. I knew
that voice. That was Rolf.

He was standing in front of me. So was
Christa, but she was tied to a tree. She had a cut, right above her
eye, and blood was dripping down over her face. Why was she tied up
like that?