Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(108)

I did love him in the sense that he held a place in my heart, one that was solely and irrevocably his and his alone. It might have been a different type of love than what I felt for Thomas or the way I loved Evelyn, but it was love nonetheless.

He tried to smile, wincing as he did. “Take…care…of…” He trailed off, his one eye closing.

Frantic, I dropped his arm and leaned forward, pressing my face against his, searching for his breath. Placing my hand over his heart, I waited breathlessly for it to thump, and sighed in relief when I felt it. Although his breaths were shallow and his heartbeat slow, he was still breathing, and his heart still beat.

My own heart pounding furiously, I fell back on my ankles. I wanted to scream. I wanted to beat my fists on the floor, beat them against my face and my thighs and just scream and scream and scream and scream. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t f*cking fair. Everything good left in this world was going to be eventually snuffed out altogether, one by one, and not by the infected but at the hands of the selfish, greedy people who’d taken control, who’d turned a worldwide devastation into their own personal playground. Soon there would be nothing decent remaining, only sin or sacrifice, and my only solace was the hope that eventually they’d all kill each other off.

“Move, Lei!” Evelyn shouted, rushing back into the room with her arms full.

Setting down Alex’s hand, I scrambled to his other side while she dropped the bundle she was carrying and began to sort through it.

“There’s nothing to clean the wound with,” she muttered. “Nothing to stitch it with either. I’m going to wrap it as tightly as I can and then bandage it, okay?”

Still crying, I nodded. “What can I do? How can I help?”

She paused in her sorting and looked up at me, her wild eyes suddenly growing soft and sad. Opening her mouth, no sound came out, and she closed it, then licked her lips. As she shook her head slowly, tears began to gather in her eyes. “This is my fault,” she said, choking over her words. “This is my fault, all my fault, Lei! It’s all my fault!”

She was shaking now, trembling so violently that I stood up, stepping over Alex to drop down beside her. Pulling her quivering body into my arms, I could feel how cold she was despite the heat, nearly as cold as Alex.

“No,” I whispered fiercely. “No! Not one single thing that has happened has been your fault! All you’ve done was fight for us, for me. The actions of others is not your fault, Eve, do you hear me? It’s not your fault!”

Pulling away from her, I took her battered face gently in my hands. “Now, please,” I begged her. “Please help me save him.”

Pressing her lips together, Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut and curled her hands into fists, then shook her head. Reopening her eyes, she swiped the tears from her cheeks and pointed to a pile of clothing. “Help me rip it,” she said, her voice sounding stronger. “We need long, thin pieces to tie around him.”

Forgetting our grief and our regrets, we busied ourselves with the task at hand, knowing the only thing that mattered at the moment was to try to do something to help Alex. After tearing the clothing into strips and tying them tightly around his abdomen, we continued to bandage him with the remaining suitable articles of clothing. When we were finished, we made a bed of sorts for him using scraps of material for a pillow and his jacket as a blanket.

Afterward, when Evelyn had gone to check the area for threats, I lay down beside him, taking his hand in mine and holding it to my heart. Humming softly, I began to pray. Who or what I was praying to, I no longer knew.

But in the end, all our efforts were wasted. Alex died as the sun was setting, while rays of gold and yellow streamed in through the window, touching every inch of his body. Appearing as if he were glowing, he took his last shuddering breath before going still.

“Thank you,” I whispered, kissing his cold lips with my own trembling ones as my tears fell on his cheeks, making it look as if he were crying in his sleep. “Th-thank you for everything.”

? ? ?

“Where should we go?” Evelyn asked, her head against the wall, her eyes on the window as she watched the fat and full moon hanging low in the night sky. “Should we still head south? Or west, maybe?”

Seated beside her, my back against the same wall with Alex’s head in my lap, I ran my hand through his hair, much like I’d been doing all night. “Does it matter?” I asked.

“No,” she answered, sounding listless and far away. “It doesn’t.”

“I wish we could bury him,” I mused, still running my hand through his hair. “Instead of having to just leave him in here.”

Several rather bold rats had already begun sniffing around his body, not seeming to mind when I would kick them away. They were waiting, I guessed, for us to leave him here so they could have their meal.

“We could try,” Evelyn offered, still staring out the window. “Maybe I could find some rocks for us to dig with.”

“That sounds good,” I whispered, trailing my knuckles down Alex’s scruffy cheek. “We should do that.”

We lapsed into silence, Evelyn’s gaze still on the moon, and mine on nothing in particular. While Evelyn continued to sniffle, I couldn’t seem to cry. It was as if my tears had all but dried up. It was about time, I thought wryly, that I stopped crying every other second.