Page 111 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

“A b-bit.” Lou rests her cheek against my head and I can feel the heat radiating from her through my hair. Something is wrong with her.

I gently slide her off my back and manage to grab her under the shoulder before she falls over. She looks at me with glassy eyes, reminding me of the twin girls from the slums who died of pneumonia one particularly wet winter.

With a bad feeling, I put my hand on her forehead. She’s hot as a coal stove.

“You’re hot. You have a fever.” Damn it, that’s the last thing we need.

“N-now what?” Teeth chattering, she’s holding on to my arm, seemingly exhausted.

I lead her to a tree stump at the edge of the forest and gently push her down. I hope she doesn’t get the flu. Back at the RV it wouldn’t be a problem, but out here, she’s exposed to the cold and harshness of the wilderness without a place to recuperate. I quickly put my down jacket on her, nervously unlace the backpack, and take out the thermos with the raspberry leaf tea.

I silently hand her the mug and watch her anxiously as she sips the tea.

She is pale, only her cheeks are glowing like two red baked apples.

“Are you feeling warmer now?” I ask after a while.

She gives a weak nod.

“You’re still shaking,” I say, raising my eyebrows a little sternly because she’s trying to pretend.

Lou puts her hands on her cheeks and looks up at me trustingly wide-eyed. “It doesn’t matter,” she mumbles. “Your back warms me when you carry me.”

She looks so cute it makes my heart ache. “I don’t have anything with me to bring down the fever,” I tell her, eyeing her doubtfully. “Do you think you can hold on a little longer?”

“Sure.” She tries a smile that’s pathetic enough to touch me.

As I pick her up, I think I can feel her heart pounding against my back. I’ve barely started walking when she leans her cheek against my head.

“You think we’ll last forever?” she whispers into my hair.

I stop abruptly. Her heart is really pounding. “Of course,” I say, even though I don’t know anything and am just as confused as she is. “Why do you ask?”

“No idea. I’m just scared…”

“Scared of what?”

“Of everything… Of us, the future… Of what will be…”

Perhaps it is precisely this fear that is actually making her ill and not hypothermia. Who knows what she’s imagining. Maybe she believes she’ll be my prisoner again once we’re back at the RV. Is she no longer a prisoner? I close my eyes briefly and take a deep breath. What are we to each other now if we are no longer kidnapper and victim? I can’t find an answer. I never want to hurt her again, that’s the only certainty in me.

“Lou…” I say softly, as gently as I can. “I love you. There’s nothing to be afraid of… I thought you knew that.”

“Okay,” she whispers through chattering teeth.

“Really okay?”

“Yes.”

I doubt her words, but she’s too sick to talk about it, so I keep walking, pointing across the lake, sparkling in the midday sun. “There’s a spot up ahead where we can wade through the water to the other side. It’s where the lake turns into a river again.”

“Bren?”

“Lou?”

“If we’re together, forever, then we can have a normal life, can’t we?” She wraps her arms tightly around my neck and leans against my back.

As if struck by lightning, I stop again and feel myself tense up.

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