Page 18 of When the Living Fall

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. Hehas 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 insidesafe. 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.”

13

EMILY

When he doesn’t budge, I try again. “I need to leave. Or…we do.”

Griffin stays put, arms around me like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. As much as I’d love to stay in this little bubble, I can’t. I’ve got people depending on me. Someone’s life depends on me, and I need to get back to her with this medicine—whether or not they come with me.

With a sigh, I try to push myself up, but he tightens his hold. “You can’t.”

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