Page 20 of When the Living Fall

Please, Griffin. Prove me wrong.

14

WILLIAM

Water sloshes in the bottles I packed into my bag, along with an old jug I found to haul extra. It should be enough to get everyone hydrated, at least until I can refill before we head out. I’m not sure how long we’ll be here—Emily and Griffin will decide that—but this open ground doesn’t look like a place anyone would want to linger.

Trees and bushes are scarce, offering little protection from animals, rotters, and dregs. We’re sitting ducks out here.

I push myself to move faster, leaping over the corpses of rotters I took down on my way to the stream. It feels wrong to be away from her, even for this long. But I trust Griffin and Max enough to keep her safe. She especially needs us looking out for her after passing out like that. The thought pushes me to move faster. She’s going to need this water when she wakes up.

When she wakes up, I remind myself, thinking that word again. Because she’s going to. I shove back the thoughts creeping up about what would have happened to her if we hadn’t found her when we did.

As I approach our temporary camp, Max comes into view first. He’s balancing on one foot with Buddy by his side, striking down two rotters with raw, unfiltered force. Each swing lands harder than necessary, his face tense, eyes blazing. I’ve seen that look enough times before to know this isn’t the moment to intervene, though; he has his own battles to fight, especially after everything that went down with Nathan.

Just past Max, Emily emerges from the cover of the bushes Griffin carried her into earlier. She’s on her feet, steady and alert, and the sight makes me pause. I’d thought she’d be out for hours, but here she is, already moving.

“Emily,” I breathe, catching her attention.

She stops, glancing over with a look that feels like a punch to the gut—sadness etched deep in her gaze. I hate seeing that look; we’ve all seen enough sadness lately.

I lift the jug, giving it a little shake. “Can I refill your water?”

She nods back toward Griffin, who sits on the ground, looking shattered. It’s obvious their conversation didn’t go the way he’d intended. “Might want to set some aside to clean his wound. He messed it up again.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Did you give him hell about it?”

A quick grin flashes across her face. “I sure did.” But just as quickly, it fades, her expression slipping back to that same sadness. And that—well, I hate seeing that most of all. I don’t know what happened between the two of them, but that’s for them to work out. First, I have a smile to fix.

“Wait here,” I say to Emily before striding over to Griffin, who glances up as I approach. Shrugging the bag full of water bottles off my shoulders, I drop it to the ground in front of him and grab Emily’s empty bottle, refilling it from the jug. I nod to the bag in front of him. “There’s fresh water in there. Clean your wound. I’m going to go take care of our girl.”

Without wasting a second, I hurry back to Emily. When I reach her, she lifts her head and meets my gaze with a tilt of her head. “What did you say to him?”

“Told him to take care of himself for once,” I answer, placing the full bottle in her hand and slipping my arm around her waist, lifting her into my arms in one effortless motion. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Where are you taking me?” Her hand falls to rest against my chest, and I revel in her touch.

“There’s too much heavy energy around here. The guys can work on their own problems, but I can at least do something about yours.”

She studies me for a second, but doesn’t argue, letting herself lean against my chest, her fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. The steady beat of her heart, the quiet rise and fall of her breath—all of it calms me in a way I can’t quite put into words. Holding her in my arms like this was something I never thought I would get to do again. This time, I won’t take it for granted.

She doesn’t argue, just wraps an arm around me, holding the bottle close and resting her head against my chest, her breath falling in sync with my racing heartbeat. I tilt my head down to nuzzle my mouth against the top of her head. She’s so soft and fits so well in my arms. I carry her all the way to the stream, setting her gently on a smooth boulder right by the water’s edge, close enough for her to dip her feet in.

The thick silence stretches between us, filling the entire wide-open space. She looks out over the water, her expression distant, lost in thought. I watch her, memorizing everything about her in this moment. The way the early sun catches the lighter flecks in her amber eyes. The slow path of her fingertips tracing along the surface of the boulder. The holes in her clothing that weren’t there last night. Finally, Ireach down, splashing water over my hands, the chill biting at my skin while I try to gather the right words.

“Emily,” I start softly, waiting for her to look my way. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I thought you’d be out for longer, and clearing out all those rotters between the stream and camp…I wanted to make sure it was safe.”

Ignoring the cold water, I reach in, ready to clean her up. When my hands brush over her skin, I notice the mud and dried blood are gone. Her skin has already been scrubbed clean.

“Griffin already took care of it,” she murmurs, her gaze turning away. She bites her lower lip, as though weighing words she’s not sure she wants to say. This quietness—it’s not her, and I don’t like it one bit. So, I go straight to what I’ve been dying to say since the moment she walked away.

My hands slide a slow path up her shins, fingers curling around her calves. “I’m sorry I didn’t go after you the moment you tried to leave. That’s my biggest regret in my life.” She’s quiet, her lips pursed and her gaze distant when she looks past me out at the water. “We knew better than to trust Nathan, yet we did anyway. We set our trust in a known snake, and all it took him was one minute to tear our world down.” Still nothing. I give a gentle squeeze of her legs, searching her face for something, anything, a sign that she hears me. “I can’t speak for the others, but I know I messed up, and I want to make it right. Please. Tell me how.”

A faint whisper escapes her, and I almost think I imagine it. Almost. “Maybe I deserved it. I kept you all in the dark, after all. None of you deserved that.”

I move closer, dropping to my knees on the rough ground, ignoring the sting of the small stones biting into my shins. I place my hands on her shoulders, needing her focus. She stillwon’t meet my gaze, so I lift her chin with a soft touch until her eyes finally meet mine. “What you deserve is to be trusted—trusted more than some guy like Nathan. You’ve had our backs since the moment you joined us, and we should have gotten your side first. We should have asked you. There’s so much we should have done differently. I don’t want to make those mistakes again.” I lean in, brushing a soft kiss to the tip of her nose. “Do you think you can ever forgive us?”

Her eyes shift, unfocused, as she considers my words. “I don’t know. However, I’ll take you all to the colony and try to talk to them.” A tear slips down her cheek, and I reach up to wipe it away. “I doubt it’ll do much good. Since I brought Nathan in, they see me as untrustworthy. It’s a mistake I’ll be paying for as long as I live. So, when you didn’t trust me, even for a moment…it hurt. It really, really hurt, William.”

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