Page 57 of Waves of Fury

I can’t lose him. Not when I need him so fucking badly.

As if tuned into my thoughts, he shoots me a curious stare. He reaches back to take my hand. His skin is icy, but with our hands gripping each other, they both quickly warm.

His easy, affectionate touch is all I need. I’m certainly not risking losing it over hooking up.

But, God, I’d love to pin him beneath me and kiss him breathless.

“Look!” Elise yells, her voice piercing the quiet night. “A hot spring! Look at the steam!”

She runs ahead, the wind whipping her dark hair around in violent circles.

“Elise,” I call out after her. “Slow down.”

“Don’t worry, Kellen, I’m not going to drink it. I’m just going to warm my hands up.”

We all trot after her, eager to also put our hands in the hot spring. Hell, maybe even our feet, too. She reaches the steaming pool on the side of the road before any of us. I get a whiff of something peculiar.

Elise drops to her knees, grinning back at us before she dips her hands into the water. The horrified howl that escapes next has us all staring at her in confusion. Her face twists into one of pain as she jerks her hands back. She looks at her shaking hands and then starts screaming at the top of her lungs.

I charge forward, hot on Aaron’s heels. When we make it to her, we quickly take in the scene. Her hands are something out of a horror show. They sizzle and steam as the flesh erodes and falls away in chunks. This causes her screaming to turn shriller and she begins flailing. Before we can stop her, she flings more bloody tissue from her hands all over the ground around her.

What the hell just happened?

“Stay back,” Aaron yells to our group. “Something’s wrong with the water. It’s turned to acid.”

Elise’s wails are cut short when she passes out, no doubt from the horror and pain, and her head hits the ground with an audible thump. Tyler shows up in an instant beside me, already pulling his first aid kit from his backpack. He squats beside her to inspect her hands.

“Holy shit,” he hisses. “This is bad. Kellen, this is really bad.”

There’s chatter and even some gagging behind us, but I can’t focus on that right now. I snap into action, carefully lifting one of her arms just below the elbow so we can see the damage.

The acid—or whatever the hell was in the water—has melted off all the skin on her hands. Her fingernails are gone and her hands continue to sizzle as bone is beginning to be revealed.

“I don’t know what to do for this,” Tyler says, voice panicked. “What do we do?”

Aaron scrubs a palm down over his weary face and shrugs. “Hell if I know.”

“We have to do something,” Hope chokes out. “Maybe treat it like a burn until we can get help.”

Until we can get help…

Tyler gives her a jerky nod and starts fumbling through the kit. He locates the antibiotic ointment packages and begins liberally squeezing it out onto her hands. It’s hard to do anything when we can’t exactly touch her hands without fear of getting the acid on us as well.

I find some padded bandages and rip them open. We place them on the tops of her hands. Then, he carefully begins wrapping her hands in the rolled gauze. He uses up every roll until her hands are completely covered. Blood dots the white gauze as it starts soaking through.

“What do we do now?” he asks, looking up at me.

Stopping isn’t an option. We have to get help and fast.

“We hoof it until we find people,” I rasp out. “And then we’ll force them to help us via any means necessary.”

Aaron lifts his gun and nods at me. “Loud and clear, boss.”

“Hang in there, Elise,” I murmur, scooping her passed out form into my arms. “We’re going to get you help.”

Tyler

Elise has been passed from Kellen to Wayne to Aaron and then back to Kellen as we continue our long, cold-ass walk. I’m not sure how far we’ve traveled, but it feels like hours. Aside from Elise’s pained moans when she comes in and out of consciousness, everyone is eerily quiet.

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