Page 42 of How to Entice a Fiend

“Wake up. Dammit. Wake up. We can’t sit still for long,” he says as he hauls a whole dead deer to me before blood drips onto my face.

I consider complaining about all parts of this and telling him that he shouldn’t have killed the poor deer until the blood hits my tongue and I moan,needingmore. I want to reach out to grab it, but I can’t seem to find my arms. Thankfully, I don’t needthem because he lowers it so I can greedily drink. I groan as the sweet blood fills my mouth and runs down my throat. I’m not sure blood has ever tasted this fucking good before.

When the blood stops coming, I whine, displeased, and try to reach for the deer even though I was prepared to chastise him about it.

“You’ve drained it. I don’t hear another, so we have to keep moving.”

It wasn’t enough. I need more. I need blood. I need?—

Ender picks me up even though I’m positive I just want to feast. I drift, caught up in a restless sleep until I’mplungedinto the coldest water I’ve ever felt in my life.

“Fuck!” I yelp, jerking awake. All desire to sleep is just tossed right out the window as I try to figure out what is happening and why I’m suddenly being subjected to this.

“You reek of blood. It’s making it easy for them to follow us,” he says as he pushes me back under the water and begins scrubbing me with his hand. I’m positive this must be a torture technique and that maybe I should have been nicer to him at some point, but he’s quick and I’m still suffering from arms made of lead, so I quickly give up the fight.

Even so, he doesn’t look good. The veins racing up his neck are black, and his skin has an unnatural gray hue to it.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Worry about yourself,” he says curtly.

Ender picks me up as I hear the rushing water. It’s a very soothing sound and begins to lull me back to sleep until it starts to becometooloud.

“Why’s it so loud?” I groan as I open my eyes and discover that I’m overlooking a huge waterfall… down below us.

“Hold on to me.”

“For what? Why the fuck would you jump? Even half dead, I can see all the rocks down there. How are you going to heal from that? You already look?—”

He obviously doesn’t care as he leaps off. I understand that he is trying to disrupt their ability to track us, but does shattering bones really help?

Ender hits the water, narrowly avoiding some of the larger rocks, and I’m plunged under it. I fight against it, but I’m so disoriented that I can’t seem to figure out which way is up. The coldness is eating through my limbs as a hand wraps around my wrist and I’m dragged back through the pounding waterfall and up onto some rock. After a minute, I realize he’s guided us to a small alcove behind the waterfall.

“They’re so close and I can’t keep running while carrying you,” he admits as he strains, trying to bust the chains around my ankles. They cut into my skin as he uses all of his strength to break them. He’s pulling so hard that he ends up crashing into me when they finally give before slowly pushing himself upright. The hand he’s leaning on is shaking so badly he’s barely able to hold himself up. “I don’t think I can get your wrists. I’m going to leave you here and draw them away.”

It takes me a moment to comprehend what he’s saying. “You just admitted you can’t keep running,” I say. “So why would you run?”

“We don’t know that this will even disrupt our trail enough for them to lose us. If I head out and distract them, you can heal up and get out of here. Keep heading east. I have no idea where we are. I’ve run for miles and have come across absolutely no signs of civilization, but you’ll have to hit something at some point.”

I throw all of my energy into grabbing his wrist. It’s a pain with these binds, but I can still use my hands just fine so I latch on to him, refusing to let go. “Ender.”

“Don’t delay me,” he snaps.

“We’re staying together. I know you feel guilty over what you did to me, but that’s ridiculous. What’s happened has happened.”

He jerks his hand back, but I just catch his ankle, and he’s so weak he crashes to the ground. I feel slightly bad about it but not bad enough to let go. If he falls on his face just from me grabbing his ankle, then what’s he going to do when someone attacks him? It merely proves why he shouldn’t be out there.

“We’re going to chill here and hope they lose us,” I say.

“If they don’t, I can’t fight all of them. That’s why we should split up.”

“So in one scenario, you get caught; in the other, we both get caughtorpossibly both get away. I like the idea of usbothworking together to get away,” I say. “I know you feel guilty, but sacrificing yourself doesn’t fix anything.”

“I don’t feel guilty,” Ender retorts, but he’s fighting me a whole lot less now that he’s on the ground. “I’m probably going to die anyway, so it doesn’t fucking matter.”

“You’re not going to die. If you made it this long, you’re clearly going to make it,” I assure him, although the way he looks, I’m not so positive. I push myself up and glance down. “When did I get naked?”

“Quite a long time ago.”

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