Page 50 of All Your Days
“The Rains’re almost here. What do we need to do?”
I see the wheels turning in Jacob’s mind. In reality, there are too many dangers to fight each one right now.
We’re not the only carriers out here. We need protection from the animals that will seek us out. And while we haven’t seen anyone on the road, it doesn’t mean there is no one else coming.We need to secure ourselves and our animals and our food and our water.
And rain always brings the risk of a flood, one we’d be right in the path of.
“I’ll deal with the… bodies. You pack up what you can in the tents. We need to reorganise the trailer—we’ll have to stay in there ‘til the Rains pass. I’ll deal with the animals when we get back.”
Jacob hesitates over calling them ‘the bodies’, trying to find the right word I guess. My stomach churns because I don’t want to leave him to deal with them, but my newfound bravery only goes so far.
“Okay. We can do this.” I nod, and Jacob does the same with the barest bob of his head. Now it’s my arms wrapped around him, squeezing him just as tightly as he did me.
“She’ll be right. We got this, ‘kay. You and me. We’ll get through it together.” I chase his eyes, and force him to look at me, putting everything I have into it. He gets the message, his spine straightening under my gently stroking fingers.
“Yeah. Yes. We do. We got this.”
It’s the tiniest flicker of hope, but I believe him.
Every second is hell.
Jacob leaves me to deal with the camp as much as I can while he deals with the remains of our teammates. I don’t waste a second and in an awful way, I’m grateful. There’s no thinking, just movement, shifting everything nonessential out of the trailer into one of the tents and rearranging what’s left to keep it safe. It’s not a good kind of mindlessness, though. I can feelthe creep of the madness settling in, getting worse with every second.
Ropes burn my hands when I tie the water tank to the trees and it feels good. I almost crush my thumb with a mallet hammering in the pegs to the guide ropes and for one crazy moment I consider doing it again and not missing this time. Just to see what it feels like. I stop recognising my body, the buzzing inside me alien and strange. And it’s loud. So fucking loud.
Not just the wind whipping the clouds across the sky, or the panicked sounds of Adeeko and Binty where they are panicking and pulling against their ropes. No, the screeching sounds inside my head.
By the time Jacob stumbles back to camp, I’m barely holding myself together.
Jacob looks ferocious, his face twisted in a way I’ve never seen before. In the madness of my mind, his anger is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It sings to me, makes me want to drown in it, makes me want to provoke it and see what damage he can wreak.
Hands on his hips and near vibrating with tension, he surveys how much I’ve managed to get done.
“Good job.” He grinds out angrily.
I don’t hear his praise. Not really. I’m too busy staring at the smear of blood on the olive green of his shirt. The longer I stare at the dark stain, the more it looks like a dingo’s head. Laughter bubbles out of me. Yes, there is definitely a long snout and two pointy ears.A bloody dingo. My laughter is sharp, high pitched. Too bright. I know, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I want to trace the pattern. Press myself against him and see if I can stamp it on my dark blue shirt. We can match then. Matching bloody dingoes.
I wonder whose blood it is? Is it the same as the blood still caking his forearms, where he’s folded his sleeves up? How didhe get so covered in it? What did he actually do with the bodies anyway?
“Eli!” Jacob’s sharp bark cuts through my hysterical thoughts, bringing me sharply back to reality.
It’s a terrible thing he does to me, because for a brief shining moment I can see myself, see how far I’ve gone already and it scares me. What if I go too far? What if I can never come back?
Black clouds my vision, and the fire burning inside me singes my skin. It hurts—everything hurts, like hot coals being shoved under my skin. But God, how does it feelgood,too? The pain makes me want more of it. The craving boils in my guts. It’s overwhelming.
The world shakes. No, not the world.Me. Strong hands grip my arms, squeezing me hard enough to help me claw back some sanity. I open my eyes to find Jacob close enough to see the flecks of hazel in the deep brown of his eyes. It’s hypnotic.
“Get in the trailer. Now.” He has to say it twice. The second time I watch his pillowy lips make the sounds. It helps and I drag myself to the trailer, giggling wildly.
“What the fuck is so funny?” Jacob’s right behind me. I don’t realise until I hear his grumbling voice.
I struggle to get into the trailer, my body not able to coordinate itself up the stairs while also trying to figure out the answer to his question. His strong hands are on me again—my arse this time—all but heaving me through the door. I fall onto the mats I carefully arranged earlier—the old blankets were used as padding in the trailer—and scramble onto my back. Rising up on my elbows, I watch him climb into the trailer and methodically hunt down the medical kit he’s after.
“I was just thinkin’….” A lie, I hadn’t been thinking shit. Who can think with the squawking voice in my head chanting for me to slam my body into his and see what happens. “How lucky I am that I take the stairs every day back home. If I took the lifts likeeveryone else, there’s no way I could’ve outrun Cale, and I’d be dead.”
In the dimmest, farthest reaches of my brain where the real me is clinging to life I’m horrified by the thought I didn’t even know I had. The horror is too deep, though, and the madness has me cackling loudly instead. The sharp sound bounces off the wall of the trailer making it all so much worse.
Jacob doesn’t find it funny. Already coiled tight, the threads of his iron-like control fraying, he turns to face me, a brutal scowl on his face.
