Page 55

"Leg," he breathes and wraps his hands around his head. "Fuck, everything hurts."

My gaze shoots down to his right leg. "Your T-shirt. You had to make a tourniquet out of your T-shirt?”

“Impressed?”

Yes. “Let me see your leg. Maybe I can—"

"What, you went to some kind of twenty-four-hour medical school recently, Pops?”

"But maybe—"

"I'm sorry... I’m sorry I couldn't protect you. That I couldn't get you home. I really thought I could."

"Nash—"

"Let me get this out, dammit. You deserve to be happy. I hope you get a chance to see that too one day."

Breathing turns difficult as warm tears stream down my cheeks. These past few days of not talking to him, of being so damn self-absorbed, were a waste. If I'd known our time was so short....

"Why does that sound like a goodbye?" I sob. Fabric clings to my cheeks. Damn this thing. I grip the veil and rip it off. "This isn't goodbye. You'll be okay."

"Ah, now you're sounding like the princess of the trolls, Poppy. I knew you had it in you."

The fever must be frying his brain. How can he call me beautiful one second and a troll the next?

"Damn, Mya made me see Trolls ten times in the theater with her. Cost me a fucking fortune," he says with a pained smile. "I hope she grows up like you."

"Don't say that. Don't you dare fucking want that for her. I'm a curse. Look at my sister. My mom. You. Everyone I love...." The truth settles like a weight on my shoulders. I was a fool to hope for a part of him, to think I could have a life with him. I’m destined to be alone. "Hope for her to be anything but like me, a sad, lonely, broken girl who everyone leaves behind."

"You still don't get it, do you?" I cringe at the pain-laced features his huffed laugh causes to flash across his face. "I wish I could’ve helped you see it. See you the way I do. The way you should—fuck." In a jerking move, he angles his head to puke along the floor.

Enough of not touching him, not comforting him. I grip the bottom of a slat, the wood biting into my palm as I yank it hard toward me. Again and again I pull until the nails groan and shift. The board snaps halfway up, a loud crack filling the room. Not caring about the guards, I toss it aside and start on the board beside it.

It takes three cleared boards to create a space large enough to wiggle through. I squeeze through the gap over to his side and kneel beside his head, gently raising it and nestling it onto my lap. Soft brown eyes flutter open, looking to me and then the wall.

"Did you Karate Kid the wall?"

Crying, smiling, I shrug.

Trembling fingers graze across his hot forehead and down his clammy cheeks. With each pass, his eyes close a bit more.

"No, keep them open," I whisper. "You're going to be okay. You have to be okay. I need you so bad. Don’t you get it? You’ve... you’ve changed me and can’t take it back. I don’t want to do this alone anymore, Nash. Don’t leave me. "

"I wouldn't if I had a choice. But... you can do it, Pops. For what they did to her, what they've done to you, make them pay. Finish this. If anyone can, it's you. Find what I see in you."

With a mind of their own, my fingertips trace the edges of his full lips, memorizing each curve and dip for future dreams. "I'll try. For you... I'll try."

“No,” he groans. “Do it for you.” A truck engine rumbles in the distance, growing louder, but I ignore everything but us with each sweep of my fingers. "Don't let them break you. You break them," he breathes. "See the you I do."

The approaching truck drives through camp and cuts its engine. A sudden wave of heaviness settles as goosebumps sprout along my arms and legs.

And I know the cause. "It's him," I whisper, looking back to Nash. "I'm... I’m scared."

His clammy hand settles over mine, pressing my palm harder against his bearded face. "I know, and it's okay. Everyone gets scared. But don't let fear paralyze you. Turn it. Use it."

Outside, the camp stirs awake. Men move through the light drizzle to surround the truck, cheering and pumping their large guns in the air over and over as they shout. A shadowed figure steps out of the passenger door and walks toward the men.

Acting more like a politician than a general, he moves through the crowd shaking hands, talking, and laughing. His second-in-command approaches and stops, blocking the general from the rest of the men to exchange a brief handshake. The general’s head turns, following his second’s pointed finger toward our shack.