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Saff tapped her finger against the metal handle of the gun. A few beats of silence passed. Then Maddie shifted, turning to face her.
“So, I guess this is it then,” she said, both hands still firmly planted on her arm.
Saff looked down at her blue eyes. Blue eyes that, in that moment, held a slightly timid and unreadable look.
Saff looked away. That wasn’t what she wanted to see. It made her chest feel oddly tight.
She cleared her throat, struggling to shove the feeling away.
The whole thing had started from one stupid—luckilymissed—gun shot. One stupid agreement to trade getting her out of the city for some medicine. Medicine that she still needed and still hadn’t gotten.
And now that it was all finally coming to an end, she should have felt happy—relieved. Yet instead, she had a different feeling. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but it definitely wasn’t relief.
Maddie dropped one hand down to her wrist, immediately running her fingers over the bracelet.
“Thanks for everything,” she said quietly.
Saff’s eyes moved back and forth between Maddie’s face and the hand on her wrist.
She remembered the first time Maddie had done that—how on edge she’d felt. But now, as she did it, she realized how natural it had begun to feel.
Then she thought of the night before. The way she’d felt waking up beside her before she really realized where she was.The guilt that had coursed through her with Maddie’s body curled into her own.
Maddie didn’t know who, or what, she really was. She didn’t know she’d been sleeping in the arms of a raider—amurderer.
And with that thought, the warning bell went off in her head.
Maddie leaving was for the best.
Her father’s scolding voice instantly filled her head. She could hear him telling her she was weak. She could see him, covered in sweat, the tremors beginning to take over as the infection spread through his body—his face contorted in disgust when she couldn’t immediately pull the trigger.
She cleared her throat, shaking the memory from her head.
“Yeah. It's no big deal,” she replied, suddenly feeling distant from Maddie—distant from everything. Even her own hands felt like someone else’s.
She was vaguely aware of the way Maddie’s face shifted, from a look of sadness and disappointment to a look of frustration.
But even with that look, she still ran her fingertips gently across the bracelet in a soothing movement.
And something about that irritated her.
The whole situation irritated her.
It irritated her that she wanted Maddie to keep holding her arm. It irritated her that the second Maddie ran her fingers back across the bracelet, her hands suddenly began to feel like her own again.
“He holds his gun wrong,” Saff blurted out.
Maddie’s hand stopped. She went quiet for a few seconds before finally muttering, “Okay?”
“If someone were to attack you guys,” Saff continued, “they could easily come up behind him and knock his gun away.”
A bemused look crossed over Maddie's face. “Well,” she began slowly, “I guess it’s a good thing you taught me to shoot, then.”
Saff gritted her teeth. That wasn’t the point. Well, actually, she didn’t really know what her point was. But whatever it was, she knew that wasn’t it.
She had the urge to cross her arms over her chest, but resisted solely because she didn’t want to pull her wrist away from Maddie and lose the soothing touch of her fingertips.
And that realization alone made her want to punch something.Hard.