Page 37 of All Your Days (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #4)

Well, not entirely on my own. I’ll have Jessica and Matty and Moby. But they won’t know. They won’t get it.

Oh, wow. My moment of mental clarity has my feet tripping over themselves. Jacob’s free hand catches me by the arm, then slides around to my lower back to keep me steady. Not that I feel it. Dimly, I register he’s asking if I’m okay. I just grunt and nod, hoping it sounds appropriate.

Because I get it—for real now. I understand why Jacob’s been closed off. About why he has avoided attachment to everyone and everything all these years.

Cale killed his friends. Turned on them in a vicious, blinding, murderous, almost unstoppable rage. And Ryan, in his own final moments, was forced to kill his friend. To save us .

Every single person at The Facility has faced the infected. They’ve been our friends, our loved ones, sometimes residents we only know in passing. Everyone who’s turned, everyone sent below is someone we know in some way.

The risk is ever present and always real. So much so that it’s become a part of our existence, something we’ve become sickeningly used to.

Even so, they’ll never understand how different it was here. How there were no backups for the overrun guards, or panic locks to separate ourselves until help came. There was only terror in the dark—where only more danger waited—until the dawn came and we saw the gory remains of our camp.

What if one of us turned right now? Or in our bed overnight? Every day, every night we all put ourselves and our loved ones at risk of the monsters we can become at any moment.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

“What’re you lookin’ forward to doin’ most when you get home?” Jacob asks, thumb stroking my back. He hasn’t moved his hand. I wish it was as comforting as it should be—I just want to shrink from it, terrified to rely on it.

“I don’t know. Seein’ Jessica and Matty I guess.” I shrug, chewing on my lip. The energy in my answer isn’t right. I see him frown at me from the corner of my eye.

“You’ll be able to find out if they are havin’ a baby. That’s pretty cool. Jessica’s immune right?”

With the dark cloud in my head I can’t summon the same—completely out of character—enthusiasm as him.

“Uh, yeah. She is. Immune, that is. It’ll be good if they are. They really wanna start a family.” Fuck knows why.

“Are you alright? Do you wanna rest? You sound, well, not good.” I feel a sliver of pity for Jacob, whose voice almost squeaks when he suggests I’m not feeling great.

“Yeah, nah,” I shake my head. “I’m all good.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.” I nod more enthusiastically this time, even managing a smile. “Hey, what’s that?”

Jacob calls the train to a halt, peering out to the west where I’m pointing to a strange shape in the distance. It doesn’t look like a mob of animals. It actually looks like a camel. Not really an unusual sight, there are plenty of feral ones out here, but something about it looks odd.

“We got company?” Fear makes my arms and legs go funny. We haven’t run into anyone the whole trip. Running into someone now feels scarier than it should be.

Jacob pulls his gun around, looking through the sight.

“Holy shit.” He lowers the gun, and looks out at the camel drawing closer, then brings the gun back up. I’m buzzing, heart in my throat. “I reckon that’s Lou.”

“What?” I screech, startling Adeeko, who’s leading the train. He rears up, pulling on the lead. I have to give him a good scratch to apologise. “What do we do?”

“They’re heading straight for us, so I guess we wait.”

Wait with gun in hand, ready to shoot, is what he actually means, moving so he’s directly in front of me.

It’s unnecessary, though. Because it is Lou. Nearly unconscious, slumped on Sheba, no saddle, only a rope loosely tying him and his emergency bag to the beast, the reins barely gripped in his fingers.

“ Is that? ” Lou mumbles, blinking at us with bright red, bloodshot eyes.

“Yes, yes, oh my god. Let’s get you off there.”

Sheba seems happy to be getting back to her family, none the worse for her adventures.

Lou, on the other hand, is a different matter. Clothing torn, one boot missing, sunburnt and severely dehydrated, he is delirious when Jacob pulls him down.

“Shh, let’s get you some water.” We have to carry him to the same narrow, hard board Cale rested on only days ago. Only this time, we have to tie Lou down, because he immediately tries to roll off.

Jacob deals with that while I get a waterskin from the trailer and fill it from our tank.

“He’s not…” I ask when Jacob brings the spout to Lou’s lips, forcing him to slowly drink. I can’t finish because I don’t even know what I mean. Is he going to die? Is he going to turn?

Jacob meets my eyes with a tight smile.

“I dunno. I don’t think so, but I don’t know. But he’s immune, so we have that.”

So he won’t turn like Cale. But he could still die from being out here for so long alone. Fuck this fucking desert.

Lou isn’t in any condition to drink on his own, and we can’t exactly camp in the middle of the track for the night, so I do something I haven’t done at all this trip—join him on the bench.

It takes less than five minutes to realise why I haven’t done it before now. Lou’s head rests on my lap, and the bench is barely wide enough for my arse to fit. I have to sit up ramrod straight the entire way, until my lower back and upper thighs burn with the effort.

We stop for camp early when Lou can’t take the journey anymore, and really, neither can I. Jacob leaves us on the trailer so he can get out a cot for Lou to lie on while we set up camp.

“Need a hand with that?” He later asks for the fiftieth time, and I bite back the urge to snap at him.

He’s only being helpful, but I just wish he’d stop. It’s not like he’s going to be helping me when we get back to The Facility. Two more nights. That’s how long we have.

Two.

And then I’m back to having to figure out how to live without him, so, no, I really don’t want him hovering about, giving me tender little touches whenever he passes, smiling at me like I’m the brightest star in the sky.

“Yeah, nah, she’ll be ‘right. I got it.” Is what I say. Repeatedly.

After force feeding Lou and making sure he’s got some water into him, it’s time to settle him on his cot in the spare tent. Thank fuck we were able to save that one.

Another not great, but helpful distraction tool, when avoiding talking about feelings after a traumatic event? Taking care of a teammate you thought was dead and lost out in the desert.

But when he’s all tucked away for the night, well, there’s nothing left other than the shitty reality I’ve been ignoring.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on?” Jacob asks, coming up behind me as I lock up the trailer, where I’ve just put away the last of our stuff from dinner. Camp is completely packed up for the night—I might actually be learning a thing or two as a grunt.

“Nothin’.” I shrug, trying to step around him. His hand stops me, slapping the trailer, his arm blocking my escape.

“That, Eli, is bullshit. What’s wrong.”

Jacob steps closer, trapping me against the trailer and forcing me to turn to face him. He looks so concerned, so genuine, it breaks the hastily constructed walls I’ve been trying to hold up.

“Oh, I don’t know Jacob, maybe it’s ‘cause we’re still stuck out here and we shoulda been home days ago?

Maybe it’s because until this afternoon, I thought we’d lost more than half the team in one of the worst ways possible?

And even now that’s touch and go with Lou’s heat sickness.

Maybe it’s because we spent the night terrified we’d die and then another trapped in the trailer at the mercy of the Rains and I’ve spent every second since terrified that one of us is gonna turn on the other and there ain’t nothin’ we can do about it! ”

I seethe, spitting every word out.

Jacob listens to every word, reaching up to tenderly stroke my cheek, despite my venom.

“I know. I’m sorry. So fuckin’ sorry. But it will be okay, Eli. We’ll get through this together. And when we get home we can—”

“ We ? We , Jacob? What fuckin’ ‘we’?” My finger jabs his chest, forcing him back. “You made it perfectly clear that there’s no ‘we’. There’s you and there’s me. And know what? You were fuckin’ right . Because it’s better that way. Safer. You were right. You were fucking right .”

I keep walking forward, poking him in the chest to punctuate my point. Every one of my steps forward, he takes one back, until he’s the one backed up against the heavy wooden camp table.

My voice breaks at the end of my attack, cracking with the tears I’m trying desperately to ignore.

“Oh, Eli .”

Fuck him and the camel he rode in on. How dare he say my name with so much tenderness in his voice. I squeeze my eyes tight so I don’t have to see him in the dying glow of the campfire. Two hands cup my face, wiping away the tears.

“I was wrong . I couldn’t’ve been more fuckin’ wrong.

” Using his hold of my cheeks, he pulls me closer to kiss my forehead.

And I let him, because I’m weak and holding on by a thread.

“‘Course you’re not okay. You shouldn’t be after what we went through.

But I was wrong. Wrong about all of it. My whole life—I’ve wasted so much of it, so much of it that could’ve been spent with you.

I want… when we get home, I want that. With you, only you. ”

“But what about—”

“What if a star falls from the sky and kills us all? What if our heart stops and we fall down dead? What if we trip and break our neck? What if we live to a decent old age and spend the rest of our days happy together?”

“You can’t mean that.” Who the fuck even is this new optimistic Jacob determined to break me into a million pieces? Where is this coming from?

“But I do . Because what else is there in this world? I was a fuckin’ idiot. There’re so many terrible things. We should seize every scrap of happiness and love we can and hoard it.”

“Is that what this is then? Love?”

“Yeah, Eli. It’s love . I love you. I think I’ve loved you ever since you were an idiot kid on a rubbish pile.

The Facility’s not home; it’s never been my home.

But you, Eli? You’ve always been where I want to come back to.

Where I want to be. Where things felt right.

I think that’s what home means, and for me, you’re it.

I was just too blinded by my own shit to see it. ”

“I—I—” I stutter, trying to find something, anything to say. But I’ve got nothing.

“Shh, you don’t have to say it back. Or feel it, or anythin’.

I know, I kinda sprung this on you. ‘Specially with everythin’ I said before.

I just… I got some perspective. You don’t have to believe me right now, but I want to show you, prove it to you.

” Jacob’s lips dust over my face, brushing over my eyes, my cheeks, my nose, before settling on my lips in a brief, sweet kiss that has me aching for everything he’s saying to be true.

“I don’t wanna say I don’t believe you, Jacob, but fuck me dead.

How the fuck am I meant to believe this isn’t just some bullshit leftover from the Rains?

Or just ‘cause you’re scared ‘cause we almost died? How do I know you’re not gonna change your mind when we get home? ” I whisper my greatest fear.

“You don’t. But I do. All you can do is trust me.”

“That’s a pretty big fuckin’ ask, Jacob. I—I—” I take a deep breath to try and catch hold of my thoughts. They are like threads unravelling right now.

“Come on. Sit with me. Let’s talk.” Jacob’s hands slide from my cheeks, down my neck and my shoulders and then coast down my arms to capture my hands in his.

A soft smile pulls at his lips. How can I not follow him back to the fire? How can I not sit on the rock he gently pushes me down on? How can I not lean into him when he wraps his arm around my shoulder, tucking me against his side so he can press a kiss to my head.

“You’re right, Eli, and I get it. I’ve spent years keepin’ you, and everyone else at arm’s length. Askin’ you to just try me… it’s fucked. I’m sorry—”

“No, it’s not—” I interrupt, rushing to defend him against himself. His voice is raw, and raspy, and breaking me open inside. I can’t bear it. But he doesn’t let me finish, cutting me off with a tight squeeze around my shoulders.

“Let me finish. It’s not—it’s not easy to say, ‘kay?” He waits for me to nod against his shoulder and clears his throat.

“When I had to stay, after Sarah died, I was angry. Really angry, at the whole world. I’d lost everything again.

My parents died when I was only a little tacker, and then the family I was stayin’ with couldn’t keep me and I moved on with Mitch.

Then he got sick and I had to go on with Sarah.

Then I lost her. You all seemed so damned lucky. ”

The urge to defend myself rises and I squash it down. He doesn’t need me to explain that it wasn’t always easy at The Facility, that I’d lost my parents, too, that we’d starved in the lean years and had our own fair share of worries.

“I was hurt. And I was angry. And then that just became the way that I was until I didn’t know how to be any different.”

“So what’s changed?” I’m so quiet the words barely get past my lips.

Jacob's shoulder stiffens under my head, and then rises and falls as he sucks in a big breath and releases it in a gush.

“I lived my worst nightmare—one of ‘em anyway—and I realised… I realised that there are worse things than losin’ you.”

My hand finds his in his lap and I squeeze it tight.

“Like what?”

“Like losin’ you while you’re right here. Losin’ our chance to make somethin’ together. Like wastin’ my whole damn life because I’m too damned scared to live it.”

I can’t fucking breathe. I’m too scared that if I do, I’ll blow his words away in the wind. Jacob must sense my panic, because firm lips kiss the crown of my head again. Tears burn my eyes, and I squeeze them shut to hold them back.

“I can’t guarantee I’ll be any good at it—at being together like that. And I don’t know how things will go with me goin’ on trade runs and all the rest. I want to try, though, Eli. I really, really want to try.”

“I’m not comin’ on any more runs with you. Ever.” I whisper, all reedy and thin, too fucking close to breaking down.

Just as I think I’m about to fall apart, Jacob’s gentle laugh pulls me back together.

“Yeah, Eli. That’s fine.”

He kisses my head again, the arm around my shoulders dipping down to my waist to tug me in closer to his side, until I’m nearly in his lap.

I snake my arm around his waist, too, relaxing completely into him and sinking into his side.

Only the sounds of the fire crackling and popping fill the night.

We don’t speak, there’s nothing else to say. Not right now.

Under the billions of stars in the sky, I allow myself to dream.