Page 25

Claire

D ays passed as we continued north. If I hadn’t known it already, I quickly learned that nature was a cruel mistress, and winter was her weapon of choice.

We walked endlessly, every day, with cold, hunger, and exhaustion clinging to us like the gossamer threads of a spider’s web.

Ensnared, we struggled against it, but some part of us sensed that the spider grew nearer every day.

More walking meant that the food rationing became significantly harder on us.

My clothes started hanging looser on my body, and I was surprised one afternoon by my reflection in a stream, my cheeks hollower and paler than I remembered.

The skin between my fingers cracked and bled—a product of the dry, frigid air—and my eyes stung from the light reflection off the snow.

I became cold quicker than ever and never felt like I wore enough layers, to the point that John started sharing my sleeping bag to keep me warm at night.

At the end of each day, I looked forward to his warm body curled around mine, his breath at my ear, his kisses in my hair. It kept me going .

Constant hunger and cold meant that everyone was irritable.

Misery sharpened Asha’s tongue to a razor’s edge, and more than once, I swore John was about to throttle her for her complaining.

Kimmy was more tolerant, but even she got testy when I innocently asked how far we had left to go one morning.

The lack of privacy and alone time was one more thing that wore on all of us.

Being together constantly didn’t help the growing tensions between us.

To John’s credit, if he was short with the other two, he was always patient with me, and tried to comfort me even when I could tell he was hanging by a thread himself. Truthfully, he was the only one I wasn’t sick of after weeks of constant contact.

The air was frigid the morning I woke up with a sore throat; I could see my breath every time I exhaled.

As we trudged through snow and ice, my lungs ached from the cold, dry air.

I was more tired than usual, falling behind the others, my eyelids feeling heavy.

A snowflake landed on my nose, melting on contact and startling me back into alertness.

“You alright, Claire?” Kimmy asked me. “You don’t look good.”

“I think I might be coming down with something,” I answered, coughing into the crook of my arm.

“Do you need to stop?” John asked, his voice rich with sudden concern.

“No,” I insisted, and Asha raised her eyebrows at me as I hacked another cough into my arm. “I don’t want to stop. We’ve been making good time so far.”

We kept going till dusk before making camp. John wrapped me in a blanket and made me sit by the fire while he cooked dinner. Meanwhile, Kimmy examined my throat, listened to my cough, and took my temperature with the thermometer in her medical kit.

“You have a fever,” she informed me as she put her supplies away. “But it’s low-grade. It’ll probably go away on its own, but I’ll keep an eye on it.”

Asha had been watching me like a hawk ever since earlier, and she finally spoke.

“You think she has the flu?”

Kimmy shrugged. “I don’t know. To be safe, though, maybe we should take a day off tomorrow and let Claire rest.”

I shook my head vehemently. “I don’t want to lose a whole day because of a stupid cold. I—”

Unfortunately, my argument was cut off by a coughing fit, which didn’t help my case. John dropped next to me, rubbing my back, worry etched into his features.

“We’ll see how you feel tomorrow, alright?” he said, clearly trying to pacify me. “For tonight, let’s just take it easy.”

After dinner, I found myself dozing off against John’s shoulder by the fire.

He kissed the top of my head and murmured something I didn’t understand before gently lowering me onto the blanket we were sitting on, letting me lie down.

He rearranged the blanket I’d been wrapped in so that it covered me, and I fell asleep.

Eventually, the sound of raised voices, sharp and angry, cut through my slumber, yet I was too sleepy to open my eyes.

“And what are you doing about it?” Asha was saying. “Hmm? She’s wasting away, and now she’s sick, on top of everything else.”

“You think I don’t know that?” John shot back. “You think I like seeing her sick and starving?”

“Stop deflecting. You’re supposed to be taking care of her. You think I don’t know how things work out here, Wastelander ?”

The word was spit out with such malice that I flinched. It wasn’t a cute nickname when Asha said it; it was closer to a slur.

“You just happened to come across a helpless woman in need,” Asha continued. “One who literally couldn’t survive without you. And then your dick just happened to fall into her. What a coincidence!”

“Fuck you,” John said, his tone low and dangerous.

Asha laughed harshly. “You think I blame you for taking advantage of the situation? It’s what all your kind do. She gives you her body to use and abuse, and you take care of her in exchange. But you can’t even do that.”

I slowly opened my eyes and saw Asha’s hardened expression.

“That’s why you’re a special kind of trash, Wastelander,” she said. “You don’t even take care of your things.”

There was a brief pause.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” John said with disgust.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I stirred, coughing, anger coiling in my gut. John automatically reached for me, putting an arm around me and helping me sit up.

“Easy,” he murmured, instantly gentle. “You’re not well. Let’s get you to bed. ”

“After what she just said?” I choked out. “No.”

I turned to Asha, who bit her lip, looking like she’d been caught out.

“Apologize or leave,” I said, my voice hoarse but definitive.

“What?” she asked, her eyebrows shooting up. “Claire, I was just—”

“You heard me.”

There was a tense pause before Kimmy appeared at the fireside. My only guess was that she’d left for a bathroom break.

“What’s going on?” she asked, looking back and forth between Asha and John and me.

“Why don’t you ask your new girlfriend?” John said sardonically.

Kimmy frowned and looked at Asha. “What?”

“Long story short,” he continued, “she thinks I’m a piece of shit who traps helpless women and makes them fuck me for favours.”

Kimmy’s eyes widened, and she stared hard at Asha for a moment.

“If that’s how you really feel,” I said, suppressing another cough, “you can get the hell out of here, Asha. He’s the love of my life.”

John’s expression softened slightly at my declaration, and he enclosed my gloved hand in his own.

“Yeah, I know,” Asha shot back. “You ‘love’ him in the fucked up, Stockholm Syndrome way that people learn to love their captors. But—”

“Is that what you think?” Kimmy asked. “That we’ve beaten Claire down so much that she’s given in?”

Asha looked cornered. “Not you , Kim—”

“Just my brother,” she interrupted furiously. “Just the guy I was raised with, traveled with for the last two years, who comes from the same place I do. If you think I’d tolerate him if he was doing anything like that, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”

Not difficult, since she’s known you for all of a few weeks, I thought bitterly. Meanwhile, I’ve known her for years and I would’ve never predicted this.

“I meant what I said,” I said to Asha. “Decide. Now.”

She studied me, deep brown eyes full of curiosity, doubt, and resentment. Then she surprised me.

“I’m sorry,” she said to John in a dutiful sort of way.

“I take back the things I said.” Her expression changed, and for the first time, I saw hints of everything she was holding back.

“I…I’ve seen a lot of shit in the last ten months, and none of it was good.

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it all. ”

Kimmy’s expression was a conflicted mix of pain and anger as she glanced back and forth between Asha and John.

I looked to John, wondering if her apology was enough for him.

There was anger contained in the tension of his jaw, but also a look of resignation in his eyes.

I knew he didn’t have it in him to leave a helpless woman to die in the cold—even one that got on every nerve he had.

Even one he only saved to spare me guilt.

“Fine,” he bit out. “Claire needs rest, and I think you and my sister need to talk.”

One look at Kimmy and no one could doubt it was true. Her gaze was cold as ice, and Asha looked cowed for once. The corner of John’s mouth ticked slightly upward in amusement, but it faded as he helped me to my feet, hearing me cough all the way up.

I was grateful when, several minutes later, he crawled into my sleeping bag with me and snuggled against my back.

He always slept without a shirt now to avoid overheating, and his skin radiated warmth.

I could feel his collarbone against my shoulder, rising more sharply than usual; he, too, had lost weight over the last few weeks and was thinner than I’d ever seen him.

It hurt me to see him suffer, but typical John just told me not to worry about him.

Too bad , I’d answered. Someone has to worry about you, and it’s going to be me.

He pressed a kiss against my neck, cradling me against his body, and sleep closed in on me again almost instantly. Even my worst nightmares could be soothed with the knowledge that he was near.

“How do you feel?” John murmured by my ear.

“Better,” I replied, eyelids heavy.

He took a couple of slow, deep breaths. I could faintly hear Kimmy laying into Asha, her voice edged with anger and regret, and Asha’s softer replies, entreating and uncomfortably tender.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “She’s right. I haven’t been taking care of you like I should.”

“Not true,” I said, perturbed, before enduring another dry cough. “None of us are exactly thriving in this environment. We’re all doing our best. You most of all. ”

There was a pause, but I felt his body relax, as though I’d lifted a burden from him.

“Did you mean what you said?” he asked.

“About what?”

“That…I’m the love of your life.”

I hesitated briefly. He was the only person I trusted entirely, and sometimes the vulnerability of it still frightened me. So much could happen in the Wasteland—I’d learned that the hard way. But I’d promised myself I’d be brave.

“Yes,” I whispered. “With all my heart.”

He was quiet again, this time for long enough that his next words were the last thing I remembered before sleep claimed me.

“You’re mine too, you know. My one and only.”