Page 49 of Obey

He slips, dragging me down with him, and he curses under his breath as he brings his hand up to wipe his face. He only ends up dragging more mud across it, and he grimaces as he finally gets up to his feet. Looking down at his shoulder, he grimaces. “Oh, great,” he says. “Now I really will get some disease and die. Then you can drag my fucking corpse around with you.”

No.

I grab his good arm and wrest him upright. “You are not fucking dying here. I didn’t go through all this fucking trouble keeping you alive just to get literally dragged down by you—again.”

Maddox lets out a harsh laugh. “Yeah. You just can’t resist the urge to make a dig at me even when we’re about to die, can you? Fuck you, Nayeem. Just… fuck you.” He takes a step forward, his jaw set stubbornly.

I look away and shuffle toward the airboat. “Let’s get it unstuck and keep fucking going. The sooner we’re out of this swamp, the sooner we can shower.” I eye the water and wonder if I could take a quick dip to remove the mud, but I don’t know that I want to risk attracting the attention of any deadly creatures.

Maddox doesn’t argue—but it doesn’t matter, because the boat is on its side, stuck fast in the mud. We try to get it upright again, but we slip on the mud and end up toppling again.

“Like this fucking day couldn’t get any worse.” I get up, and automatically extend a hand to Maddox.

“It can always get worse,” Maddox says with a dark laugh as he accepts my hand. I don’t think he’d have taken it if the situation wasn’t as dire, but here we are.

I stare at our joined hands. Maddox notices and quickly lets go, although it’s not like he can actually move far away from me.

I can’t see the shotgun anywhere, and I realize with a sinking feeling that it must be lost underneath the mud somewhere. I do spot the cooler, and I take the single bottle of water from it.

I start walking, only to get jerked back when Maddox tries to go in the opposite direction.

“Where are you going?” I growl.

“I don’t know! I wish I could just walk away from you,” he says. “But I can’t, and that looks like the best direction to go.”

Part of me wants to argue, just for the sake of arguing. There’s mud all over my beard, my shirt and pants are clinging to me, and I want to be done with this shitshow of a day.

“Fine.” I start walking in the direction Maddox had chosen, which looks the same as the other one. It’s all green and brown and water.

The only saving grace is that it’s shallow enough for us to walk in. I’m not sure if we could swim chained together like this. The shore looks like it’s mushy and difficult to traverse, but even that’s better than the goddamn water.

We both trudge through it in silence, neither of us in the mood to talk any more now than before.

There’s mud in my boots. I can hear them squelching, when the bugs and birds and frogs aren’t announcing their presence. The terrain is uneven and slippery, and with the sun getting closer to the horizon, it’s harder to see where we’re stepping.

Maddox falters a few times, and I slow down. His shoulder is probably killing him, but he isn’t complaining.

At least there’s that.

“We can’t walk forever,” he says after what feels like an eternity of walking through the swamp. “What are we going to do when we have to stop for the night?” He swats at a mosquito, but more bugs buzz around us to take its place.

“I don’t know. Climb a fucking tree.” I look at the nearby trees, and I don’t think I’d be able to climb any of them even if I weren’t chained to another person.

“Yeah. Because that’s going to work real well,” Maddox snipes at me.

“I wasn’t being serious,” I snap back.

“Well, with all the good ideas you’ve had today, I just wasn’t fucking sure,” he says.

“Like you’re some sort of fountain of good ideas, Mr. I-let-myself-get-tied-up-on-enemy-turf?” I point out with irritation.

Maddox goes still, and we miss a step. I stumble, and he grabs my arm to keep me from falling. “Yeah? What’s that supposed to mean? Seeing as how you were more than happy to help with the tying instead of telling me what a bad idea it was.”

“I did tell you it was a bad fucking idea,” I say. “And I stepped in so that at least it wasn’t a total stranger potentially getting you helpless.”

Liar.

I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone else tying him up. I wanted to see him vulnerable and open to me and…

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