Page 43 of Last Light

Travis has sunk the hunting knife into the side of the man’s neck.

He’s dead in seconds.

Travis stands up and picks up his shotgun from the ground, hoisting it to his shoulder and aiming it at Hank.

Hank has been watching in a stunned daze, but now he raises both hands and takes a step back. “Weren’t me. It weren’t me!”

“It wasn’t,” I croak from the ground. “It wasn’t him. He told the other guy to stop.”

Travis fires the gun above the man’s head. The sound cracks loudly in the quiet afternoon. “Start runnin’. Start runnin’now.”

Hank whirls around, still bleeding from the arm where I stabbed him, and runs. He doesn’t stop, and he doesn’t look back.

Travis waits until he’s out of sight. Then he lowers his gun and comes over to me. He kneels down and tries to gently uncurl my body. “Shit. Oh shit, Layne. Are you okay?”

I try to tell him I am, but it comes out as a whimper.

He makes a wordless sound in his throat, his face twisting briefly.

My head is pounding and I’m jarred from the blow, but I can tell there’s been no real damage done. I try to make my throat work again. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

He’s inspecting the place on the side of my head where the man hit me.

“Am I bleeding?”

Travis bites his lip. “Just a little.”

“I want to wash up. He got his sweat... his sweat all over...”

Travis murmurs something I can’t hear and stands up, helping me to my feet. When my knees buckle, he swings me up in his arms and carries me to the passenger seat of the Jeep. I reach down to move my gun out of the way—why the hell had I ever left it there?—and he places me gently in the seat.

He drives us down to the stream and then gets out to carry me to the bank.

I can walk. I know I can walk.

I just don’t have the will to argue with him right now.

He digs in our stuff for the soap and a towel and then sinks to the ground beside me. I’m already leaning down to cup the water and splash it on my face.

I’m well beyond any sort of self-consciousness. I just want to get the smell and the sweat of that horrible man off me. I pull off my shirt, dropping it on the ground, and I splash water all over my chest and arms.

I take the soap Travis offers me and lather up and rinse off, scrubbing my skin until I can no longer smell the man. I bury my face in the damp towel and shake for a minute, finally letting go of the tension.

Travis gets up, and I don’t know why, but when he returns he has another towel. He submerges one side of it in the water and then uses it to wipe down my back. I’m shaking some more as he soaps up the same area and then cleans it off with the towel.

His hands are so careful. So soft.

“Do you need...” His voice cracks as if he’s forgotten how to use it.

I lower the towel and see him gesture toward my jeans. “No. He didn’t touch me there.”

I can see that register on his face.

He reaches up to brush back some hair that’s escaped my braids, but then he drops his hand back to his lap. “Can I... can I take care of... of where he hit you?”

I nod wordlessly and watch as he gets up and then returns with antiseptic ointment and bandages.

He gently cleans off the blood and then applies one large bandage. “It’s not a very big cut,” he murmurs. “It’ll mostly be the bruise.”

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