Page 77 of Delirium

On the other hand, if this fucking purple snake was the last thing I saw before I died, I’d be pissed. I’d probably spend the rest of eternity being an angry ghost, haunting James because I knew it would bug him to no end.

But not seeing Scarlett’s angelic face one last time before I bit the bullet? Never. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew what that meant. I was committed, all in. I was attached. One day, that would be my downfall. Not today, though.

I threw myself forward, grabbing the snake with both hands, strangling it for all I was worth. “See how you like a taste of your own medicine, motherfucker!”

“Camp!” Hands pulled at my shoulders, yanking me back, away from the danger, but didn’t they know I had this handled?

“Get off me! I had this under control!”

“Camp, goddammit, look at me!” Scarlett’s wild scream brought me back to reality, her angelic face I’d been so desperate to see only moments ago finally in sight. Did that mean it was my time? I’d gotten what I wanted, after all.

Except Scarlett wasn’t looking toward the snake. She was looking at me.

“Camp, baby, what do you think happened? Talk to me.” She crouched next to me, wiping my hair away from my face. Surprise rocked through me when I realized her hand came away wet.

“The snake. Did you not see the snake? Did it get away? It was so purple, how could you have missed it?” Why was her hand so wet? I reached up, touching my forehead, realizing I was dripping in perspiration. Fuck. “Tell me you saw the snake.”

Scarlett shuffled backward, grabbing a long vine. “Is this the snake, baby?”

A long green vine, dotted with tiny purple trumpet-shaped flowers. In no way a snake. It didn’t even have a beating heart.

“Oh.” I looked up at her, squeezing her wrist tightly. If anything was going to keep me on this earth, it was going to be her. “Scarlett. Don’t let me lose my mind. Don’t let me go, whatever you do.”

She shook her head, her blue eyes filling with tears I wanted to brush away. I hated that I was the one making her cry. “I won’t. I promise.”

She deserved more than this. Better than this.

Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to let her go. I clung to her tighter, harder, an anchor in a world that was drifting away from me, piece by piece.

At some point, there was going to be nothing left of me.

Nothing left of me except the little bit of my soul that lay nestled inside Scarlett’s heart.

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

NASH

Curse. Roll it around in your mouth a few times. Taste it on your tongue. It won’t sit right, won’t fit nicely between your lips. It’ll dissolve on your tongue, slowly, a poison you’ll taste every mouthful of. And still you’ll sit there, wondering if it was real, or if you were just making it all up. It’ll dig into the back of your brain, making itself at home. You’ll go about your life, every single day for the rest of your life, and it’ll always be there. A tattoo you can never remove, but you remember every so often, evidence of a poor choice when you were young and dumb.

I hadn’t believed in curses before I’d run away here, but now I wondered if everything in my life up to this point hadn’t been a curse. Maybe I’d been charmed as a baby, a witch showing up to my bedside, making sure I knew happiness and joy, but never true contentment. Or maybe it’d begun when I decided to run one last trip down the river, when I knew I should’ve called it quits for the season.

I only knew that watching Scarlett kneel next to Camp, halfway propped up with wild eyes, was enough to break my heart. How did I fix a problem with no solution? It killed me to see Scarlett hurting so badly for him, but I had no way to help besides getting us through.

My legs had started aching last night. The chills came later, but I wasn’t about to tell anyone and make it about me. Right now, I was strong enough to pull us through. If I had to make a guess, I’d say Scarlett was doing the same, judging by her pale skin and the way every so often I’d catch her gaze drifting off into space, as if she could see something the rest of us couldn’t.

I looked up to the sky, the tell-tale clouds already gathering through the gaps in the trees. It was obvious Camp couldn’t go any further today, and we’d made decent progress—if I had to guess. I mostly had my gut to go by where a village might be in this area.

“It looks like we’re about to get rained on at any minute. Let’s rest for a bit. I’ll set up the tent, make us some dinner, and Camp can sleep. Sound good?”

Hearing no protests, I dropped both bags at my feet and got to work on the tent. The clouds loomed closer, casting the rainforest into even more darkness than merely being shaded in the foliage before. A chill ran down my back, and I didn’t know if it was from the incoming rain, or the fever quickly working its way through my immune system.

“What can I do to help?” Scarlett twisted her hands as she watched me.

“Keep an eye on Camp. He needs you more than I do.”

She shook her head. “He’s sleeping. I tucked his backpack under his head and he just passed out. Still breathing though. And his heart rate seems okay. I’m not a medical doctor, but I don’t think he’s in any danger at the moment.” She looked down at me, concern scrawled across her face. “Will that happen to all of us, if we all do have malaria? Will we all get hallucinations?”

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