Page 31 of The Dead Don't Talk
Hands aching, skin flaying, I finally curl my fingers around the platform’s base and haul us up. My waist hits the edge hard when my arms give out, the weight of me and Wilson threatening to pull my dangling legs back over.
“Fuck!”
“Wilson,” Amo yells, the sound of his voice closer than I anticipated. I feel the hands next, pushing and shoving at my thighs. “Don’t you dare fall off.”
It’s just enough leverage for me to swing my leg up and heave our bodies away from the ledge.
I’m panting on all fours, my vision going red around the edges.
“Shit.”
Pressure builds in my head, a pounding like nothing I’ve ever felt before settling inside my skull.
“Are you okay?” I feel Amo’s hands, but barely. “I told you that was a stupid idea.”
“N-no choice,” I croak out and yank at the straps across my chest, freeing my ribs of Wilson’s weight.
I’m aware that his body slides off mine in a heap, the impact of the floor probably not good in his condition, but I can’t get the room to focus. My breathing to slow.
It’s too close.
“Just go,” I mutter through clenched teeth to Amo, who ignores me like always, and rolls a hissing Wilson onto his back. “Need you to go.”
“What? No. I’m not leaving him like this.”
My vision might be pulsing, but I can see the bites across Wilson’s skin. The tears in his clothes. The dark blood that stains his flannel. His chest pumps with his heavy breaths, the effects of the storm either making it worse or making him better. Only time will tell.
He managed to take out half the horde that had engulfed the base of his post, cutting him off from safety with just his bare hands before they got close to him. Before we could get to him, and yet the fucker is alive. A few bullets from his backup rifle expended and a lost knife later, the fucker isstill alive.
An eerie calm settles low in my stomach.
I can smell it.
The infection coursing through his veins and keeping him alive.
But what smells even better is the musk wafting off Amo in waves. The sweet heat. The pure treat of untainted—
I growl, a deep sound that I can’t control.
“You aren’t infected, are you?” It comes out rough and low, and Amo’s gaze swings to mine. There’s a shine to his wide eyes, like he’s fighting off tears, and it’s like I can feel the blood pool low in my gut. My dick grows stiff. “Are you, kitten?”
Those curls bounce around his shaking head as he whispers.
“No.”
He’s hovering over Wilson, who’s gone just as stiff and hot as me, trembling fingers clinging to a damp cloth.
The air floods with the scent of iron, the slow patter of droplets tapping against the roof filters in through the house, and I suck in a deep breath.
It feels nearly refreshing to breathe it in. Like the shock of the cold stream after a hot day that eases the tension in my muscles and loosens my joints.
I crack my jaw, unhinging it from its clench as Wilson’s chest rises with a steady rhythm that Amo misses because he’s too busy staring at me.
Here it comes.
Chapter 14
Pour all over me
