Page 114 of Savagely Yours
“Hey, baby! I’m so happy to see you.”
“We’re going to talk about that later.”
Neal cried out.
Another one of the Infected had grabbed hold of him, aiming for his forearm with its mouth. The smell of the Infected’s mouth wafted up through the hatch like a sewage pipe.
Dez groaned.
Then, the Infected’s head went from whole to half. The same happened with those closest to Neal, the sound of the bullets ricocheting off the walls.
Neal scrambled out onto the grass.
Dez slammed the door shut.
I took in our surroundings as best as I could, and so many bodies covered the ground that I didn’t need light to make them out. I started to ask Dez what had happened, but he set me down, snatched the flashlight from my pocket, and shined it in my eyes.
“Dez, I’m okay. No bites, no scratches.”
“I have to see for myself.”
He checked every inch of my body.
When he dragged down my shorts and panties and pushed aside my bra cups, I started to protest—until I noticed Neal, still on the ground with his leg bent, holding his foot and sobbing.
So, I didn’t say a word.
Once he was satisfied, Dez rearranged my clothing, sighed, and pressed his forehead to mine.
“Did you find anything?” I quietly asked.
“No, but it wouldn’t have mattered. I would have taken you with me. Even if it was your corpse or you were one of those things, I would have kept you by my side, next to me.”
I wanted to break down.
Collapse into his strength.
But I needed my own for a beat longer.
“Let’s go before whoever did this,” I gestured to the lifeless bodies, “comes back.”
“Larke, I did this.”
I scanned the area again. I’d known he was dangerous, but this was something else entirely. This was a separation of the mind from the man. This was what the heart could do.
Still, all I asked was, “And you’re okay?”
“I’m okay,” he reassured me. “As long as you’re okay, I’m okay. When I showed up and saw what it looked like out here, I was afraid you’d gotten caught up in this. I had to clear the area to make sure nothing stopped me from getting to you. But then I started thinking about it, and something told me you would head for the tunnels. And when I heard your voice…”
He kissed my forehead.
His heart beating against my palm matched mine in a near-perfect rhythm. This had surged way past love. At this point, we were obsessed. Maybe too obsessed. We needed to be able to move on if something were to happen to one of us; however, I was no longer sure that I could.
“Dez, we can’t live like this.”
He scooped me up off my feet and headed for our now wide-open exit. “There’s no other way to live, Larke. There’s no waytolive, for me, without you.”
I looked back.
