inDIVISIBLE (17 page)

I pushed to my feet and the pain in my hand returned, churning my stomach. “Let’s go,” I said.

T hesitated, looked over his shoulder and motioned ahead. We both knew we
could not afford to rest.

CHAPTER
19

A stripe of blood had dried and cracked down my shin before we stopped. T inspected it, worried maybe I’d been nicked by one of the bullets. As I dug gravel out of my knee I remembered falling, remembered catching myself on my palms and turned  them over. The left was raw, scraped by the same rocks that left blood trailing down my leg. The right had bled through my bandage until the gauze had become stiff and dark.

“I fell, T. That’s all,” I said softly.

He pulled his shirt over his head and dipped the hem into a stream, wiping the blood away from my knee. “Doesn’t matter—it needs to be cleaned and I want to make sure it’s nothing serious.”

His f
ingers moved gently across my skin, his eyes searching mine for any signs of pain as he went. It surprised me, the gentleness in his hands, and his concern for me.

“I wish things could be different,” he whispered.

I lowered my lashes, wondering if he meant different in that we weren’t running for our lives or different between
us
. And if he meant different between us, I hoped he meant more like we’d been on that beach in Greece.

I stopped digging rocks from my palms, not
daring to dream he wanted more, especially while we ran for our lives. I shook my head, but it didn’t dislodge the image of his lips, his smoldering eyes as he’d gazed at me on that beach.

He touched my cheek, raising my face. I met his gaze, his
eyes like dark chocolate—melting.

He wanted to kiss me
.

My lips parted and my breathing shallowed. I raised my hand to touch his cheek, the stubble on his chin rough against my fingertips.
He came closer, easing his hand around to the back of my head, fingers entangling in my hair. Gently he pulled me toward him, lips so close, his breath warm and sweet. His lips whispered against mine, so lightly I couldn’t tell if we’d actually made contact, but I had no chance to find out before rustling in the trees shot fear through each of us.

T’
s hand slid away, pulling the gun from his waistband. He gripped it in both hands, aiming at the ground as he searched the scraggly vegetation beyond. I thought the officers would help their wounded, not leave him to fend for himself. I scooted closer to T, and the brush rustled again. A rabbit darted out, and I jumped, a giggle erupting as it hopped sideways in fear when it saw us.

“
What—” He chuckled when he saw the animal and it deepened to a full laugh. I joined him, though I kept one hand over my mouth to smother the noise from our pursuers. I grabbed his arm, relief coursing through my arms, making my head light.

“One more thing,” he said, taking my bandaged hand. T unwound the
gauze and I nearly cried as it stuck to my hand. He opened a bottle of water and poured enough onto the wound to moisten the gauze so it would release and pulled again. I gritted my teeth and looked away as he cleaned the wound. “You need stitches.”

I shook my head. “No doctors.”

His hands warmed my fingers, their gentle pressure increasing as he said, “I wasn’t talking about a doctor.”

I looked down at my hand and gagged. “What were you talking
about then?”

He pulled the first aid kit from the bag and opened it, gripping a curved needle—already threaded.

I pulled my hand away. “No.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t trust me?”

I swallowed and my spit tasted coppery. “I don’t trust my pain tolerance.”

“It needs attention,” he persisted.

I lay back on the ground and held out my hand, looking off into the bushes at my left. “Have you ever done this before?” I asked.

He touched my wound—
I flinched. “I’ve seen it done.”

I tried to laugh but it sounded more like a sob. “Not good enough.”

He rubbed my forearm with the palm of his hand. “I don’t know what else to do.”

I took a deep breath. “Do you have something I could bite on, so I don’t scream?”

T rolled a shirt and placed it between my teeth. “I’ll be as careful as I can.”

I knew he would, but when the needle entered my torn flesh, I kicked my feet out so hard rocks flew into the stream. He paused, rubbed my arm again to help me relax and stuck it through the other side.

Tears rolled down the sides of my face
, and my jaw cramped. I moaned as he tied it off, unprepared when he started another. The sound that came out of my throat could easily have been misinterpreted as a growl. My eyes slammed shut and my breathing became quick, shallow spurts through my nose.

He washed his hands in the stream when he finished, then carefully removed the shirt from my mouth. His thumb strayed to my cheekbone and he asked, “You okay?”

I pushed up to sitting but my head spun and I laid back down, worried I’d dry-heave.

“Take your time,” T said.

I closed my eyes and wished the pain away. T moved, the zipper on his bag opened and a moment later he returned, pressing two pills into my hand. “Take these.”

“What are they?”

“Your antibiotic and a pain pill.”

I sat again, leaning against T. I placed both pills on my tongue and swallowed them down with a swig of water.
“Thank you.”

T smoothed the hair from my sweaty forehead. “You enjoyed that, huh?”

I sat up on my own, my head starting to clear. “… for the meds,” I clarified.

“Anything to keep you alive,” he said.
He pulled out another roll of gauze and wrapped my hand again, this time using only enough to keep most of the dirt out. “How’s that feel?”

“Like the devil.”

He smiled. “Glad you appreciate my work.”               His smile faded and I heard the reasons before he could explain them. A helicopter neared, the rotors beating the air as it propelled forward, toward the man T had injured—toward us. The relief I’d felt seconds ago had become a distant memory as the adrenaline kicked in to jumpstart my panic.

“Can you go on?” he asked, knowing neither of us had a choice.

I filled my lungs with fresh oxygen before I parted my lips and exhaled, pushing the stale air from my abdomen. My head cleared the smallest bit, and I stood.

T caught his bottom lip between his teeth and let it slowly slip away.
My gaze lingered, my steps drawing me closer. “T?”

He crouched and grabbed the backpack.

“About earlier?”

The helicopter dipped from the sky,
landing on the hilltop just out of sight. “They’ll be bringing others to search for us, fresh recruits.”

I’d figured as much. I tried to forget about his caress as I swiped a strand of hair behind my ear. “Then we should go.”

He turned and headed up stream. My aching muscles protested with each step as I trailed a few feet behind.

CHAPTER 20

The helicopter vibrated the air for half an hour before it left. We kept our pace constant until it lifted, increasing our speed as it swept across the sky and silenced in the distance. The beating blades had masked our steps but now we heard each crunch of leaves, each crackling stick. The smallest sound stiffened my shoulders, and it didn’t take long until my neck ached.

T walked on stones, his footsteps light, using the balls of his feet.
I tried to copy him but felt more like a rampaging elephant than ever before. I cringed and leapt from one rock to another several paces behind, sliding on moss and landing in leaves more loudly than before.

T stopped and turned, shushing me. I swiped my sweaty palms against my jeans and took a deep breath. The air had grown more moist, the smell of dark soil rich in my nose.
Almost like rain
, I thought before throwing a look into the sky. Clear blue greeted me and I sighed. No clouds. Good. We weren’t equipped for rain. T slid in beside me and took my hand. The stiff curve of his arm provided the assistance I needed to keep my steps lighter, my stride longer and faster. Besides that, his hand just felt good in mine. Heat swept across my face, and I looked up to see him watching me, half a smile on his full lips. I smiled before looking back down to watch the placement of each step.

Had he known what I’d been thinking?
I ducked beneath a branch.
And so what if he did? He hadn’t pulled his hand away so he must like it too, at least a little.

His fingers flexed
and tightened around mine, his arm supporting me as we approached a short waterfall, the tumbling water like a roar after our silence. He paused and turned, pulling a water bottle from his pack. He handed it to me for a drink before taking several for himself. He passed it back and motioned for me to finish it. I hesitated. We didn’t have a lot of drinking water, and here he was telling me to drink more than I needed? I took another pull on the water and swiped the back of my hand across my lips. The cool water crept down my throat and sloshed in my belly, squelching the hunger. I lifted it again and drained it, cringing as I passed it back.

T crouched, filled the bottle
from the falls and dropped in several water purification drops. He capped the bottle and shook it before returning everything to his backpack.

I found a large stone and sat, hoping the water would drown out any of our noises, at least long enough to stretch.
I leaned back on my hands and tilted my head to the sky. Everything ached, my shoulders, neck and my legs. I moved to massage my calves when the snow began with the breeze. White puffs fell from the sky, and I wondered for a moment if I’d begun hallucinating. I reached out and caught a warm flake. Soft and smooth, I recognized it as cotton. I caught another and rubbed them between my fingers, enjoying the reprieve from our run.

After several minutes, T sat beside me, dropping the backpack beside us.
“I’ve heard nothing,” he whispered.

I closed my eyes, concentrating for what seemed like an hour. “Me neither.”

“They should be close,” he said.

Shivers ran up my arms
, and I pressed my lips together. “Why aren’t they?”

T scanned the trees once more, his shoulders tense. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

I stretched my arms in the air and yawned. “Should we keep going?”

T flicked his tongue across his lips and pulled the backpack closer. One by one he removed the contents. “I’ve got to see what we have to work with first.”

I understood, but the sight of so little made me uncomfortable. I moved back to the stream, splashing water on my face, drying it with the filthy hem of my shirt.

“We put most of th
e food in your pack,” he said.

I sat, untied my shoes and slipped my feet free
of them. Bare and cool, I pressed them into the water and reluctantly turned to survey our survival gear. We had two packs of dried meat, dried apples and bananas, and a few fresh fruits left over from our foraging at Mary’s. The knives looked less appetizing … and the first aid gear, though valuable, would do little to prolong life if we ran out of nourishment. I picked up a folded square of foil sealed in a plastic bag and asked, “What’s this?”

T glanced up briefly. “An e
mergency blanket.”

I tossed it back on the pile. “Right.
” I nearly lay back before I realized that my father’s journals were not in the pile he’d taken from the backpack. Bile rose in my throat as I considered what would happen to us if we’d lost his books. I glanced over my shoulder, somehow expecting to see the hillside where the pack had been lost, but saw the towering cottonwoods interspersed with pine instead.

“What is it?” T asked, fingers
stilling.

“My father’s books. Whose pack were they in?”

He withdrew the books from another zipper on the back of the pack near the straps. My shoulders slumped as a sigh escaped. “Thank you, T.”

He shrugged as if it were nothing and repacked everything as carefully as he’d removed it. “We should find
some shelter for the night, away from the river. They’ll be expecting us to stay near water.”

The tree tops had turned dark against a red sky. I tugged my socks over
my wet feet before slipping on my shoes. The sneakers were filthy, my socks nearly black. I tied my laces and stood. “Where to?”

T checked our
back trail before pointing ahead. “If we’re lucky, we’ll find a cave or an overhang. Either way, we've got to find shelter long enough to go over this map and see what our options are.”