by Fitch, E. M.
Emma got her hands up, conscious of the shrieks that were rising around her. The knife was slippery in her grip and she pressed the blade wherever she could against the raging man on top of her. His blood covered teeth flashed and snapped as his mouth surged forward, oblivious to the knife sinking through his flesh.
Don't bite me. Don't bite me. Desperate prayers flashed through her mind. She would survive the bite, she knew that. But she might not survive if any of the townspeople saw her bit and then not turn afterwards.
With a cry of desperation, she pushed the man up, keeping his teeth from her skin. She drew one hand away, the knife poised, when the body fell limp back on top of her. Something warm was leaking from him, coating her neck and dribbling down her chest.
She was panting as the body was rolled off her. Kaylee stood over her, a large hunting knife firmly in her grip. The blade was russet with blood.
"Are you okay?" she asked urgently, her eyes raking over Emma's blood-soaked form. Emma nodded, sitting up. She brought her hands to her face, noting the shaking. She cleared her throat and clench her fists, peeling her fingers open only when she saw the hand reaching out.
She let Kaylee pull her to a stand and into her arms, her sister completely ignoring the blood now drying on both of their clothes.
"Where did you come from?" Emma asked in wonder, her eyes searching her sister's face. She didn't just mean Kaylee showing up in the square; it was a side of her sister she had never seen before. The girl who just saved her was strong, she didn't hesitate for a moment to kill the infected chasing Emma. The younger girl blinked, realizing for the first time that she had been underestimating her sister. Kaylee seemed to understand the sentiment. She offered a sad smile and a shrug of her shoulders.
"We were out of soap," she answered, pointing to a small container that was leaking detergent into the snow. "Come on, we'll go get cleaned up.”
They left through a gathering throng of people, Emma quietly telling Carla to have a group go check the men's dorm.
"By the way," Kaylee said as they got out of earshot. "I've been meaning to give this back to you.”
She handed Emma the handgun that used to belong to Quinton. Emma tucked it in her waistband.
"Borrow it anytime," she murmured back, a slight tremble still weaving through her words. Kaylee offered a wry smile.
~
A dim lantern lit the corner of the cabin in which Andrew was curled up. Emma peeked from her own dark corner to watch him. He was the only one, besides her, awake.
All in all, there were five dead from the outbreak at the men's dorms. Three were eaten immediately, only the two turned. Besides the one lone bird, there was a scattering of other dead animals, small corpses freezing in the snow. Once infected, the men must have caught them. The town was panicking but Emma felt a sick form of relief.
It wasn't her this time.
Anna had drifted to sleep early, a medical textbook she had been perusing falling with a thud to the ground from her drooping fingertips. She had startled awake initially, mumbling under her breath, before abandoning the book and tucking herself under the flap of her down sleeping bag. She was in the armchair, her corner of the cabin the furthest from the door. Emma and she shared a wall. Andrew took the other corner across from Emma. The last available corner was filled with the wood stove. Even from across the room, the heat would seep over the wooden floorboards, the pops and hisses of burning sap piercing the silence in the darkened room.
The two bodies that shared the one bed shifted together, Jack rolling over to face Emma's wall and Kaylee following right along. Like spoons held together by magnets, they moved in tandem. Heat that had nothing to do with the stove flushed Emma's cheeks. She was looking forward to all the dorms finally being cleared for use again, if only because it would free up additional married cabins and she wouldn't be forced to play the voyeur every night to the restraints placed on Kaylee and Jack. She was sure they would be happy to see the extra company gone, too. Though Kaylee would never say that.
Her crazy, brave, unexpected sister.
Of course, in Emma's case, opening the dorms presented some terrifying possibilities for her. Her eyes sought out Andrew once more. She couldn't see his face, just the lean outline of his body, the shape of his legs under his blankets as he repositioned himself, crossing one ankle over the other. He held a book that hid his expressions from Emma, though he didn't seem to realize she was awake anyway. Every couple of minutes, his fingers would toy with a page, bending the corner almost to the point of folding it before he would finally turn it. She found it adorable and annoying at the same time. If she had been sitting next to him, she would have considered smacking his hand, teasing his weird little ticks.
She imagined his face, how he looked when he concentrated on something. She had no idea what he was reading, the spine was too worn for her to tell, but it wasn't a comedy, he didn't find it amusing. There was this breathy little huff he did when he was amused and she hadn't heard it.
It occurred to her that she might just be pathetic for even noticing those things about him. But, she reasoned, she had known them already before she was ever bit, before the idea of him and her together had become a physical impossibility.
Physically impossible, but maybe not completely impossible. Kaylee's lecture had been spinning around in her mind, her words haunting her. She had called her selfish. Was she? She was trying to do what was best for Andrew. Wasn't that the kind of thing a person would do for someone they loved?
Kaylee was right about that part. Emma did love him. She always had, in a way. He was always around when she was a kid and she always liked him. He included her even when Kaylee used to whine about it. But it was more than that. It was a schoolyard crush and then, when the world ended, it was slowly more. It grew over the years of watching him pine over Kaylee, of seeing how gentle and patient and kind he was, of not understanding how her sister couldn't see that. Though, admittedly, she didn't understand any of the ways Kaylee viewed the world. Not then. The lines were more blurred now. Now that Kaylee had taken lives, the living and the infected, now that Emma was infected herself. Everything blurred. There was no black and white. Maybe there never had been.
Andrew turned the page, the sound of the paper rubbing at the binding loud in their tiny, enclosed space. The book dipped and she saw just a fraction of his face, the corner of his mouth pulled down in concentration, his brow furrowed. She wondered again what he was reading and shifted a bit, squinting to try and read the title.
He peeked over the book at the noise of her rustling and she froze, caught.
"Am I keeping you up?" he whispered, tucking his book below his covers and reaching for the lantern. "I'm sorry.”
"No, leave it," she whispered back. "I can't sleep.”
His mouth bobbed open but the words didn't come. He swallowed and looked away from her, tentatively reaching for his book again. He brought it back up, thumbing through the pages until he found his spot. A gentle squirming took root in Emma's stomach. She hated that they couldn't be normal together.
It was all fine in public. He had raced to find her after the attack, hugged her and spoke platitudes. She spent the days playing the doting wife, laughing too hard at his jokes, smiling at him with an intensity that made her cheeks hurt. He did the same. It was wrong, too playful, even for them. Or maybe it was right, maybe it was exactly how they would have been if they didn't have to worry every second that she might infect him. Somehow, the not knowing, the thought that maybe they could have been like this; the anxiety that no, this was him faking too; made it so much worse.
What if he saw through it? If he could tell somehow, that this was how Emma wanted things to be. That, if there was some possibility of a cure, she would want to lace her cold fingers with his, love to playfully tease that warmth into his eyes, look at him in that way that caused his cheeks to flush and mean every innuendo that she whispered. She would feel so pathetic, if he knew, knew that she yearned
for things she could never have.
Which is why now, in private, they barely spoke. The strain of the daily show, the playfulness and love that seeped into their everyday conversation, it burst like a soap bubble as soon as the cabin door shut for the night. They retreated to separate corners, like boxers between exhausting rounds, settling down for peace and quiet and two minutes without the strain of acting. Not acting just for the sake of everyone else, but for each other.
"What are you reading?" she said softly into the quiet cabin. He looked over to her in surprise. She couldn't stand it, the strained formality. And she couldn't stand the constant restraint. He blinked and put the book down again, spine up this time so he wouldn't lose his place.
"A book," he answered impishly, grinning over at her. She rolled her eyes. It was teasing, playful, but there was no one there to act for. Everyone else in the cabin was blissfully asleep, and maybe that's what made the difference. "Why are you awake? Are you okay? Is it the attack?”
Emma froze, unable to answer truthfully and annoyed that she couldn't. She was awake because he was, because she enjoyed watching him, even just the little bits she could see, without the judgmental gaze of everyone else. Her mouth popped open and she closed it again, shrugging and settling for a lesser truth. "No, I was just cold.”
She was. It wasn't a lie, not completely. His eyebrows rose and he looked from her to the wood stove that was radiating heating in the corner beside him. He nodded pointedly at the space between him and the stove.
Every joint in her body locked. She wanted to go, be near him and the heat, and he had given her the perfect excuse. But she wasn't expecting it and it caught her off guard.
"C'mon," he coaxed. "I won't bite." She threw him a dirty look and he grinned before adding, "As long as you don’t."
"Oh, ha ha," she growled. "You're so funny.”
He jerked his head towards the empty space again, a grin lingering on his lips, and without her mind giving permission, her body was shuffling to a stand, her blankets gripped around her and her pillow under one arm.
The space between Andrew and the stove was warm, much warmer than her corner. The metal radiated heat she could almost see in waves. She focussed on setting up her blankets, placing her pillow closer to the stove than to Andrew, but she didn't lay down right away. She leant into the wall, letting her head rest back with her eyes closed. She could hear the turning of pages again and guessed that Andrew had gone back to his book. That was good.
When she turned to peek at him from beneath her eyelashes, he was reading again, though keeping the book at an angle that kept the title from her. She frowned.
"It's none of your business," he murmured, not taking his eyes off the book. Her eyes shot open and she glared at him.
"What is?”
"What I'm reading," he answered, smirking over at her before turning another page. Emma scowled but tried to swallow it back, realizing he was right, it really wasn't any of her business. That stung.
"You don't have to pretend now," he said, his voice low. "There's no one here.”
"What am I pretending?”
"That you like me," Andrew answered, shutting his book again and placing it under his blankets. Pain lanced through Emma and she couldn't meet his eye. "I mean, I have to admit, you're doing a great job of it out there, but you don't have to now.”
"I can go back," she murmured, stung at his assumptions and already missing the warmth of the stove.
"Only if you want," he answered. He seemed sincere, his head also resting back against the wall but his face turned, watching her.
"I can't have what I want," she said. "You of all people know that.”
"It just seems so real," Andrew continued, looking up to the ceiling, "out there, with everyone around, you're just so... And then we come in here for the night and it's gone. Poof! We don't speak. It was never like that before.”
"Before we weren't married," Emma muttered.
"Well, they say the first year's the hardest," Andrew quipped.
"Andrew, stop it!" Emma hissed. Pieces of her chest were breaking apart and grating together and it hurt, his words and his flippant attitude and his own pain underneath it all, she couldn't take it. "What do you want from me? How am I supposed to-" she broke off with a huff and angry tears were threatening to spill. She swiped at her eyes in annoyance.
"Hey, look," he murmured. "I'm sorry. I forget sometimes.”
"I know you do, that's the problem.”
"Not the infection, you," he corrected gently. "I forget you're younger, how new this is for you.”
Emma spun towards him in angered shock. "This will always be new for me because I can't have it. How dare you-“
"Don't get all worked up," he hissed. "You're gonna wake-“
"-talk to me like that! You pushy, pain in my ass-“
"Hey," he broke in, reaching towards her. It wasn't his words that stopped her, it was his hands. He gripped her upper arms tightly and she felt the warmth of his fingers through her shirt. Her whole body spasmed with the contact, so unexpected, so unprepared for, and she froze. He noticed, his brow contracting in disapproval. His hands fell from her and she let out a breath.
"It bothers you, doesn't it?" he asked, his jaw grit. "When I touch you.”
She shook her head but he looked to the ceiling in disbelief, nodding before letting his head fall back to the wall. She had the strange and sudden urge to crawl into his lap.
"No, it's not you," she said in a low breath. "It's everyone. And when it was just me and Jack, he didn't, no one touched me. It's like I have to get used to it again.”
She saw his throat bob before he slowly turned his head to look at her. His hand reached out slowly, his intention clear. The muscle that ran the length of her forearm contracted, bouncing in agitated movements. His fingers caught the hem of her shirt sleeve and slowly dragged it up, revealing her bare arm with fine hairs standing on end. She shivered when he danced his fingertips up and down her skin, skimming along from her elbow to her wrist.
"Is this bad?" he asked. She shook her head, catching his eye. He turned her hand over and traced circles into her palm. "Then get used to it again.”
It was hard to concentrate when he was touching her. Her mind felt muddled and confused. But they started speaking, slowly and about nothing in particular. Apparently, there was a library in the camp. He still wouldn't tell her what he was reading, but he told her some of the other titles he found, teasing her about some trashy romances he had noticed. She laughed along with him, trying to keep her voice low, and all the while trying not to lock her muscles against his touch.
They traded favorite book titles, favorite movies. It felt a lot like it used to and new in a way too, almost like a blind date, one where you kept the questions benign and coming, trying to avoid awkward pauses. Andrew's fingers worked their way over her arm and down her palm. She let it rest between them, cushioned on a tangle of her blankets and his. He traced her fingers and she kept perfectly still, trying not to let the tingling in the wake of his fingertips distract her.
"You're doing good now," he murmured suddenly. Emma looked down, watching his fingers skip over her skin. Her chest was seizing with anxiety that she tried to beat down. "Come here.”
"Where?" she asked quickly, tensing up again. Andrew rolled his eyes but the effect was lessened with a smile. He pat the space on the other side of him. There wasn't much room there, much less space would be between the two of them. Emma paused.
"Oh, fine," he muttered, getting up himself and moving to sit on her other side. He took her other arm and rest it in his lap. Even with the loss of the direct heat from the stove, Emma felt incredibly warm. "Might as well get this arm, too.”
"That's not necessary," Emma murmured. But he was already dragging her sleeve up and passed her elbow, his fingers beginning their light dance down her skin. A small moan built in the back of her throat and she swallowed it down, closing her eyes and resting her head back as
he continued with another story. This was one from before the infection, something about a project he and Kaylee had to do in school.
His fingertips were hypnotic, not too firm and not light enough to tickle, just enough pressure for her to know he was there, and safe enough away from her mouth. She felt a slow smile spread across her face and she turned her head to peek at him again. He was intent on her skin, watching the patterns he was tracing from freckle to freckle.
"I always liked you, you know," she said out of nowhere, cutting him off, "even back then.”
He looked up at her, eyebrows raised. Something like doubt flit across his features and he looked back to her hand. "Well, I was your sister's best friend.”
"I'm not pretending," Emma bit out, unsure how to do this. Andrew was right, she was young, this was new and strange and had the added component of being potentially lethal. And Kaylee was right, maybe Andrew did deserve honesty, if nothing else. "I mean out there, during the day. It's not- I mean, I know it's forced. It's too much, I get that. But I do like you, more than I should. I do.”
Andrew's face was hard and still as he looked up at her, his gaze sharp and intense. It made her insides squirm. She felt herself stiffening, her back drawing closer to the wall. But she couldn't pull her hand back, it was locked in his grip.
"I can't, you know I can't, offer you anything,” Emma continued in a rush. She felt like an animal that had cornered itself. "I wish I could, you have no idea how much I wish I could.”
Her eyes dart to her fingers, now tangled in his, and a burning want seared her belly. She swallowed it down, looking up to him again and shrugging weakly.
"I'm bad at this," she muttered, looking to her lap. Her free hand fluttered uselessly, "you're right. I don't know-“
Her words stuttered to a halt when a warm hand encased her cheek. She looked up, finding Andrew closer than she expected; his eyes locked with hers. His breath was warm on her lips and she pulled back, turning her face away from his.