“There’s things I need to tell you,” I say to him, hoping that’s tempting enough to keep him here. “But you gotta wake up first.”
Nothing.
I try again and again over the next several hours, tracking his pulse with a silver watch in my hand until I finally let sleep take me, too.
When it does, I dream I’m running again. Looking back at everything I’ve lost.
The first thing I see is Aiden. Or at least, I think it’s him.
The person who is currently asleep at the foot of the bed, his front half uncomfortably slumped over the mattress while the rest of him sits in a kitchen chair that looks far too small for him, has a beard that’s a bit longer than the one I last saw on him.
His hair too is especially disheveled, his brown waves falling into a disarrayed half-circle on his head that matches the dark bags beneath his eyes. Yet he’s still so painfully, heartbreakingly handsome that I almost don’t trust it.
Slowly, I try to sit up without considering how difficult that might be, only thinking to touch him. Just to make sure he’s real, that we really did survive, that I don’t need to realign my belief system after another near-death experience.Verynear, if memory serves. Although I can’t say that it serves particularly well…
Still, what Idoremember is him.
I try again, and manage pretty well this time, getting myselfpropped against the wooden spindle headboard without issue, except for the low grunt of effort I’m unable to bite back in time. As I figured it would, the effect is immediate. Aiden’s head pops up so fast I feel my own spin, one of his hands flying out to grip the bottom of his chair so he doesn’t topple over with the sudden movement.
“You could have stayed in the bed, wolf. More room than the roof,” I tell him, my voice coming out raspy and my grin faltering when he only stares at me for a few moments too long. “Aiden?”
His eyes close briefly, blinking fast when he opens them again as if coming out of a daze. “Cypress.” He starts to reach toward me then pulls his hand back, pullshimselfback, getting up and looking around the room as if he’s the one who’s never been here before. “You—I should—” Aiden clears his throat, then even removes his gaze from me before he says, “I should get you some water.”
With a sinking feeling in my chest, I watch his back as he crosses the cozy one-room cabin to a table in the opposite corner, feeling envious of the breeze drifting through the wide-open windows for the way it gets to rustle his hair and clothing as he passes.
“Not sure if you recall,” he’s saying, still turned away from me as he fills a tin cup from a matching pitcher. “But we’re in Arizona. In the mountains. This is…”
“Home?”
He nods. “You’ve been out for the last few days. Been quiet. But you must have needed the sleep after what happened.”
What happened…I’d seen Tom go for him and I had stepped in between, giving Aiden a chance to reach for my second gun. He’d hit Tom square in the chest. Hit a few of the others, too, before we ran.
He’d killed. For me. After I’d told him he wouldn’t have to. After he’d told me he regretted what it had cost him.
“Wasn’t how I imagined receiving my invite,” I say, trying for a smile again when he crosses back over to the bed to hand me the cup, still somehow managing to do so without touching me or looking at me. “But I did say you’d hardly notice I was here.”
“Right.” His jaw clenches, his now-free hand dragging through his hair, and I wonder where his hat has gotten to, even if I’m not complaining about seeing him in nothing but a loose white shirt and a comfortable-looking pair of brown trousers. “Are you—you’re okay? Does anything hurt?”
“Not like it could.” Before I take a sip of water, I finally think to look down at myself, noticing for the first time my own lack of clothes, my torso bare except for a fresh bandage over my shoulder and then…the scars. He’s likely seen all of them now.
I bring the cup to my mouth, downing its contents and wishing they burned again before setting it on the little side table by the bed. As with most of the other furniture pieces in here, it appears to be carefully handcrafted. Beautiful. Perfect. Nothing broken.
“Now that you’re awake, I should probably go hunt,” Aiden says, and for once I hope he’ll leave, because I’m not sure how much longer I can keep the smile in place. “We are getting low on food. I did bring some water in this morning if you feel up to cleaning up. It’s over by the stove. And there’s some clothes here.” He gestures toward a pile of folded things at the end of the bed. “A few blankets, too, in case it gets cold while I’m gone. You want help getting up?”
I shake my head, not looking at him either now. “I’ll manage.”
“Cypress.”
My tired eyes find his own, red-rimmed and nearly hidden beneath a few too-long, stray strands that I ache to brush away. To be allowed to.
“I wanted to tell you…” Aiden takes a deep breath…and swallows whatever he was going to say. “You should try to rest more. You were…” He shakes his head, already turning away.“I’m sorry, Cy. I’m so sorry.”
Then he’s gone. And all I can think is that maybe we didn’t survive after all.
Fuck.
Running is not a strategy. Unless you’re Aiden. Then, it’s a battle plan.