Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
I was so thirsty.
Nodding at him even though I didn’t think he was even looking at me, I limped in the direction of where I was pretty sure the sound of water was coming from. When Alexander didn’t tell me I was going the wrong way, I kept going, finding the stream close by on a downward slope. The ground was mushy with wet needles, and another round of thunder echoed through the forest just as my head swam.
Nausea rode me like a professional cowboy, but I wasn’t going to let it win, not after this many hours.
I hadn’t wussed out yet, and I wasn’t going to start now.
With a sigh, like it weighed a ton, I dropped the backpack in an area that looked slightly less wet than everywhere else. Remembering this thing I’d read before about surviving around water when you weren’t sure whether it was good to drink or not, I carved out a shallow pool off to the side of the bank and waited for the rocks to purify it. If I was going to get diarrhea, I was going to get diarrhea. It would be better than being dehydrated, which I was pretty sure I was on the brink of.
I drank until my stomach hurt, and when I was done, I rolled over onto my back. Stretching my legs, I spread my arms too and felt my spine slowly curve into the cool, damp ground under me. The worst of my fever might have been over, but parts of it were still hanging around. I shivered, closed my eyes, and sighed.
“We have to keep moving,” Alexander said, walking so quietly I could barely hear him moving. “It’s going to rain again soon.”
“Are you okay?” I asked him, even though my vocal cords felt like they were swollen to twice the size they should have been.
He kept coming, his steps long and steady, and I rolled my head to the side to find him. His gaze flicked to mine briefly before he came to a stop a few feet to my right, crouched, and quickly scooped water into those big hands, not worrying about bacteria or parasites from the looks of it. “I’m fine,” he said after taking a few sips.
I had to swallow a few times before I could get out, “Do you… want me to run for a little while?” It hurt me to offer it, but I had to. He’d already taken care of me and gotten us this far, and I couldn’t just force him to do it all, even though I wanted to.
I had my eyes squeezed closed when he said, “No. What I want is for you to catch your fucking breath. You’ll just be slowing us down. Drink more.”
Oh, thank you, thank you. I took my time doing what he said, drinking more and taking some deep breaths that felt like a knife in the back. “Thank you for carrying me.”
He grunted, still taking his time to drink too.
“Are your feet okay?”
“Fine,” he answered dismissively. “My skin can take it.”
Of course it could, he was fire and bulletproof.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked him a couple sips later. I hadn’t paid enough attention with my eyes being closed so much thanks to the rain, but I’d taken in some of the trees we’d reached. They were pines, but I didn’t know more than that, at least not enough to tell me where we were because of what was native in these areas.
We could have been in Kentucky, Montana, or Colorado.
Shit, we could have been in New Hampshire if we hadn’t just been in the desert not too long ago.
“I have an idea,” he answered a moment later, finally sitting on his butt. His elbows went to his knees, and he cupped one wrist with his other hand. His eyes slid over, and I didn’t miss the way those eyebrows hiked up just a little bit. His nostrils flared. “You look like shit.”
I gave him a long fucking look. He’d just finished taking care of me. Carrying me on his back for hours upon hours. But all the gratitude in the world wasn’t enough to stop me from muttering, dry as hell, “Oh, thanks.” Fucker.
I tried not to roll my eyes as I focused on the stuff that mattered. I’d spent a lot of time thinking about things so that I would have something to focus on that wasn’t throwing up. “Anyway, not to be the bearer of bad news, but we don’t have money, a phone, or even ID, and we need to find somewhere to rest.”
At least I did. I didn’t know how much more I could handle. I really had thought about asking him to leave me, but just the idea of being by myself in the middle of nowhere with only basic survival skills, considering we had nothing to help us, had made me shut the hell up instantly.