I push inside quickly, Ryan close on my heels. What I see stops my heart. I gasp in shock, unable to understand.
“What?” I whisper to myself.
It’s nothing I expected.
It’s perfect. Everything is in its place. From my bike to the water canister to the Hello Kitty bag I keep my veggies in. It’s all there. Even the blankets that I usually toss onto my makeshift bed are folded neatly. Like they’re waiting for me.
“I came here almost every day,” Ryan says quietly from behind me. “I knew where you were, but I always hoped you’d be here when I came in. Or that one day I’d go to open the door and it’d be locked.”
“How did you know where I was?” I ask, too scared of him and myself to turn around.
“Trent said he saw a girl taken. A girl with long red hair. That would have been enough to convince me, but then he told me she fought like an animal. That she stabbed a guy and broke his nose.” I hear him chuckle softly. “After that, I knew it was you. And I knew that if anyone could get away, it was you.”
“So you waited,” I whisper.
“And I hoped.”
I spin on my heels and I kiss him soundly. I press my body as close to his as my arm will allow and I sigh when his hands slide around me. He’ll never know what that means to me. How much it hurts me to hear him say he hoped I’d come back. That someone out there knew I was gone and wanted me back. It’s what I wanted while I was trapped; for him to remember me and carry me with him in the wild under the free open sky. I’ve been alone for too long, been running from those feelings for years and now here they are staring me in the face, straightening my world and waiting for me to come home. I hate it and I love it and when I think of what I wrote on the wall in the Colony, I whimper quietly in the back of my throat. I missed this. This kiss, these hands, this voice that knows my name, this heartbeat clamoring inside his chest, pushing against mine.
Then I whimper in pain as my arm is crushed between us. Ryan releases me immediately, holding me at arm’s length.
“I’m sorry, Joss,” he mutters, his breathing uneven. “I forgot about your arm. We need to deal with that right now.”
I groan, letting my head hang back. “This is gonna suck so bad.”
“Sorry,” he repeats.
He heads for my bathroom. I’m not surprised when he comes back out with my bottle of vodka.
“Here. Get to work on that. It’ll take the edge off. It’s still going to hurt, but it will hurt a lot less.”
I sniff the open top of the bottle, my lips curling back in disgust. “I’ve never drank it before.”
“I’m a little jealous.”
“Good God, why? It smells like acid.”
Ryan chuckles. “It’ll taste a lot better than the stuff at the markets. Drink too much of what they sell there and you’ll go blind.”
I cringe at the thought of going to the markets. I’m going to have to, though. How else am I going to get an audience with The Hive? I can’t exactly walk up to the door and knock. I’ll be shot or shoved into their stables, no questions asked. It’s something I need to talk to Ryan about, but not yet. One painful thing at a time and right now my arm has soundly called dibs.
I take a swig of the vodka. It’s not bad, not at first. Then the burn hits. I double over, coughing and grabbing at my chest where the heat is coursing through it into my stomach.
“Why?” I gasp, not really sure what I’m asking. Why do people drink this stuff? Why does it hurt so bad? Why are my insides on fire?
“You okay?”
“Ugh!” I groan. I stand up straight, my face frozen in a tortured grimace as the burn just keeps on going. “This is terrible.”
Ryan shakes his head. “That’s the good stuff. And you’ll need more of it than that. Better keep drinking before you lose your nerve.”
I glare at him, thinking of the rooftop. The jump. The fall.
“I never lose my nerve.”
He silently makes a drinking motion with his hand before crossing his arms over his chest, watching me patiently.
I take three more good, long pulls off the bottle before I hand it back to him. It was easier doing it all at once. I still want to die, though. Ryan stows the bottle back in the bathroom before coming to stand in front of me again. He doesn’t say anything, just watches me.
“What?” I ask, feeling antsy being under the microscope.
“Now we wait. It’ll hit you soon.”
“What’s it going to feel like?”
He smirks. “What does drunk feel like? Uh, good, I guess is the best way to describe it. You’ll be a little dizzy, feel a little flushed. You might vomit eventually.”
I frown. “So it’s like being sick.”
“Kinda, yeah. But in a good way. You’ll laugh more, which will be nice.”
“Do you have a problem with my attitude?”
“Asked the girl frowning at me,” he retorts, pointing at my furrowed brow. I try to relax it, but I don’t know if it works. Ryan grins. “Nah, I like you’re attitude, Joss. But I like your laugh too.”
“You’ve barely heard it.”
“Exactly. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Why do you like me, Ryan?” I mumble quietly. “I’m not nice.”
“Oh good,” he says, taking my shoulders, “it’s working.” He sits me down on my bed, pressing my back against the wall. I’m glad to be sitting because the room has started to tilt. “You haven’t eaten recently, have you?”
“Not for hours and hours and hours.”
“This will be fun,” he mutters.
He leans in close. I think he’s going to kiss me, but his head passes by mine as his fingers get to work on the knot of my sling. When it releases, I’m not ready and the pain explodes through my entire body. I grit my teeth hard, willing myself not to make a sound. He sees it when he sits back.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh huh,” I grunt.
“Joss, it’s okay to—“
“I said I’m fine.”
“Alright.”
What happens next is a waking nightmare. Fixing the damage done to my body hurts worse than the damaging did. Tears stream down my face as Ryan methodically cleans, sets and splints my arm. Because the bone pushed through the skin, I’m in danger of getting an infection. I’m also in white hot agony because Ryan had to realign the bone before he splinted it to make sure it heals right.
That. Hurt.
I’ve never sworn so much in my life. I curse Ryan up and down, sideways, forward and backward, but he never flinches. Never hesitates. He’s calm and collected, completely methodical through the entire thing. He ignores the sweat pouring down my forehead, the shaking in my limbs, the tremble in my voice. At one point, I grab onto his shoulder with my good hand and clench down on it with all my strength, but he keeps right on working. I’ve bruised him, I know it, but he never complains.
When it’s done, when I’m shaking with exhaustion, he finally looks up at me. I expect to find pity or sadness, but there’s nothing. He’s gone numb inside. To do what had to be done, to hurt me to help me, he’s tapped out entirely. Based on his skill at cleaning and splinting my arm, this isn’t his first time. He’s done this over and over again and in order to stay sane, he’s gotten good at not feeling it.
I take a deep, shuddering breath then manage a meager grin.
“Thanks,” I breathe.
“Ha,” he laughs shortly, not sounding at all amused. “I don’t think that deserves gratitude.”
“It wouldn’t heal right if you hadn’t done this,” I mutter, feeling suddenly too weary to live, “and I’d die without it.”
He looks at me long and hard, his expression still carefully blank. I wait, wondering what he’s thinking. Eventually I can’t take it anymore.