“Then give him another one.”
She keeps moving until the double doors at the end of the hall give way to daylight, dumping her into an empty courtyard where she falls to her knees and a mournful scream escapes strained lungs. This must be a cruel joke, she thinks, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
In all the moments, she allowed herself to imagine what their reunion might be like, it was always emotional. Sweet. Passionate. She’d run into his arms like he ran into hers the day they found each other after the dead started walking the earth. She’s replayed his smile when she spotted him in the hallway of her old apartment on a loop, longing to see it again just one more time. He came for her, like he always has. Like every other time she thought the world would finally claim her, but there he was, forcing the darkness back with sheer willpower alone.
She lost count of how often he saved her when they were both children in the foster system. She should have known that not even the rotters could keep him away.
Then he was taken right in front of her and the trajectory of her life changed forever.
No, the reunion she dreamed of isn’t playing out how she hoped at all. They won’t spend all day wrapped up together while years’ worth of anguish is washed away in favor of a satisfyingreward. She won’t have a chance to admit to him what she’s still afraid to admit to herself after having nothing but time to dig into her own mind and come to a conclusion that should have been obvious.
What’s actually happening may as well be a slap in the face after so many years of searching. She still can’t wrap her head around his reaction, what this means, or how to help.
What do they do now? How does she rationalize this new reality to help him through a battle she hadn’t been expecting and isn’t prepared for?
* * *
“I’m staying,” she says to Luke when she wanders back to find him holding up the wall outside Wade’s room.
She’s slightly dazed and a little wobbly. One person shouldn’t scream that much or cry that hard, but she’s always been an overachiever in the worst of times. Only grateful no one came looking and allowed her to implode in peaceful solitude.
“I’ll set you up a room.”
“I already have one.”
He sighs. “Can’t let you stay in there with him. It’s not safe. You see what he’s done.”
“You’re not letting me do anything. That’s where I’m staying. If you can get me a blanket too, that would be great, but if not, I’ll find one myself.”
“And if he kills you?”
“Then make sure someone puts me down before I come back and bite him,” Kara says, evenly. “The gun on my hip has three bullets. Use one.”
“Will you listen to yourself? You need some help. He does, too. This is over now. You don’t have to—”
“Don’t have to what? Be like this? Waste my life in the woods looking for a ghost?”
She spits the words back in his face the same way he sent them to her a lifetime ago. When her search for Wade was still new, and he hadn’t realized she wouldn’t eventually give up.
When he still thought she’d take up a spot next to him leading this little community, once she got all this pointless searching out of her system and gave in to his advances.
When he still had hope that she was salvageable, as if half her heart hadn’t been ripped out and left on the side of the road for the vultures.
“You insisted he was dead this whole time,” she continues. “Now what?”
He’s been such a constant source of deflation, beating down her hopes in an effort to get her to come back to Paradise Falls permanently, that it’s difficult not to let hostility overwhelm her now that she has proof of Wade’s survival.
“I’ll have someone bring you a blanket.” He turns on his heels and leaves her alone in the hall.
Luke won’t be back. Not for a while, at least, and the relief in that is palpable.
“It’s just you and me now,” she says softly, after slipping inside the room where Wade still lies exactly where she left him.
Kara doesn’t get too close this time. Stays on the other side of the room and slides down the wall with her knees bent, and stomach growling.
“Hungry? I am. I’ll get us something in a minute.”
He doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t expect one. Lulls her head back against the wall and closes her eyes, inhaling hard and wishing that just once he could catch a break.
