“That’s what you have to say to me?” she growls back, hopping off the horse and snatching a piece of paper out of her pocket. “After leaving me this?”
He winces. “I’m—”
“No. Don’t you dare. You told me you loved me in a note, and then you left. Didn’t give me a chance to say it back or talk you out of this. You just….left.”
She tosses the paper at him defiantly, but it doesn’t have enough weight to do more than flutter to the ground between them.
“Like you were gonna leave?” he scowls, tossing her own plan back at her. “What the hell are you doing here? This doesn’t work if you come, too. Told you not to look for me.”
“You really thought I wouldn’t? Are you serious?”
He never assumed she wouldn’t, but thought his head start would get him to Silas before she caught up. Turns out, his math was off the mark. “I was hoping you’d let me do this.”
“That’s not how this works, either.”
“So it’s okay for you to sneak out in the middle of the night, but not for me? You can go off risking your life, but I can’t? What kinda sense does that make? You know what he did to me. You know. There’s no chance I could let him do that to you, too. If I gotta be out here so we can have a future, a real chance at putting this behind us, then that’s what has to happen.”
She looks away, still angry, but his words take the wind from her sails, and her reply comes out cracked and regretful. “I was wrong.”
“What?”
“I thought you needed him dead. I thought I did, too, but I was wrong.”
“What if you were right? What if we leave and can’t rest because we know he’s alive?” Wade moves closer, watching those worry lines on her face crease with every step. “I was a prisoner for six years, but so were you. You lost all that time, too. If you need this. If you need it finished to be happy again, then lemme finish it. Maybe I need it, too.”
“Do you, though? Do you really?”
No. He doesn’t.
There was a time he assumed killing Silas was the only way forward, but that isn’t the path he wants to take now. He isso fucking tired straight down to the marrow in his bones that vengeance isn’t quite as appealing as it used to be. He just doesn’t trust that she can join him with this string hanging loose.
“Here’s the only thing I know for sure.” He takes her hand, slipping it under the sleeve of his T-shirt to press against the raised skin of a scar left behind. “This, or something worse, is what’s waiting for you out there with Silas. I’d go through it a hundred times over if it means you don’t have to. I was on the brink of something I thought I couldn’t come back from, but you saved me in every way a man can be saved. Let me save you this time.”
“Why can’t we call it even? Come back with me,” she whispers. “I can leave with you and never look back. I promise I can.”
She’s offering him his biggest hope, but he’s afraid she’ll change her mind after coming so close to the end of the road.
“You wanna run off into the sunset together?” he says quietly, allowing an alternate option to flourish and grow.
“Yeah. Why not?” When her palm cups his cheek, he sways in her direction. “Killing Silas won’t reverse what he’s done.”
“He could hurt other people.”
“Their numbers are smaller these days. They aren’t going to last long anyway, and we can’t save everyone, Wade. We can’t. Let’s not give him another chance to take anything else from us.”
“We got company.” She frowns at the sudden growl in his tone before he clarifies. “Rotters coming outta the woods behind you. Take the ones on the left. I’ll take the right.”
He doesn’t wait for confirmation, trusting she’ll follow. He puts a knife through the eyeball of the first rotter, before stalking forward to tackle the next.
Kara takes care of two on his left just as the skies open up and begin to pour. She’s shoved against a tree while wrestling alarger one, calling his name for help just as he pulls his blade free from a hard skull.
He yanks the dead man off her before dropping it to the ground.
For a moment, he feels like himself again. Who he was before life beat him down. There’s no hesitation on his part, no fear except the healthy kind that keeps him alive in a herd of corpses. It’s a glimpse into what they could be again one day, maybe into what they already are.
He told her that he could see himself getting better and meant it, but now he can feel it.
They work together until there are only a few left. He shoves a rotter to her, knowing she’ll be ready so he can take on the final threat. By the time the next crack of thunder hits, there’s a small pile of gore at their feet.
