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My eyes burn. My lips wobble. My throat closes up painfully.
“I’m sorry,” Grant adds in a gentle voice. “I know you really like him.”
“I do.” I swallow hard. Make myself focus on the most urgent thing. “But you can’t go off by yourself. They’ll find you and kill you! You can’t, Grant.”
“I’m not going to get killed. I’ll stay out of sight.” He holds my gaze with a strange sobriety. An earnestness that’s not at all like him. “I’m not going to do something stupid and leave you here alone. I promise.”
I nod. I believe him. And I also know he’s right that we need more information before we can figure out what to do.
Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem. Maybe our people will be able to fight back and retake the camp. Maybe we can even get Noah into the bunker in time and save him.
There’s no reason to expect the worst.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m holding you to that promise. Come back as quick as you can. I can’t do this without you.”
He opens his mouth like he might say something but then closes it again. He does that so often. Like he’s always stopping himself from saying what he wants to express, and it’s never made me more frustrated than it does right now.
Instead of speaking, he leans forward and gives me a brief, hard kiss. Then he’s gone before I can even process what happened.
I have nothing to do but return to Noah.
He’s still mostly unconscious, but he’s shifting restlessly. He looks even paler than he did before. He needs surgery. A blood transfusion. And there’s no way we can give that to him.
I reach over to grab the remains of the bloody shirt we tore off him. I find the cleanest scrap of fabric and tear it off. Then dampen it with water and wipe the perspiration from his face.
It’s not going to do anything worthwhile, but I need something to do.
After several minutes—or maybe longer since I’m too dazed to keep track of time—his eyes flutter open.
“Olivia,” he murmurs hoarsely.
I smile. “Yeah.”
“You doing all right?”
“I’m fine. You’re the one who got shot.”
“I was trying to… see if I could save anyone. But they were all in… bunker… or dead.”
My throat tightens again. He looks so weak and pale now. I wipe his face with the damp cloth. “You did great. You sounded the alarm. You saved most of them. You did really good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Glad you’re okay.” He takes a breath so raspy it terrifies me. It sounds like his lungs are full of fluid.
He’s not going to make it. Maybe not even for another whole minute.
“You were always…” Noah coughs, and I whimper when I see he’s coughing up blood.
I try to wipe it away as best I can. “It’s okay,” I whisper. “It’s going to be okay.” It won’t be. Not for him. I know it for sure now.
His body softens suddenly, but not in a good way. It’s like he goes limp. Can’t move. His eyes are still focused on my face with almost—almost—his sweet smile. “You were always the prettiest girl I’ve ever known.”
Tears stream down my cheeks as I keep wiping at his cheeks and mouth. It doesn’t matter though. His eyes are falling shut.
He doesn’t open them again. He doesn’t move. After another couple of minutes, his chest stops its raspy rise and fall.
