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Benji nodded, but there was a guilty look in his eyes that said that maybe he didn't.
I got it. Why would he think I could? I had never tried to save myself in all the years I’d lived with Brian. Why would I be able to save both of us now?
But it was different now. I couldn't save myself. Just me alone. It was too hard.
But I could save Benji because I loved him more than anything.
“So, we need to move the wet wood out of the fire and find some dry stuff. You think you can help me with that?”
Sometimes having a job was better than sitting around and worrying, so I better get us both busy.
He nodded and shuffled off toward a wood pile covered with a blanket. I set our backpacks on the table. It was thick with dust, making me sneeze loudly.
Out back, there was the sound of the generator humming. An independent electricity source that dear old daddy had planned for those zombie apocalypse days.
As I opened my backpack and pulled out some water bottles and reusable canteens, the generator made a clanking sound that set my hair on end, and suddenly the sound stopped and the place plunged into darkness.
“Oh my god, what was that?” Benji cried, suddenly afraid again.
“Nothing. It's just the generator. That happens all the time. I'll go look at it. Stay here.”
I fished my phone out from my pocket, the new burner cell I’d picked up. Before any of this happened, when I used to daydream about running away, when I cried in my room at night. But I'd never imagined making it real. I'd left my real phone back in Brian's house. I clicked the torch on and went to the door. A shiver of fear went through me as I peered out at the woods beyond the door. The trees were dark and full of animals and creatures and eyes, but I’d lived through worse. I’d lived with an actual monster. A monster that not even a locked door could have kept away.
With that reasoning, I stepped out into the cool evening air to the last of the sun disappearing from the sky, making it darker and darker by the second. The sun set quickly in the mountains, and tonight was no different.
My sneakers crunched on the leaves as I wandered around the back, where I figured the generator was. I could vaguely remember my mother going out there and fussing with it whenever we'd been here. I'd never worried about anything when she was with me. Everything had been taken care of. I'd been so naïve. Spoiled by her competence.
“Shit,” I said as my ankle rolled over a branch, and I dropped my phone. I had to steady myself against the side of the cabin, and take a deep breath. I was panicking and being clumsy.
I reached for my phone, my hand going for the white torch light shining upward, just as a hard crack of a dry twig snapping sounded right being me. Heavy footsteps sounded behind me, crunching the forest floor as they closed in toward me.
I tried to turn, but it was too late. A hand went around my mouth from behind. A warm, huge hand covered the lower part of my face from my nose to my chin. And I was tugged back against a hard body.
“What did I tell you about you running from me?” Bennett's voice whispered in my ear.
I nearly collapsed with relief. It was Bennet. It was just Bennet. Thank fuck.
“I told you that if you ran from me, I would hunt you down,” he continued. “And I would turn your pretty, bitable ass red for the trouble you’re causing me,” he said quietly. I shifted against the heat coming from his body. Relief that he was here washed over me, along with a red-hot want that made my skin prickle.
And I felt like a hypocritical bitch for a second. Running away from him, refusing to tell him the truth and then being relieved when he caught up to me. Was I really the most pathetic person in the world?
I waited until he loosened his grip on my mouth before spinning around and finding his face mere inches from mine. Bennet bent over me in the darkness so close, my mouth scraped over his stubbled cheek before I stumbled back.
“How did you find me?”
He chuckled, a dark warm sound that made all the hair on my arms stand up on end. “Sweetheart, that's my job.”
I swallowed down a hard knot in my throat. “I don't want you here.”
“Too bad,” Bennet growled at me.
I couldn't see him in the darkness. My phone was still on the ground, but I could feel his closeness. It was a physical pull.
His fingers tucked my hair back. “Now before you think about doing anything stupid, like running off from the, from the shelter that you've been aiming toward, let's just get one thing straight.” His hand reached out and cupped my face, somehow seeing in the darkness despite his fingers gripped my chin and tilted it back in a grip that was firm, but not painful. “No more running. No more cutting me out. No more hiding shit. This ends here and now, Laura. You're in over your head. And you're going to let me help you.” He let out a long breath, the nervous quality of it betraying his commanding tone. “You're going to trust me because you have no other choice, and because, deep down, you want to trust me.”
His words slid over my skin. And I shut my eyes, leaning into him for a second. He was right. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to lean on him. But it felt too damn selfish and too damn cowardly. To get into that feeling.
“How’s Benji?” Bennet asked.
