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“The water,” Gunnar looked over to the river. “It’s not really fit for human drinking. Mace will be fine, as his digestive system can handle it. Yours can’t. Right now, you’re just uncomfortable. Later, you’re going to feel like hell, but you’ll be okay. We boil most of our drinking water.”
I groaned. Just my luck. I risked my neck to get him the water, yet I made myself sick in the process. “We need to get the apples. He wanted to make pies.”
“They burned up.” Gunnar touched my leg, drawing my attention. I furrowed my brow. Yes, he was right. I saw it, and I remembered them burning now that he’d mentioned it. Fuck. I’d forgotten. “Thank you for trying to save his life. I can’t believe this happened. We need to get out of here before it happens again. If it happens again. We don’t know why it happened the first time.”
Mace groaned and Gunnar grinned at him. “Yes, you’re in pain. You got fucking hit by lightning, Mace. I mean…who has that happen?”
I shook my head. “There was a man on the hill. I don’t know if he was real or if I was hallucinating. Lightning struck all around him. He just stood there staring at me, and then he was gone.” I could still see him, in my mind, so I searched their faces to see if they understood.
They all stared at me blankly. Finally, Ransom spoke. “I’ll come back after we get Mace and Raven home. I’ll see if I can track anyone, or if they left behind any footprints or other evidence. What in the hell is going on?”
“I’m sorry.” I buried my face into Crew’s shoulder, inhaling the clean scent of him and whatever soap he used. If I could have crawled inside of him to hide from everything, I would have. “I brought all the bad luck with me.”
His hand on my back was a comforting feeling, especially when he began to rotate it in big, soothing circles. “You saved JoHanna. You told us what happened with Amias, and you tried to help Mace when you should have hidden in the cave. I think you’re rather the opposite of bad luck, Raven. Close your eyes. All will be well.”
I knew then why men followed Crew. My heart thumped twice in my chest as I looked up at his eyelashes, dotted with moisture from the still- misting rain. I would have done whatever he asked if he spoke to me like that. I closed my eyes, exhaling on a sigh.
* * *
I woke up when the bed dipped. Opening my eyes hurt, but I was glad to see Mace crawling in next to me. I’d puked most of the night, until my body felt weak from heaving. It was over though, I thought. Hoped. Really hoped. Puking was just the worst. My fever seemed to have abated, too, leaving me feeling weak and beat up.
And I probably smell like hell.
But Mace put his arms around me and drew me against him as if he didn’t notice my scent. He gave me a quick squeeze, and I relaxed into his warmth and touch.
“Your skin was singed, ” I said through my thick, raw throat, rubbing my nose against his neck. “So glad you look better.”
He pressed my head against his chest. “Go back to sleep. We’re both still recovering. We’re just going to do it together because…well, just because.”
I closed my eyes. “Okay.” I didn’t have the energy to debate it, anyway.
Time must have passed, because the next time I woke up, I found myself in his arms but starving. I tried to sit up and a strong hand stopped me. Mace obviously didn’t want me to move. “I’m hungry,” I complained.
He nodded. “Ransom is bringing us food. They didn’t care so much about me being hungry, but they are worried about you.” He smirked. “Gentle food, Ransom. Like toast. Other than that? How are you feeling, Raven?”
“Confused about what happened to us.”
Mace played with a lock of my hair. “Something made the lightning go crazy. It struck us like it was looking for us. Gunnar says you were right, you saw someone where you thought you saw them. I think Ransom intended to do the tracking, but Gunnar is actually a better tracker. He picked up traces and is searching for him , but I have no idea if he was related to what happened to us, or how he could be related to a lightning strike. I mean, we’ve been here a long time, yet in all those years of living alongside the upper-level electrical issues, we’ve never had lightning behave in such a strange way. It kept striking between here and where we were, so they couldn’t get to us. Then it just stopped. I’m…not sure what to make of it. Crew is working with some others to try to figure it out. Then, you apparently drank some bad water.”
“The same water that feeds the trees, so could you explain how that works? Do the apples make you sick?”
He shook his head. “The apple seeds that I planted are special. They naturally filter out the bad water. I guess you could call them enhanced apple trees. By the way, we have so many apples now. The guys picked something like three dozen of them, because you mentioned the ones that burned.”
Looked like we would be making a lot of pies.
“Hey.” He knocked my foot with his own, and I glanced at him again. “You should have stayed in the cave. You shouldn’t have gone into the lightning like that. You don’t ever have to save me, Raven.”
I shook my head then blew out a breath. “I really thought you needed water. I thought it would help your condition, so I needed to get it as quickly as possible. Obviously, if I’d known the water was tainted, I wouldn’t have done it. I’m very sorry about that.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t get sick from it, at least not that I can remember. If I got sick, I was out cold when it happened. We don’t tend to get sick, though, so it’s likely I didn’t. In any case…thank you, but please don’t ever do something like that again. You’re so fragile. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“It was going to strike me. I saw it. You pushed me out of the way. I’d have been burned up, like the apples we picked.”
He made a face, concern knitting his brows. “I threw you hard. Did I hurt you?”
“It hurt, yeah, but that doesn’t really matter. I would have been much worse off. Dead. Fried. Cooked like a holiday fowl. ” I hated the thought. “And it’s amazing you weren’t killed. That’s some pretty tough skin you have there.” I scooted closer. “Thank you for saving my life, Mace . You may not be fragile, but you’re important. Lightning can’t kill you, but I bet there are things that can.” Before I could overthink it, I kissed him lightly on the lips. I almost never kissed, but I intended it as a gift of gratitude. It wasn’t what men wanted from me, so I had little reason to ever bestow such tokens, but right then, he seemed to warrant the thank you. “It was such a good day before it…almost blew up.”
“You make me want to be…” His gruff voice trailed off. “Ransom is here.”
