Backs Against the Wall

I feel panic begin to well inside of me as I look down at him, busted and bleeding. There’s Risen gore all over him, more of it by the minute it seems like, and I’m flashing back to all the times I’ve had to put a gun to someone’s head and lay them down just before the fever took over. Just before they stopped being them and started eating me.

I reach for his shirt, tugging it up toward his face. “We have to get you out of these clothes and cleaned up. You can’t sit in them acting like the blood isn’t seeping into you.”

“Whoa, Joss, slow down,” he says, trying to stop my hands.

I won’t have it. I slap his hands away and yank on the collar of his shirt, pulling him up into a sitting position. His face is close to mine, his breath on my skin and the sheen of his blood is reflecting bright in the moonlight. In my watery eyes. I yank on the hem of the shirt, pulling it up forcefully. This time he lets me. He puts his arms over his head and lets me carefully peel it over his face, taking extreme care not to let the outside of the saturated shirt touch his vulnerable, open skin.

When I toss it aside, already dreaming of the fire I’ll burn it in, I feel his eyes on me. Watching. Worrying. I refuse to meet them. Instead, I look over his now exposed chest, arms, stomach and shoulders, searching for any kind of cut that could have left him exposed. But there’s nothing. He’s perfect. He’s safe.

He’s an idiot.

I sit back hard on my heels. My eyes are still burning, but I let him see.

“Never again,” I tell him firmly.

“I’m fine. You can see it, I’m fine,” he says calmly, smiling and reaching for my hand.

I jerk it away. “This time. This time you’re fine. But what about next time? People die doing this, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” he admits quietly, his smile gone. “They do all the time.”

“Never again,” I repeat.

He sighs as he runs his hand over his hair. “I have to. It’s what you need to get to The Hive.”

“We’ll find another way.”

“There is no other way.”

“You’re not worth it, Ryan,” I snap. He looks at me, surprised by my tone. “No matter what I need, you’re not worth it. You can’t come bursting in here, scribbling your gibberish all over everything, making me give a crap, then go out there and die. You can’t.”

“Hey,” he breathes, reaching for my hand again.

And again, I jerk it back.

“Hey,” he repeats, this time forcefully. Like a scolding. “Give me your hand, Joss.”

I let out a rough breath, then try to smile at him weakly. “Just because I don’t want you to die doesn’t mean I want you to touch me.”

“You’re a massive pain, do you know that?”

I reach out, taking his one hand in both of mine. It feels less claustrophobic this way, having him pressed between my palms instead of being clenched inside his. I can handle this.

“I know that,” I agree, staring at his long, beaten fingers. “We need to clean you up.”

He stands, then tugs on my hands, trying to pull me up as well. I stay stubbornly seated, looking up at him.

“Who’s the whore?”

“What?” he laughs.

“Freedom. You guys didn’t make her up, did you? She’s real.”

He sighs, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah, she’s real.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s a girl my brother was… friendly with.”

“She was his girl?”

Ryan shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Not really. But he never paid her. I told you, he was a legend in the Underground. This girl really liked him. Her and a lot of other girls.”

“Ugh,” I groan, finally standing.

“Hey, it’s one of the perks. You get good at it, the women start flocking to you.”

I point my finger at his mangled face. “Never again!”

He laughs all the way to the bathroom.

I sit on the closed toilet and watch him get cleaned up. I offer to help but he waves me away, claiming he’s done it plenty on his own. I believe him.

“How is becoming a Risen not the dangerous part of fighting?”

Ryan hesitates, the alcohol soaked rag hovering over a particularly nasty cut on his face.

“The dangerous part is being good at it,” he says quietly. He presses the rag to his skin, flinching slightly. “I got in the ring a few times, but it was never anything official.”

“By ‘official’ do you mean being owned by the gang?” I ask, thinking of Nats and Brea

“Yeah. They wanted me to fight for them too, but Kev wouldn’t let me. I still got noticed, though. I got offers from other gangs to join up with them.”

“To fight for them.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what I just realized?”

Ryan smirks as he dabs at another spot of blood on his face. “That being a fighter is close to being a prostitute?”

I frown at him, worrying he’s a mind reader. “No. I just realized I don’t know the name of your gang.”

“Do you want to?”

“Is it bad if I do?”

“No,” he chuckles. “It’s the Hyperions. It’s Greek for one of the Titans. He was the father of the sun, the moon and the dawn.”

I snort. “So you’re a humble bunch?”

Ryan smirks sideways at me. “It’s not as impressive as it sounds. He got it on with his sister to have them.”

“Sick!”

“Yeah. But we didn’t exactly pick the name. The building we’re in used to be a theater. It was called the Hyperion.”

“Original.”

“Judgmental,” he says, pointing at me.

“It’s rude to point.”

“Pot and the kettle and all that,” he mutters, dabbing ointment on his fingertips and applying it to his face.

I shrug. “I can’t help it. I was raised by wolves.”

“Wolves have better ma

“You hate wolves!” I protest.

“I hate a wolf,” he corrects, “and he probably still has better ma

I kick him in the shin. Not hard, but it’s enough to jostle him and his responding laugh is short lived as it turns into a grunt of pain. I’ve made him slip, digging his finger into a cut on his face.

“I’m sorry,” I say hastily, springing up to stand beside him. “Let me see.”

He lets me stand in front of him, dropping his hands down to his sides as I rise up on my toes to look.

“Do you want me to finish it?” I ask, my breath rebounding off his face back at me. I hadn’t realized I was standing so close. I meet his eyes and take a deep, calming breath. He’s staring at me, watching me. He’s patient, but he’s tense. “Ryan?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to kiss me?” I whisper.

He nods slowly, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Then why don’t you?”

“Every time I go to touch you,” he says softly, “you pull away. I don’t want to crowd you. I don’t want you to run.”

I reach down with my right hand, taking hold of his. I move it until it sits heavy and warm on my hip. He follows my lead, pressing his other hand on the opposite side of my waist.

“There, see? You’re touching me and I’m still here.”

“This time,” he points out.

“I know. I’m a pain.”

“So I’ve heard.”

He kisses me softly, his hands pulling me closer to him. He’s careful of my arm this time. He pulls my hips flush with his but leans over me with his upper body. He’s holding me and hovering over me and I feel weightless and strange. And warm. His kiss, his breath, courses through me the way the vodka did, burning and churning into my stomach. His fingers find the edge of my thin t-shirt. They slip under, scorching across my skin. I start to feel anxious and so much more. So many things that I don’t understand.

I pull away.

Ryan takes his hands away, smiling that crooked smile of his and just like that, the heat fades. I can breathe again.

“We should go to bed,” I breathe, trying to bring myself down. To remind myself I’m alright.

Ryan stares are me, surprised.

I swat at him. Hard. I’m not good at being playful.

“Not like that and you know it.”

“I know,” he admits, gri