“Yeah, I guess.”
“That kid is probably dragging Erwin’s ass out of a fight right now. I have zero doubt we’ll see him again someday.”
I look at his face to see if he’s joking but the lack of smile or crinkled lines near his eyes imply that he’s serious. “You have an unshakable faith sometimes.”
“Faith?” he repeats, scratching his forehead. He trimmed his beard sometime in the last day and I heard him ask Parker for a full haircut before we leave in the morning. “I’ve seen Paul rise from the dead and fight his way out of battles no man should have survived. It’s not faith. It’s acceptance of our bizarre reality.”
The others have gone back to their tasks, leaving me and Wyatt alone on the porch. He rests his hands on my hips. “We’ll see them again, too—hopefully leading an army back here. If not, we’ll go find them.”
“Yeah?”
He tilts his head. “Yeah, but don’t get any ideas. You and I have a different rule—one we broke too many times—and it’s not going to happen again.”
“Rule number one?”
He nods, touching my chin before pressing his lips to mine. “I was an idiot to let you go without me.”
“If I hadn’t, we’d probably both be dead,” I remind him. His arms are tight around my back and it feels so good to be close to someone like this.
“Never again,” he repeats. No matter how foolish the declaration was then and seems now, he means it.
*
“What’s rule number one?”
I pause, holding the needle between my fingers. I’d been sewing up a hole in my favorite jeans when Mary Ellen asks this question. “Excuse me?”
“I heard you on the porch earlier—you and Mr. Wyatt.” Her face flames red, giving me the idea she saw as much as she heard. “Sorry, that was rude of me.”
“Oh. That’s okay. It’s crowded in here. Privacy is hard to come by.” The girl smiles and I see she’s wearing her braid down her back today and not in the two pigtails I’ve seen her with so far. “I used to wear my hair sort of like that. It’s too long now.”
She touches the braid and I notice some other changes. Like her long dress is gone,replaced by a pair of pants and an oversized shirt. I don’t blame her. That dress is a deathtrap.
“Wyatt and I came up with a rule—well, no, I came up with it—early on. Never separate. It’s too hard to lose one another. Too hard to fight alone. You need a partner and backup out here to survive.”
“But you did leave him?”
I push the needle through the thick fabric, drawing the wool together. Socks aren’t that hard to find. I just like these. They’re soft and keep my feet warm. “I did. It was a risk.”
“A good risk?” Her eyebrows pull together in confusion.
“A necessary one, I guess. Sometimes we have to do things and we don’t want to drag everyone else into it.” I poke my finger and hiss at the pain. A pebble of blood pools at the tip and I pop it in my mouth. “This life is complicated.”
“Did you know I’ve never left my town before all this happened?” she says. “My whole life was set. Go to school, get married, work on a farm, have babies. It was all arranged before I could even think of my own opinion.”
“That’s kind of wild.” She sits at the table across from me and grows quiet. “Hey, are you okay? You’ve been through a lot in the last few days—not to mention the last year.”
She stares at the table and inhales before confessing in a whisper, “Finn is not my betrothed.”
From the way she says it, like revealing a mortal sin, I feel this is huge information. For her. Not for me. “Okay.”
“My to-be husband’s name was Carl. He was eighteen and one of the hunters that infected the village. When he returned home, he acted strange. He and I were never actually that fond of one another but he’d never raised a hand to me. That night he struck me. I thought he had found out—that he knew about Finn. It took a minute to realize he wasn’t normal. Thank heavens Finn arrived in time and killed him before he killed me.”
I put down the sewing and reach for her hand. “I’m so sorry. It’s terrible to lose someone to the infection.” She’s trembling and I can’t tell if it’s from telling the truth after all this time or something more. I take a stab in the dark. “So you and Finn were seeing each other in secret?”
She looks up, horrified. “Yes. Our families would never approve. Our fathers in particular, but when everyone died we were the only ones left. I was so thankful but also worried about God’s judgment. We have broken so many rules.” Her ears burn red. “We’ve shared a bed.”
“Hey,” I say, scooting my chair closer. “All hell broke loose, Mary Ellen. Our lives are not what they were supposed to be. Or maybe they are? I don’t know. I just try to live one day to the next, working to survive and help others along the way. I don’t know how else to live.” I bend and catch her eye. “I do think that if you managed to get out of that infected town alive, with the man you love, God is probably on your side.”