Nearby an infected called out.
Tor didn’t wait for direction. He started running toward the nearest building. He grunted, shifting my weight.
“Hold me,” he said a moment before he jumped. I clasped my arms around him and clung to him like a baby monkey. He moved fast, using his feet and one hand to propel himself upward. When he stopped, I had a three-story view of the surrounding area. Infected were flooding in from the indicated directions.
“Can we run along the roofs and avoid them?” I asked.
“It would be better to kill as many as we can,” Tor said, setting me down. The other human-carrying fey joined us, and we all watched the scene unfold below.
It was complete carnage. For the infected. Heads flew, and bodies dropped as the fey methodically worked their way through the horde. I winced each time one of them disappeared under a wave of infected. Thankfully, the fey reemerged every time. A bit bloodier than before, but they emerged. When the infected saw they were losing, a call went out and their remaining number retreated. A few of the fey followed to pick off the ones they could.
“I think we can head down,” Ryan said.
That was all the prompting Tor needed to pick me up, and my eyes went wide with understanding.
“You’re not jumping, are you?”
“It’d be safer than trying to go down through the building,” Ryan said as the first fey jumped over the ledge with his human.
I swallowed hard and looked up at Tor.
“Isn’t it going to hurt your knees?”
He leaned in to press his forehead against mine.
“Only a little. I will be fine.” He lightly rubbed his nose against mine. “No screaming, June. The infected will hear.”
I closed my eyes and nodded, not pulling away from him. His forehead left mine, and I felt the briefest brush of his lips against my mouth before the world dropped out from under me. My stomach rose to my throat, but I didn’t make a sound. Not even when Tor landed with a jarring jolt and grunted.
Heart hammering in my chest, I opened my eyes and pressed a palm against his cheek. He turned his head to brush his lips across the skin then took off running, hoisting me higher in his arms. It gave me a view of the fey trailing us and the massacre we were leaving behind.
There were so many bodies. I could only hope that meant we were leaving the city a slightly safer place to scavenge in the future.
As the bodies shrank from view, one of the infected stood. I frowned, trying to squint as Tor turned the corner. I could have sworn it didn’t have a head. The shock of the confrontation and the ensuing scary drop to the street must have rattled me too much. That or I needed glasses.
Resting my head against Tor’s chest, I watched the buildings fly past. It didn’t take us long to reach the trucks where fey were still showing up with the final supplies.
“Looks like you ran into trouble,” Richard said, surveying our group. “Maybe it’d be better if I drove home.”
I was more than willing to let him take the wheel and gratefully settled in the passenger seat. Thankfully, the ride home was as uneventful as the ride out, and we reached the safety of Tenacity’s gate well before dusk.
“It was a good thing we didn’t have a huge crowd with us today,” Ryan said when Matt greeted him. “It left more room for the supplies we found.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Rather than waiting around for the haul to be divided, Tor and I returned to Tolerance. As soon as we cleared the wall, I insisted he let me walk.
“Your arms have to be screaming by now.”
He frowned at me.
“It means they must be tired from carrying me most of the day.”
“A little tired, but I could carry you longer,” he said.
I wrapped my arm around his waist and gave him a side hug.
“Thank you for keeping me safe today. How about, to show my appreciation, I give you an arm massage after you take a nice relaxing shower?”