Her leg twisted painfully from the fall, but she pushed it to the side. The infected snapped its teeth and tried to reach for her. Their angle was awkward, and all he managed to do was claw at her jeans with his long, jagged nails. She dug her nails into the ground, turned her foot left and right to try to dislodge it, and finally she freed it from where it was stuck. She moved backward, sawing her legs on the ground until she got leverage and moved farther away from him. The moon chose that moment to slice through a gap in the trees, and that was when she saw the glint of the barrel of the gun.
Lunging for it and wrapping her hand around the semi-automatic, she rolled onto her back, pointing the gun at the infected. She pulled the trigger, and the bullet went right through his forehead. He slumped to the ground on top of her legs, and she quickly kicked his body away. The nausea she felt as soon as she’d been taken by those men, and then from facing off with the two infected, suddenly came up like a turbulent wave. Sparrow rolled over and threw up everything that was in her belly, which wasn’t much. When the dry heaves stopped, she stood, wiped her mouth off with the back of her arm, and turned.
Her heart stopped and then beat double time when she heard twigs snapping. Turning in every direction, she couldn’t get a grasp on where the sound was coming from, since the noises bounced off the trees over and over again. Oh, God. Were there more infected coming toward her? Before she could run, two bodies stepped out from between the elms. She lifted her gun, her hands shaking and unsteady but ready to start shooting. Her finger was on the trigger, and her adrenalin pumped fiercely through her bloodstream, but right before she added pressure and started firing in the dark, a deep voice stopped her.
“Christ, Sparrow?” Asher’s voice had everything in her stilling. Relief filled her when she realized it was really him. She squinted, and finally her vision became clearer and she saw Asher holding up Mason, who even from the distance was as white as a ghost. Darkness spread from his shoulder and dripped down his bicep and forearm.
“Oh my God. Was he…?”
“No, he was shot, not bitten,” he explained, and she exhaled. “Sparrow, sweetheart, can you please lower the gun? I don’t want to have to drag my shot-up ass and Mason’s back to the cabin.” Suddenly, her arm felt far too heavy, and she lowered it to the side but kept her finger on the trigger. She didn’t know if more of the sick would come, or if Collin would deliver on his promise and find her.
“We came back for you. We came back for you, but you were gone.” Mason’s voice was low but deep. “You were fucking gone, and then all hell broke loose.” She also heard a slight slur mixed with his words, distorting them.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think.
“Sparrow? Are you okay?” Both he and Mason moved toward her, but she could see how much work it took for Mason to stay upright. Seeing him wounded snapped something inside her, and she tucked her gun at the small of her back and rushed toward them. Taking the other half of his weight, she heard Mason sigh and felt him lean into her.
“You said something about a cabin?” She addressed Asher but was looking Mason over. The nurse in her kicked in when she got a look at the wound on his shoulder. Holding onto his waist a little tighter, she finally looked up at Asher. He watched her intently. “What?” He didn’t seem the least bit worried about Mason, which made her feel slightly better, but not by much.
“You’re worried about him?”
“Of course I’m worried about him. He was shot, and the longer we sit here and talk about it, the more he bleeds.”
Asher grew serious and nodded. “You’re right, but he’ll be fine. We’ve been in worse shape than this.”
“It’s true, little bird.” She snapped her eyes to Mason, and her pulse sped up at the endearment that came from him. He tilted his head to the side, just enough that he could look at her, and gave her a smile that looked slightly drunk. “Much worse.”
“Come on, he’s going to pass out soon, and I want to get this cleaned up.” Shit, if she still had her bag, she would have been able to use the first aid supplies she grabbed back at the pharmacy. “I wish I had my bag.”
“Here.” She looked up at Asher and saw him holding her backpack. “Mason grabbed it before we left.”
Her chest squeezed tight, and she realized that although it had only been four days she’d been with these men, she cared for them. It wasn’t love, and although she found them both immensely attractive and wanted them, she couldn’t even say the reason she cared for them was because of lust.