“In here.”
I do what he says without hesitating. A tiny wooden shed has appeared miraculously in the dark. It’s falling apart, and so overgrown with moss and climbing vines that even from a distance of only a few feet it appeared to be a tangle of bushes and trees. I have to stoop to get inside, and when I do the smell of animal urine and wet dog is so strong I almost gag. Alex comes in behind me and shuts the door. I hear a rustling and see him kneeling, stuffing a blanket in the gap between the door and the ground. The blanket must be the source of the smell. It absolutely reeks.
“God,” I whisper, the first thing I’ve said to him, cupping my hand over my mouth and nose.
“This way the dogs won’t pick up our scent,” he whispers back matter-of-factly.
I’ve never met someone so calm in my life. I think fleetingly that maybe the stories I heard when I was little were true—maybe Invalids really are monsters, freaks.
Then I feel ashamed. He just saved my life.
He saved my life—from the raiders. From the people who are supposed to protect us and keep us safe. From the people who are supposed to keep us safe from the people like Alex.
Nothing makes sense anymore. My head is spinning, and I feel dizzy. I stumble, bumping against the wall behind me, and Alex reaches up to steady me.
“Sit down,” he says, in that same commanding voice he has been using all along. It’s comforting to listen to his low, forceful directives, to let myself go. I lower myself to the ground. The floor is damp and rough underneath me. The moon must have broken through the clouds; gaps in the walls and roof let in little spots of silvery light. I can just make out some shelves beyond Alex’s head, a set of cans—paint, maybe?—piled in one corner. Now that Alex and I are both sitting there’s hardly any room left to maneuver—the whole structure is only a few feet wide.
“I’m going to take a look at your leg now, okay?” He’s still whispering. I nod okay. Even when I’m sitting down, the dizziness doesn’t subside.
He sits up on his knees and draws my leg into his lap. It’s not until he begins rolling up my pant leg that I feel how wet the fabric is against my skin. I must be bleeding. I bite my lip and press my back up hard against the wall, expecting it to hurt, but the feeling of his hands against my skin—cool and strong—somehow dampens everything, sliding across the pain like an eclipse blotting the moon dark.
Once he has my pants rolled up to the knee he tilts me gently, so he can see the back of my calf. I lean one elbow on the floor, feeling the room sway. I must be bleeding a lot.
He exhales sharply, a quick sound between his teeth.
“Is it bad?” I say, too afraid to look.
“Hold still,” he says. And I know that it is bad, but he won’t tell me so, and in that moment I’m so flooded with gratitude for him and hatred for the people outside—hunters, primitives, with their sharp teeth and heavy sticks—the air goes out of me and I have to struggle to breathe.
Alex reaches into a corner of the shed without removing my leg from his lap. He fiddles with a box of some kind and metal latches creak open. A second later he’s hovering over my leg with a bottle.
“This is going to burn for a second,” he says. Liquid splatters my skin, and the astringent smell of alcohol makes my nostrils flare. Flames lick up my leg and I nearly scream. Alex reaches out a hand, and without thinking I take it and squeeze.
“What is that?” I force out through gritted teeth.
“Rubbing alcohol,” he says. “Prevents infection.”
“How did you know it was here?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer.
He draws his hand away from mine and I realize I’ve been grabbing on to him, hard. But I don’t have the energy to be embarrassed or afraid: The room seems to be pulsing, the half darkness growing fuzzier.
“Shit,” Alex mutters. “You’re really bleeding.”
“It doesn’t hurt that much,” I whisper, which is a lie. But he’s so calm, so together, it makes me want to act brave too.
Everything has taken on a strange, distant quality—the sounds of running and shouting outside get warped and weird like they’re being filtered through water, and Alex looks miles away. I start to think I might be dreaming, or about to pass out.
And then I decide I’m definitely dreaming, because as I’m watching, Alex starts peeling his shirt off over his head.
What are you doing? I almost scream. Alex finishes shaking loose the shirt and begins tearing the fabric into long strips, shooting a nervous glance at the door and pausing to listen every time the cloth goes rippp.