When All is Lost

Chapter 15

"Hey. Hey, you okay? Kate?"

I felt Ian's hand touch my shoulder and give it a slight squeeze. His dark eyes met mine with an imploring gaze as though he was trying to reach me. I wasn't gone, however. I was just trying to process what I'd done.

"Kate?"

It had to be done.

I blinked and took in a short, sharp breath, and released it with a whoosh. "I'm okay." I lowered my gaze to his neck, noticing for the first time the red marks from where he'd been choked. It looked swollen and painful.

It had to be done.

"You okay?" I asked, motioning to his neck as he took a step back from me and adjusted his backpack straps.

"Yeah. I'm fine," he said, poorly hiding a grimace behind a small smile. "Lucky you got here in time."

"Yeah... lucky." I watched him bend down and scoop up his knife. He must have lost it at some point during the fight, but I could see the tip was smeared with blood.

My eyes didn't follow him as he stood straight again, instead, they lingered on the tiled floor. Spattered across the otherwise pristine, white veneer of the tiles were dozens of muddy footprints of all different treads and sizes. I swallowed hard, reminding myself that they were very likely old and probably from when the store was first raided, but my urge to run was kicking in again.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the man who'd likely saved my life came around the corner holding the crowbar and covered in blood. He looked somewhat apprehensive as he took in the scene of the dead man on the floor and me, still tightly gripping the gun. "You guys good?" he asked.

Ian answered for me. "We're okay."

An uncomfortable silence fell upon us as we wearily eyed each other. I tried to keep thinking ahead, slowly getting more used to planning. I knew the options were to stick together or split up. We had almost no resources and from the looks of it, the new guy had nothing to offer. Still, deep in my gut, I knew that beyond my gratefulness for his help earlier, in the long run, we'd need him. We'd only survived the last ten minutes because all three of us were in the game. As much as I would have liked to have taken credit for brilliant planning, so much of our survival was about luck and numbers. We needed him as much as I was sure he needed us.

"I'm Kate," I said, offering a hand to shake his only to realize that I still held the pesticide can. It felt like nothing in my hand when I was constantly aware of the gun in the other. I was actively making sure to keep my finger off the trigger.

"I, uh, I'm Ray." His light-colored, brown eyes filled with relief. He rubbed at his blood-stained face with his sleeve, stopping at his hairline where I took in for the first time the way his short hair stuck straight up as if electrified. "Is it just you guys?"

My chest constricted at his question, but I brushed it off. "Just us for now." He quirked an eyebrow at my answer, but I didn't elaborate. "What about you?" His face immediately scrunched in pain and I felt like an idiot for asking. He'd lost someone he obviously cared about right in front of me and I still hadn't managed to hold my tongue. At the very least, I could have phrased it differently.

"I..." I watched his Adam's apple bob erratically as he reigned in his emotions. "That was my sister." His voice came out barely above a whisper, but the revelation had me reeling. He wore his grief openly to the point it was palpable. I both admired him for it and was disturbed by it.

"I'm sorry," I said, failing to find any other words to say. The tense silence started to settle back in.

"Well, I'm Ian." His introduction was blunt, but it had the desired effect of breaking off everyone's trains of thought. "We should probably move away from the body at least, yeah? Is there anyone else still moving about in here?"