DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 11, SECTION 2

I held the spoon to Ian's lips, tipping the broth into his mouth as gently as I could. 

I'd propped his frail body up against the wall so that feeding him would be easier. He swallowed slowly. I dipped the spoon into the broth, and brought it again to his lips.

The room I'd found last night for Ian was small, and though it was in the same towering structure as the room I'd just left, it wasn't quite as elevated. But it had a wide stone ledge where I'd piled the blankets for him to lie on, and the small window across from this makeshift bed framed nothing but a perfectly blue sky.

"Have as much of this as you can," I whispered as Ian swallowed down another spoonful of the broth. "You'll get your strength back. You'll see."

He was starving, and he'd been starving for a long time. And judging by his badly cracked lips, he'd drunk nothing but snow melted in his mouth. When I'd first seen him the night before, it was hard to believe that he was actually the same Ian that I knew. His shoulders, once muscular, had become bony and curled inward. His ribs pressed through skin so pale it was almost blue. I'd only ever known Ian to be clean-shaven, ever, even on a day off, and now a thick, tangled beard obscured his face.

I'd thrown his cargo pants away because they'd been so tattered, and I'd washed the layers of mud from his black park, its elbow still threadbare and trailing stuffing. It was a standard, Home Guard issued parka, just like the ones I'd seen distributed at the high school, and just like the one Shawn had worn, and torn, when he'd fought his way onto the football field during the public burnings.

It was right after Ian had stumbled into the dwellings last night, as I'd helped him stand in the lantern light, that I'd recognized his worn parka. I'd understood then, immediately, what I hadn't understood before. 

It had been Ian who was unburying positives from their graves that day. 

Shawn had never claimed that it was him, I realized—after seeing him on the trail in a sleeveless black parka and learning that he'd been the one who'd rescued the prisoners, I'd just assumed that he'd also been the person I'd seen pulling that poor woman from a coffin.

I didn't know how long Ian had spent in that field digging up graves, or even how he'd found his way to the dwellings with the few people he'd rescued. I didn't know where his family was, either, or why he was alone.

All I knew was that something deeply and painfully horrifying had happened to him, something so traumatic that it had thrust him into a kind of numb shock. No matter how many times I'd tried to ask him about his family, all he'd been capable of doing was turning away from me and either crying silently or staring blankly at the wall. 

But I was certain that somewhere behind the sunken eyes and the blank, pained expression was the Ian I knew. I was certain.

I tipped another spoonful of broth between his lips and lowered it again into the bowl.

Slowly, Ian reached a weak hand out toward me and touched my arm. It was the first time he'd held my gaze for longer than a fleeting moment.

"Thank you," he whispered, very faintly and with obvious effort. "Ashley," he rasped. "Thank you."

I lay my hand on his.

"You're going to be okay," I said with as much encouragement as I could muster. "We're going to get you better."

He pulled his hand away. He stared out the window at the blank blue sky.

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