Don't Whistle Past the Graveyard

Ch. Seventy-Five

Shane startled when I touched his shoulder, looking up at me with wide eyes. When I frowned at him, he muttered, "I think I dozed off."

I sat down next to him, taking a bottle of pills out of my pocket. "Blood loss will do that to you," I said, trying to keep my voice light as I took his uninjured hand and tapped one of the pills into his palm.

"What is this?" he asked, accepting the water bottle I handed him.

"Those coagulant drugs we found a while back. We haven't had any use for them until..." I trailed off, glaring at where his finger had previously been. The bandages wrapped haphazardly around his hand were dark with blood.

Shane made a small sound of understanding, then tossed the pill into his mouth, washing it down with the water. I blinked, almost having expected more of an argument.

Catching my expression, he shrugged. "If it'll help it stop bleeding, I won't complain."

He held his hand up and a small bead of blood dripped from the bandages, streaking down his wrist toward his elbow. The cauterizing had only helped a little bit, but I knew better than most that wounds to the hands and fingers just tended to bleed a lot. Lots of blood vessels and endings in the extremities. 

"Why did you have to keep taunting him?" I asked, then scowled. I hadn't meant to say that, but apparently was unable to keep it to myself.

Shane lowered his hand with a sigh, wiping the blood away from his arm. With a shake of his head, he answered, "He was going to do it one way or the other. I didn't really see the point in playing nice."

I propped my elbows on my knees, then let my head fall into my hands, my fingers pressing into my forehead. "What if he'd sent it through your idiot head instead?" The incredible fear and helplessness I'd felt in that moment rushed back, slamming into me like a wave. "What if he'd decided to just kill you instead?"

That provoked a heavy silence, and I looked up to find Shane staring at the man's body, the handle of the chisel visible from where the tool was still embedded in his eye socket.

"I'm sorry," he finally said, making me turn to him with wide eyes.

"What?"

"I'm sorry," he repeated, looking weary. "I'm sorry this keeps happening. I'm sorry we haven't found someplace safe. I'm sorry about everything, from day one."

My eyes started to sting and I blinked rapidly. Shane lightly touched the bloody bandages, wincing a little. I knew saying it wasn't his fault wouldn't mean anything to him, but I had to anyway.

"It's not your fault dead people started walking around, Shane," I murmured, resting my head on his shoulder. He stiffened for a second, then relaxed, leaning his head against mine. "It's not your fault people can't behave themselves unless something's making them. It's just... it's not your fault."

He didn't say anything, and I knew it was because he didn't want to argue. He didn't agree with me, or believe me, and I knew it, but it was still my job and my right to say it to him. 

We stayed like that for a second, then I sat up, rubbing my eyes, trying to get rid of the prickly, itchy sensation. Both of us looked up when Aaron sat on the other side of the fire, which had been doused as soon as everything had calmed down enough for us to notice the smell of something sickeningly like barbeque.

One by one the others joined us, either sitting or standing in a circle around the skeleton of the fire.

It was quiet for a long time.

"What did they want?" Aaron finally asked, and I turned to Shane, wanting to know the exact same thing. Laying there listening to their leader talk before everything had turned bloody, I'd been unable to suss out their reasoning for attacking us.