The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [32]
“Wait,” I call out to Catcher, my breath whispery and shaking through chattering teeth. He stops a few paces in front of me and turns, the low burn of his torch throwing an orange glow over his cheekbones.
I gesture at the water, a darkness swallowing my lower body. “What if there’s Unconsecrated in there?”
He holds the light closer to the surface as if it could illuminate what’s below. “They’d be downed,” he says. “You should be okay.”
“Should?” my voice squeaks. After the close call from before, I’m not willing to take the chance of being bitten by some plague rat floating underwater.
“They can’t smell or sense the living in the water,” he says but I’m shaking my head.
“Unless I bump into one of them,” I protest. “That’s not a risk I really want to take. Even if you brush them they won’t …” I wave my hand at him, thinking about earlier when he stood in the midst of the crowd of dead as if he were one of them.
He looks at me for a moment, his forehead furrowed, and then he frowns as he realizes what I mean.
It’s freezing and my muscles won’t stop cramping. Ripples bloom in the water around me as I shift and jolt to keep the blood moving through my body.
“Carrying you won’t be easy with my arm,” he says. “You could float but in this cold and with your hair being so long …”
I cringe at the thought of Unconsecrated hands twisting through my hair, winding it around their fingers until they’d pulled me under to feast.
Catcher sloshes closer, his movement kicking up waves that pulse around my hips. He turns away from me and leans over slightly, gesturing toward his back. “Can you climb on?”
I stare at him a moment, the expanse of shirt pulled tight over skin. I hate that I need his help like this, but I’m not stupid enough to shrug off his offer. The best chance I have of making it through the water is to rely on him.
Inhaling a sharp cold breath, I bend my knees, sending the frigid water level cresting up to my waist. Then I jump, my momentum so slowed by the sludge that I sort of fall and slide against Catcher’s back, scrambling to grip his shoulders and wrap my legs around his waist.
He stumbles a little, my extra weight throwing him off balance, and then tucks his hand under my thigh to help settle me into place. I sink into him, laying my cheek on the smooth spot between his shoulder blades. His body is so warm it causes me to shudder, the heat spreading along my legs and up my stomach and chest.
I sigh, threading my arm up over his shoulder to pull myself closer. He still smells like the outside, like the Forest. As he trudges through the darkness the water sloshes around us both and his body rocks. I squeeze my legs around him tighter, linking my feet together just below his abdomen.
“This okay?” I ask and my mouth hovers next to his ear. I sense more than feel the hairs along his neck prickling, almost brushing against my cheek. He grunts an answer and keeps walking, the slushing sound of his legs cutting through the water echoing around us.
I feel the twitch of his muscles and the beat of his pulse thrumming just under his skin. He rests his arm on my knee, the wound from the bolt tied tight and the blood washed away. I can’t stop my mind from being hyperattuned to every detail of this moment. Wondering if he’s aware that his fingers trail along the narrow band of skin between the bottom of my pants and top of my sock. They drum lightly against me like drops of water falling to the ground.
I feel like I should say something. The silence is too familiar. I’m not used to touching people, to having them touch me. But anything I could say would be either too mundane or too personal. And so I let my cheek rest in the crook of his shoulder blade and allow my body to mold to his as he plows forward.
I close my eyes and imagine the sun. I imagine a field of flowers and no sounds on the breeze other than the call of birds