“Thank you for stopping me,” I grumble, and he tilts my chin up so that my eyes meet his.
“I’m always here for you,” he says so genuinely, and I take a step closer so that my body is just barely touching his.
“I know,” I murmur before wrapping my arms around his neck.
I tug lightly to bring his lips to mine, and it actually surprises him. He pulls back quickly and looks around like a child that has just done something wrong.
“Araya, people are watching,” he cautions, and then he checks my pupils.
I smile as I kiss his chest through his shirt.
“I know. Let them watch. I told Brazen,” I murmur softly, and he jerks me to his body to kiss me so much deeper.
“I love you,” I mutter into the kiss.
“I love you,” he returns, and then he starts pulling me away from everyone.
I halt the retreat, and he looks at me curiously.
“I just want you to hold me right now,” I say too pitifully. “Nothing else.”
He smirks, and his lips fall on mine again before pulling me to the dusty ground to sit in his lap beside the fire.
“I’m perfectly fine with that. You may not remember our exhausting tousle, but I’m still recovering,” he playfully exasperates.
I grin a little, and then I snuggle into his body as Clay walks out holding photos. He starts passing them around, and everyone seems to be studying them very intensely. Hale pulls me tighter against him, and his lips caress my forehead. Brazen smirks lightly at me, but then the photos reach him to draw away his attention.
“Captain Mordel has already familiarized you with the details he and Araya learned during the interrogation as well as the fight. These infected are not like the normal vermin we deal with. The mutated virus could possibly be the reason for this, we just don’t have enough information to clarify any concerns just yet. Please look at these pictures and see if anything stands out that we might have missed,” Clay says very formally, and Hale investigates each piece of the pictures as they’re handed to him.
I look at them with him as he holds me in his arms, and his jaw clenches when he sees the photo of the tattoo that makes me worry I might relapse. His grip tightens on me, and then he hands the pictures to the guy beside me.
“Are you okay?” he whispers.
“I don’t know,” I mumble, and then he pulls me even closer.
“These infected have yellow nails as opposed to the black nails we’ve grown accustomed to,” Hale says to Clay. “We know black represents the poison that gathers in the nails, and it has the capability of killing us if we go for too long without fresh blood to treat it. Do we know if these yellow nails do the same?” he asks.
“I honestly hadn’t noticed the nails,” Clay says, and he rips up a photo from a guy’s hand to study the new detail.
“Did you get cut by one of these?” he asks me.
“I was invincible while going hand-to-hand with them,” I answer.
“I did,” Brazen says, and he stands to reveal his perfectly smooth shoulder. “No poison introduced itself into my veins. Why would they be so much milder, and why use a milder army of infected to attack?” he asks curiously.
“I don’t know. So far everything has seemed bizarre and wildly planned as if there is no strategy at all,” Clay huffs.
Another picture falls in front of Hale’s eyes, and he tilts his head curiously. He scoots out from under me, and he walks over to another guy to take his picture while holding the two side by side.
“What is it?” Brazen asks while coming to stand beside him.
“What do you see?” Hale asks while handing him both pictures.
“The same fucking gash on the arm, but this can’t be the same infected,” Brazen scoffs, and they exchange a worried look.
“What?” Clay prompts, and I swallow hard as the suspenseful silent conversation continues for a moment longer.
“My uranium tipped blades sliced through them effortlessly, but some of them didn’t get hit in the right place to die. This one has an angled gash, and here he is again with the same angled gash, only the reddened eyes have melded into black - the same as a recently turned full blood or a freshly changed hybrid,” Brazen finally says to end the suspended heaviness, and everyone holds their breath as they try to process the impossibility.
