Page 54 of The Outsider
Before sleep could claim me, I looked up at John again. His expression was sweet and satisfied, a faint smile touching his lips as he looked at me. I reached out and cupped his cheek, and he sighed and shut his eyes, leaning into my touch.
I stroked him from forehead to chin, smoothing away stress and worry lines. He carried so much on his shoulders all the time, and he always had—the story he’d told me about Allie had only confirmed it.He felt responsible for his people, and that now included me. But I wanted to take care of him, too, to be worthy of being the one person he felt truly vulnerable with.
“I love all of you, you know,” I murmured. “Don’t doubt that I could love you even on your darkest day. I can’t stop loving you any more than I can stop myself from breathing, and with my last breath, I’d tell you so.”
John put a hand under my chin and kissed me deeply, thoroughly, for a long moment before pulling back. His eyes shone with emotion in the low light, and he buried his face in my hair.
“You are everything,” he whispered roughly, then cleared his throat. “Let’s get some rest, sweetheart. Another long day tomorrow.”
Eventually, he shifted underneath me, and I allowed him to help me into my sleeping bag. He tucked me in, kissed my forehead, and told me he loved me. Then he crawled into his sleeping bag beside me, draping an arm over my hip.
Just as I was on the edge of sleep, there was a sound from the main room of the cabin. I frowned, listening. It sounded like something moving. And then a sigh. A gasp. A moan.
God, a moan?I flushed from head to toe.
“Christ,” John muttered as another, louder moan reached us. “Really, Kimmy? Couldn’t even try to keep it down?”
I did my best to muffle my helpless giggles against my sleeping bag.
“You can hardly lecture her,” I said, amused. “We just did the same.”
“That’s different,” he replied, though he didn’t elaborate on how, exactly.
“Don’t be such a grump,” I chided playfully. “She wanted someone, and she’s finally happy…veryhappy, from the sounds of it.”
“Gross. That’s my sister.”
“Your sister,anda grown woman. With needs.”
He shot me a look of utter disgust that only made me giggle more.
“Cheer up, Wastelander,” I said, snuggling him. “Sooner or later, if Asha does her job, she’ll finish.”
“Oh my God, Claire, stop.”
His cheeks had turned bright red. I wasn’t used to seeing John mortified—he was usually so unflappable—and it was so unexpected and adorable that I buried my face in his chest and silently laughed until tears sprung to my eyes.
Chapter 16
Claire
Days passed as we continued north. If I hadn’t known it already, I quickly learned that nature was a cruel mistress, and winter was her weapon of choice. We walked endlessly, every day, with cold, hunger, and exhaustion clinging to us like the gossamer threads of a spider’s web. Ensnared, we struggled against it, but some part of us sensed that the spider grew nearer every day.
More walking meant that the food rationing became significantly harder on us. My clothes started hanging looser on my body, and I was surprised one afternoon by my reflection in a stream, my cheeks hollower and paler than I remembered. The skin between my fingers cracked and bled—a product of the dry, frigid air—and my eyes stung from the light reflection off the snow. I became cold quicker than ever and never felt like I wore enough layers, to the point that John started sharing my sleeping bag to keep me warm at night. At the end of each day, I looked forward to his warm body curled around mine, his breath at my ear, his kisses in my hair. It kept me going.
Constant hunger and cold meant that everyone was irritable. Misery sharpened Asha’s tongue to a razor’s edge, and more than once, I swore John was about to throttle her for her complaining. Kimmy was more tolerant, but even she got testy when I innocently asked how far we had left to go one morning. The lack of privacy and alone time was one more thing that wore on all of us. Being together constantly didn’t help the growing tensions between us.
To John’s credit, if he was short with the other two, he was always patient with me, and tried to comfort me even when I could tell he was hanging by a thread himself. Truthfully, he was the only one I wasn’t sick of after weeks of constant contact.
The air was frigid the morning I woke up with a sore throat; I could see my breath every time I exhaled. As we trudged through snow and ice, my lungs ached from the cold, dry air. I was more tired than usual, falling behind the others, my eyelids feeling heavy. A snowflake landed on my nose, melting on contact and startling me back into alertness.
“You alright, Claire?” Kimmy asked me. “You don’t look good.”
“I think I might be coming down with something,” I answered, coughing into the crook of my arm.
“Do you need to stop?” John asked, his voice rich with sudden concern.
“No,” I insisted, and Asha raised her eyebrows at me as I hacked another cough into my arm. “I don’t want to stop. We’ve been making good time so far.”
