Writing on the Wall by Tracey Ward Page B

Lost Boy? There are so many possibilities of what could have gone wrong that I feel helpless trying to figure out what happened to him. And I am not the helpless type. It actually occurs to me to go to his gang. It’s ridiculous and so stupid, but I seriously consider it. I can watch from afar for a little while, see if I can see him coming and going. And if I can’t? I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ll do then. This is the second time I’ve been worried for his life in a very short amount of time and I wonder what exactly it is I’m doing here. And for what? A little conversation on a wall and the memory of broad shoulders and brown eyes? Yeah, I feel less lonely and I feel a lot more of a lot of other things I’d forgotten existed, but to what end? How many of my old rules am I gonna break over this? And where does it stop? When I’m dead? It makes me sick just thinking about it but I can’t let this go. I can’t let him go.
    I’m hurrying past the wall, heading toward his part of town, when warm hands reach out from the shadows of a darkened doorway and yank me back. I don’t scream. I don’t panic. I’m conditioned well beyond all of that. As I’m falling backward, my back slamming into someone else’s front, I reach for my knife. I’m spinning it deftly in my hand just as an arm encircles my waist and a hand covers my mouth. That’s fine. That’s good, waste that constraint to smother a cry for help I never intended to loose. All the more room for me to swing out my arm, bring it back hard and drive my blade deep inside my captors gut. He’ll bleed out for hours from a wound like that. That is, if the zombies don’t scent him first.
    “Joss.” he breathes in my ear.
    I halt my arm just in time, just as the tip of my knife is pressing into his flesh.
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Ryan says quickly, feeling the prick of my knife. “Jesus, Joss, don’t stab me.”
    “Dunf creen ab vee.” I growl against his hand. I’m breathing hard through my nose, my adrenaline spiked and coursing like lightning through my veins. I can feel his chest rising and falling against my back. It’s slow and even.
    “I know, I’m sorry I grabbed you.” he apologizes in a whisper, somehow understanding my angry muffle speak. “If I let you go, will you scream?”
    “I erfer seen.”
    “No,” he chuckles softly. “I guess you wouldn’t. I’m letting go. Please don’t stab me.”
    He releases me in one quick motion like he’s releasing a wild animal. His hands go up in defense and he takes a step back when I round on him, knife still ready in my hand.
    “If I was going to stab you, you’d already be dead. Or dying.” I say, my voice tense but quiet.
    He smiles. “I believe it.”
    “What are you doing here? Why did you grab me?”
    “I heard a Colonist truck coming by a little while ago.”
    My eyes shoot to the street, scanning what I can see of it. As far as I can tell it’s clear.
    “It’s gone.” Ryan assures me. “I was writing you a message when I heard it so I hid in here. Even after it left, though, I was worried it could come back. I was worried you’d be writing back to me when it did.”
    “So you waited for me?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That was stupid.”
    He snorts, shaking his head. “You’re welcome.”
    “You’re staying out in the open for too long. What if a Risen wandered by? You have that cut on your arm and—“
    “How do you know about that?”
    I stop and berate myself for being the stupid one.
    “I was there. In the woods. I saw you guys take the buck down.”
    He grins at me looking proud. “You saw that? Pretty good, right?”
    I shrug, looking away. “You got hurt doing it, so it wasn’t that impressive.”
    “You’re cold. And jealous. Trent’s an amazing hunter. You should dream of having half his skills.”
    “Which one was Trent? The tall guy?”
    “Yeah. He’s our main lookout. He’s usually parked in the crow’s nest but we pull him out for hunting now