The City, part Seven, drama

CHAPTER 23

The pain in my chest is gone. Sitting up, I look down towards the scratch. It's a little red, but it's much less swollen, and the streaks in my skin from it are gone. "Blaze? My cut is healing." I look up towards his bunk, but don't hear a response. In fact, I can't hear anything from up there. Slowly, I get up, surprised that I can at all, and see that he's not there. I look around the apartment, the kitchen, the fire escape, the bathroom, but he's not anywhere. "Blaze..? Where'd you go?"

There's a note on the windowsill. "Hey. I'm going to the woods. I'll be back before sundown." Fuck. He left? What is he doing? What if he gets hurt..? Puff is sitting on Blaze's chair, sleeping. Should I go get him? 

My chest may not be as severely infected, but it still hurts, and the things that Fern mixed into my tea still weigh me down. 

Why should I? He drugged me. He decided to leave. But even as I turn away from the window, I can imagine him, alone in the woods, scared. Hurt. Dead. I can't leave him out there, even if I'm mad at him. It's still morning, the sun has barely risen. 

Once I get to the forest, I look around. There are deer, watching me. Next to them, there's a patch of weeds, crushed by a footprint. It has to be him. He was heading towards Fern's house, or maybe towards the camp past it?

"Hey. Fern!" I'm knocking on her door. The sun has risen to the middle of the sky, and I've been unable to travel fast. "Is Blaze here?" She opens the door, glaring at me.

"Rye! What the hell are you doing out here? You should be resting!" 

"Blaze left while I was asleep. Where is he?" She sighs, knowing that she can't convince me to go home yet.

"He went past my cabin, to the Tree Dweller's camp. I haven't seen him come back yet." I thank her, turning to leave, but she grabs my hand. "Wait. You're not going alone through the woods in this state. I'll go with you. I need to grab some things anyway." 

We're hiking to the camp when I see smoke, rising above the trees. "What the fuck..?" What's happening? The smoke is ahead of us, at the Tree Dweller camp. 

"Fuck! Something's caught fire there!" Fern starts running, and, as best I can, I follow suit. Fuck. Blaze. Please be okay.. Branches and thorns hit me as we head towards the camp. Once we get there, I can see that the gates are open, and one of the houses inside is on fire. Nobody stops us as we go through the gate.

I can see him, standing in the middle of the clearing. He looks mortified, but he's okay. Fuck, he's okay, thank god. "Blaze!" I'm trying so hard not to cry as I hug him that I feel like my eyes might pop out. He seems happy to see me, but fear is still smeared across his face.

"Rye." He looks at me, trying to think. "I need to tell you something." 

"What?!" He can't be telling me the truth, but the look on his face tells me it is, that he's not lying. He looks terrified, and he glances around, paranoid. He doesn't need my doubt, he needs reassurance. "Hey.. you okay?"

He looks down as I ask this. He's shaking, and he's curled up, arms crossed on his knees to protect his organs. "I'm fine. We just need to find out what happened, and who tried to kill the Tree Dwellers. Nothing else matters right now."

"Hey.." I want to say something. To tell him that it'll be okay. To tell him that he matters to me. But I don't know how to.. I move towards him. He's leaned against a tree, sitting down. We left the camp when he told me he had something important to say. Sitting back down, I press against him. "Hey."

"Hey.." He looks at me, confused. "Aren't you mad at me?" How do I respond to that?

"Yes. But you're right. Nothing else matters right now." His eyes are slick with tears, trying to stay in. "Now, are you okay?" And that causes them to flood out. 

"Fuck.." He sobs, shoving his face into my shoulder. "No.. I saw a man die. I've killed three times in the past week." His arms are wrapped around me, and I find that mine are wrapped around him. I cradle him, his head in my hands.

Fuck. What do I say? What can I say? My fingers tangle into his hair, curling it around my hand. He's warm, a nice contrast to how cold it is outside. He breathes, sucking in as much air as he can, then sighing it out, and leans away.

"I'm.. sorry. About everything.." He looks up towards me, remorse in his eyes.

"Hey.. It's okay." The sun is setting. I haven't been keeping track of the time, but now, I notice how late it is. "Shit.." 

Confusion replaces the pain on Blaze's face. "What..?"

"It's almost dark outside.. I doubt we'll be able to make it back before night.."

"Yeah you won't." Fern appears behind me, making me jump. "You guys can stay at mine if you'd like. Might be your only option, honestly. C'mon." She turns away, walking towards her house, as Blaze and I follow. 

"Oh, by the way, there's only the couch available, sorry. Hope you two won't mind sharing."

CHAPTER 24

Rye and I are sitting on the couch. Fern is in bed already, and I'm getting tired myself. "Today was pretty exhausting for you, huh?" Rye turns to me, the question deepening in his eyes.

"Yeah, it was." Why does he want to know? He's looking at me, his face droopy. He just sits there for a moment, thinking. Then, he does something unexpected. 

He scoots towards me, pulling me, and lies down with me. He's behind me, his arms wrapped around my midsection. I can feel his breath on my ear. "Blaze.. Why'd you leave earlier?" Why did I?

"I dunno, I needed to.. get away, for a minute." 

"...Away from me?" Fuck. What? His face, snuggled into my hair, pulls away. 

"No, of course not. I just.. needed to think. About what I did." After a moment of thought, he rests his face again. His lips sit on the back of my neck. I'm so.. tired. Today was long, and I need to sleep. His hand moves up, curling my hair around his fingers. 

"Blaze.." He breathes my name into my ear, and I try not to shudder. 

"Yeah..?"

"Go to sleep." I laugh, and his hand moves down to my forehead, over my eyes, my nose, fingers hooking onto my lips, and resting on my throat. His lips slide down from my neck to my spine, and he yawns.

My eyes are closed, enhancing other senses. The feeling of his hair, tickling my skin. The smell of his breath, surprisingly nice. The sound of his heart beat, slow with fatigue.  The taste of his lips, even if its just in my imagination. Wait.. what? I'm too tired to think about things right now.

CHAPTER 25 

"Hey." We're half way up the fire escape to the apartment, and Rye is basically heaving. "You okay? Do you wanna take a break here?" He straightens up, inhaling deeply, then sighs.

"No. I'm fine." His tone is flat, and he doesn't turn to look at me before he starts climbing up the next section of the ladder. He's been acting distant since we left Fern's house, staying ahead of me as we walked, even when I could tell that his chest was bothering him, and replying with the shortest answers, if he answered at all.

Eventually, we reach the apartment. He starts through the window, but before he gets all the way into the room, he flinches, and brings his arms to his chest. He leans back, almost falling, but I catch him. "Let me go." He shoulders my hand away, successfully climbing through the window. 

"Rye." Once I get through the window myself, I grab his shoulder, turning him to face me. "What's wrong? Why've you been acting like this all day?" He's glaring at me, shoving my hand away. 

"Let me go! Don't act like you didn't do anything! You fucking drugged me! Stay away." He backs up until he's against the wall, his hands raised as though he's trying to defend himself. He's scared, his eyes wide, with tiny pupils. " Don't.. Don't come near me. Please." He pulls his hands up to his chest, wrapping them around his ribs. 

"Hey.. I'm sorry. I won't." His eyes search mine, as though he doesn't believe I'm telling the truth. I need to get out of this room.. "I'm going to.. go make food. You haven't eaten for a minute, have you?" Slowly, he nods. 

"Ok.." He doesn't move as I walk past him, into the kitchen. Checking the cabinets, I try to determine what we'll eat. Fuck. All there is is ravioli.

CHAPTER 26

Fuck. Fuck. Once Blaze enters the kitchen, I allow myself to sink to the floor. Why am I like this? My face is warm, tears sliding down onto my knees. My chest hurts, and I can't breathe, but I can't tell if it's from overextension, stress, or the infection returning. Fuck. 

When I woke up this morning, I was so happy.. Blaze was still curled up on the couch, and I only got up to check the weather, and to see if it was time to go. But Fern was out there, and she told me the truth. I can't believe Blaze has had a gun this whole time.. 

He would've shot me.. If he'd thought that I'd turn, he'd have shot me. I can hear him in the other room, cooking. He wouldn't, would he? Fuck, he can't see me curled up on the ground like this. 

I wipe my face, standing up, and walk over to the bed, where Puff is sitting. "Hey, buddy.." I scratch his chin, sitting down next to him. He's so soft, and surprisingly pretty, as his fur never matted up from all his time outside. I can't breathe. 

The pain from my chest grows, radiates, up my throat, down my ribs, and into my internal organs. I ease down, lying on the bed, trying to get the pain to leave. It digs into my soul like spreading roots, searching for anything it can devour.

It wraps around my mind, the only thing i can see. It constricts my lungs, causing spots of black in whatever vision I have left. Before I know it, I'm writhing on the bed, trying to escape. Trying to claw the pain from my skin. I feel the pressure under my fingernails as the skin piles up, the pain clinging on. 

"Rye! Shit, Rye!" Hands grab my shoulders, pinning me down. One moves to my hand, tearing it away from my chest. A knee holds my midsection, so I can barely move. "Rye, stop!" slowly, I open my eyes, and I see a lot of things. 

Blaze is on top of me, tears running down his face. They match the ones on mine. My hand is slick with blood, small bits of skin trapped under my fingernails. The same is with my collar, and though I cant see it, I can feel the liquidly warmth from my scratch. Suddenly, the pain in my chest dies down, and I can breathe again. 

"Dude, what the hell was that?" Blaze sits back, looking at me with fear, concern, and anger. I sit up, barely managing, shaking, and the blood drips onto the sheets, smeared by my hand. "Shit, stop moving." He gets up walking towards the bathroom, and starts tearing out paper towels. He wets some of them in the sink, grabbing a bottle of alcohol from the cabinet. 

Sitting back down on the bed, he places one of the wet paper towels in my blood-covered hand. "Stay still." Drenching another paper towel in alcohol, he starts to clean my wound. I try not to flinch, the burning like fire with each dab. Once my hand is clean, I start wiping up the stain on the bed, but he grabs my hand.

"Don't. I'll.. get it, in a minute." He looks up from my wound to stare into my eyes, glaring. "You gonna tell me what that was? What it's been all day?" I can't take it. I can't take the look on his face, or the tone of his voice.

"I.. I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't, I really don't.." His face turns to pity, and he grabs my hand. He pulls me toward him, wrapping his arms around me while being cautious of my scratch. Fuck, I'm so embarrassing. I'm sobbing into his chest, mumbling, letting him hold me. 

CHAPTER 27

Pulling Rye, I help him up the ladder onto my bed. He's still shaking, and his chest is red with dried blood and irritation. "Are you gonna be okay up here while I go get our food? I'll be quick." He refuses to look up at me, and all he can manage is a nod. 

Once I grab the bowls from the kitchen, placing them up on my bed, I start trying to clean the blood out of the sheets on his. There's a lot, and it almost worries me that he'll start suffering from blood loss. 

I sit down, scrubbing with the wet paper towels and the alcohol until all of the blood is cleared. His bed is still wet from all of the cleaning though. "Hey. You'll have to sleep in my bed tonight, yours won't be dry until morning at least." He doesn't respond, so I stand up, looking up onto my bed. "Hey, you okay?" Slowly, he nods, as if he's distracted. 

"Rye." I climb up onto the bed, sitting next to him, and grab the bowls of ravioli. "Here, you should eat." I set the bowl in his lap, and he stares at it as if he doesn't know what to do with it. "Hey. You need to eat." 

"I.." He shakes his head, trying to focus. "Sorry, yeah, I'll eat." He puts one of them onto his fork, analyzing it. He shoves it into his mouth and swallows, as if he can't handle the food in his mouth.

CHAPTER 28

My chest still itches. I run my fingers over the scabbing, thick and cracking. I want to peel it off. My nails run along the edges of the cuts, the original scratch covered by my own scraping away. Blaze is watching me.

He stares at me with concern as we sit on his bed, dinner getting cold between us. He inhales, preparing to speak, but still takes a moment. "..Are you okay?" 

"What do you think?" I can't help but sneer at him, even as I see him flinch. "I just clawed half of the skin on my chest off. I'm getting worse. What if i am infected..?" He scoots closer, taking my hand off of my chest and placing it on the bed, under his. 

"You're not. You're okay, you're gonna be okay. I don't know what that was, but I'm sure it's fixable.. Maybe we can go to Moss tomorrow, he'll know what to do.." His eyes dart around the room, as if the answer is written on the walls. But it doesn't need to be, it's pretty clear.

"No. He won't know what to do because there is nothing to do." The hurt on his face deepens, and he pulls his hand away. I should stop, but I don't. "I'm infected, Blaze. If we go to Moss, I'll be a danger to the entire camp, and they'll kill me as soon as they realize."

"What about Fern then..?" He crosses his arms, a glare dotting his eyes. "She's always cautious, she won't be in danger, and she wouldn't hurt you." I'm so tired..

"But she would. Do you really still trust her?" He takes a moment to answer, thinking over his words. Then, he takes my hands in his.

"She wouldn't. She'd help you. She cares about you, you know that. Please, can we just try?" 

I can't fight him anymore.. "Yeah, okay, we can.." 

I don't realize I've fallen asleep until I wake up the next day. Blaze is curled against the railing of the bunk bed, turned away from me. It's dawn, the early sunlight struggling to come through the window into the room. It doesn't shine onto blaze's bed the way it does mine, and we're still incased in the dark. 

"Blaze. We need to leave." He groans, stretching his arms above his head. He sits up, seeming to tower over me. His face is grim as he turns to stare at me.

"What was that yesterday?" He looks so confused. "What was that?" But I don't know how to answer his question.

"I don't know, okay? My chest started hurting really badly, that's all I remember.." He looks skeptical, yet worried. He reaches his hand to me, as if he's not sure whether I want him near me. Or maybe he's scared I'll hurt him..

I take his hand, breathing deeply, and he sits still, watching me. Then, he drags himself off the bed, letting go. "C'mon, it's getting light out."