I scuttled toward the meat, desperate for it.
Someone said, “Stop, Shori!”
And I stopped. It was Wright. My first.
I pulled back, seeing him now, tall, broad, and shadowy, sitting in a chair next to the bed. I hadn’t touched him, wouldn’t touch him. I pulled back, away from him, clutching the mattress, whimpering. The hunger was a massive twisting hurt inside me, but I would not touch him. I heard him moving around, then I caught a different scent. Beef. Food.
“Here,” he said. “Take it. Eat.” He gave me a big dish filled with lean pieces of raw meat. It wasn’t as freshly killed as I would have preferred, but it was good enough. I gulped the meat, bit the pieces into smaller chunks, and swallowed them barely chewed, then gulped more. I finished the platter and grabbed the new one that Wright offered me, gulping much of it, then, with growing contentment, finishing the rest more slowly, actually chewing before I swallowed, feeling almost content, finally content.
I put the platter down, leaned back against the headboard, and sighed. “Thank you,” I said. “But next time—if this ever happens again—don’t stay with me. Just leave the meat.”
“I don’t see where you put it all,” he said. “You’re so small. If you were human, I’d expect you to be sick after eating like that.”
“I was sick—from the need to eat.”
“I know but … oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m just grateful you’re all right.”
“You shouldn’t have been here,” I told him again. I shook my head, tried to shake off the memory of Hugh Tang. “How could the Gordons let you stay here with me?”
“They didn’t,” he said. “They said we should put the meat in a cooler and leave it in here with you. They said none of us should go in, that we should wait until you came out.”
“You should have.”
He put something in my hands. It turned out to be several disposable wipes. I used them to clean my hands and face. Then he poured water from a pitcher into a glass and handed me the glass. I had seen neither the pitcher nor the glass until he picked them up from the night table. I was focused on him—his scent, the sound of his heartbeat, his breathing, his voice. It was so good to have him nearby even though he shouldn’t have been.
I took the glass and drank. “Thank you,” I said. “Why did you disobey the Gordons? You know what I could have done.”
“I’m not Hugh Tang,” he said. “And you didn’t have a head wound this time. I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”
I stared at him, amazed and angry. “You don’t understand. The hunger is so terrible … Even without a head wound, I might have killed you.”
“You stopped the instant I spoke. I don’t believe you would have touched me. In fact, without the head injury, I don’t think you would have touched anyone else who had the presence of mind to speak to you. I was pretty sure I was safe here.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to be so … so hungry.”
He put his hand on my arm. “I don’t. And I wish you hadn’t had to go through it. I know you were afraid Katharine was going to shoot one of us.” Very slowly, he gathered me to him. I let him because it felt so good, so completely comfortable to rest against him.
“Are the others all right?” I asked, knowing they were. His manner would have been very different if someone had been badly injured. Or killed.
He smiled. “They’re fine. They’re worried about you. They’ve been sitting with you when I had to take breaks. It’s been three nights. Preston told us it would be at least three nights. Hayden said it would more likely be five or six nights, but Joel said that for Ina medical problems, you can just about always trust Preston.”
I shook my head, amazed, thinking about what could have happened. What if I had awakened and scared Celia or Brook or attacked them because they tried to run away? “I’m glad I woke when you were here.”
“Me too.”
“And … what about Katharine?”
“Dead. Wells and Manning took care of it since executions are the business of the host family. They can do it themselves or bring in other families to help. But this time they didn’t need help. They beheaded her, then burned both the head and the body. She might have healed from what you did to her. Her throat was already beginning to. But she refused to accept the judgment against her. She preferred death. She said she was just sorry she couldn’t take you with her. Her sister Sophia accepted the judgment on behalf of the Dahlman family. Preston says that means we won’t have to worry about them coming after us.”