I shook my head. “I’ll heal. I just need meat. Fresh meat.”
He looked at the gunman. “It’s a shame you can’t eat him.”
I stared down at him. “I can,” I said. The gunman didn’t wash himself often enough, but he was young and strong. His bite wound was already beginning to close. He wasn’t going to die, even though I’d taken quite a bit more blood from him than I would from Wright or Theodora. If he had managed to shoot Wright, I would have made sure he died. “I can,” I repeated. “But I really don’t want to.”
Wright smiled a little as though he thought I was joking. Then, still looking at the wound, he said, “Renee, you’ll get an infection. There are probably all kinds of germs already crawling around in that wound and maybe pieces of your jeans, too. Look, I’ll get you fresh meat if you’ll just see a doctor.”
“No doctor. I’ve been shot before. Some of the wounds. I woke up with in the cave were bullet wounds. I need fresh meat and sleep, that’s all. My body will heal itself.”
There was a long silence. I lay where I was, feeling leaden, wanting to sleep. I had taken perhaps twice as much blood from the gunman as I would have dared to take from Wright or Theodora, and I still wasn’t satisfied. I needed to sleep for a while, though, and let my body heal a little before I ate flesh.
The gunman would awaken thirsty and weak, maybe feeling sick.
And how did I know that?
It was one more sliver of memory, incomplete, but at least, this time, not useless.
“Shall I take you home?” Wright asked finally. “I can stop at the store for a couple of steaks.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to be with you when I wake up. I’ll be too hungry. I might hurt you.”
“I don’t think there’s much chance of that,” he said with just a hint of a smile.
He didn’t understand. “I’m serious, Wright, I could hurt you. I … I might not be thinking clearly when I wake up.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Look around for a sheltered place here in the ruins. I’ll need to be out of the sun when it comes up. You might have to heap some of the rubble up around me to make enough shade.”
“You want me to leave you here? You want to spend … what, tonight and tomorrow out here?”
“I will spend tonight and tomorrow out here. Come back for me Sunday morning before sunrise.”
“But there’s no need—”
“Don’t buy steaks unless you want them for yourself. I’ll hunt. There are plenty of deer in the woods.”
“Renee—！”
“Build a shelter,” I said. “Put me in it. Then go home. Come back Sunday morning before sunrise.”
There were several seconds of silence. Finally, he said, “What about this guy?” He nudged the gunman with his foot. “What do we do with him? Why did he want to shoot you anyway? Was it just because you scared him?”
“Me?” I said surprised. “He was aiming at you when I hit you. I couldn’t reach him in time to stop him from shooting you. That’s why I knocked you down—so he’d miss. Then I went after him.”
He took a moment to absorb this. “God, I didn’t know what the hell happened. What if he’d killed you?”
“He could have, I guess, but I didn’t think he’d be fast enough. And he wasn’t.”
“He shot you!”
“Annoying,” I said. “It really hurts. You’d better take his gun and keep it.”
“Good idea.” He picked it up.
“Find me a place that will be out of the sun. Otherwise, I’ll have to heal a burn as well as a bullet wound.”
He nodded. “Okay, but you haven’t answered. What about him?” He nodded toward the gunman.
“I’ll talk to him. I want to know why he tried to shoot you.”
“You aren’t afraid to have him here?”
“I don’t want him here, but he’s here. I’ll try not to hurt him, but if I do, I do.”
“When you’re asleep, he might decide to finish what he started.”
“He won’t. As long as you’ve got his rifle, he can’t.”
“You bit him. That’s why you aren’t afraid of him, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid for him. I’m afraid I might not be able to stop myself from killing him.”
“You know what I mean.”