“It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”

Read what’s happened so far to Evie and Owen here.

        Drip. Drip. Drip.
         Evie felt a tic starting in her cheek just under her eye with each drip of the liquid in the IV bag. She stopped wondering where all the medical equipment was from when several of the men addressed the surgeon as Sergeant. Owen’s face was gray and she saw his eyes moving back and forth beneath his lids. She didn’t look at the stump of his hand that was tightly bound and tucked into a sling across his chest. The stubble on his chin looked blue against his pallid skin. He already looked like a corpse. She stopped counting the seconds, the minutes, as the first hour stretched into three, into five.
         It took Chett a few hours—she thought, but she didn’t know when the first blood got into his leg. Somewhere in her head, she started counting down as soon as they hauled Owen into the helicopter. As soon as the stumbler latched his teeth onto Owen’s arm. The doctor—Sargent Surgeon, her brain called him—gripped her shoulder when they were done stitching and cleaning and bandaging, telling her to let go of Owen’s shoulders. She could see the bruises her fingers left under the edge of the cleaner shirt they’d put on him. She swallowed the bubble of hysterical laughter that rose in her throat. If he was awake, he’d joke about her trying to strangle him when he was flat on his back. If he was awake he’d smile that crooked, stupid smile at her. If he ever woke up.
         “Evie,” Jessamy’s voice was quiet—a crypt-voice.
         She took the cup of coffee he handed her with both hands and gulped the boiling liquid, tying to hide the way her eyes watered. Evie still heard Owen yelling, saw him standing on the rooftop, the tendons in his neck stretching with the force of his scream as the tweaker bit into his flesh. She felt the cup burning her hands, the faint numbness of her protesting fried taste buds, but everything else was cold. She leaned forward again to press her fingers to the inside of Owen’s wrist. His pulse hammered there, just under his cold skin. He felt like a corpse already except for the heartbeat. Sometimes they didn’t get the fever before the change, something whispered. Sometimes they just went cold before…
         “Evie,” his voice was clear as he said her name before lapsing into a garbled murmur.
         Every nerve drew tight as a bowstring as she waited for him to speak again. Five hours and Owen was still in there. Part of him at least.
         “You should—” Jessamy stopped at the look she gave him.          “Right.”
         “If I sleep…if I leave for a minute…he might not be there anymore. And if…when…” Evie took an unsteady breath. “I have to do it. It can’t be anyone else.”
         Jessamy looked stricken but he nodded, his face gray, he patted her shoulder awkwardly before shuffling back to one of the other beds they’d provided in the bunker.
         Evie scooted her metal chair closer and wrapped her hand around Owen’s chilled, unresponsive fingers. She pushed the hair away from his face and ran her fingers across his cheek—the bones already stuck out more from the loss of blood.
         “All you ever wanted to do was save me. And all I ever wanted was to run,” Evie didn’t try to stop the hot tears that spilled over her cold cheeks and splashed down onto the sheets as she pressed her lips to the back of Owen’s hand and squeezed his fingers as though she could force him to wake up.
         “I’m done running, Owen. But I think it’s too late for both of us.”