Days of Decay

Chapter Twenty Three

Asha watched horrified as the axe was pulled roughly from the Reaper's head. She caught glimpse of the life leaving his eyes just before he fell out of her sight. A second of worried panic shot through her about who was on the other side of the door. What if they wanted to hurt her too?

But her thoughts were quickly put to rest when the flimsy wooden door flew open and there stood her brother, her partner, her saviour, Kit. Her body relaxed and her mind quietened to nothing but happiness at seeing him. And there in his hand was her necklace, now spotted with blood, making it look sinister; tainted.

"This seems pretty precious to you, thought you'd like it back," he grinned cheekily, but a hidden sense of overwhelming relief flooded his face.

Asha let out a choked laugh through her gag, her tears still curling down her cheeks. Tears of happiness now, however.

Kit grinned and went to give it to her, realising pretty quickly that she was incapable of moving, let alone taking back what was hers. His eyebrows shot together and he stood for a second thinking.

"Huh," he said before looking to her. "Did you see where he put the keys?"

Asha shook her head and was then aware of the fact that she still had a gag in her mouth and Kit was there to easily take it out. She grunted at him and stared down to her mouth, silently requesting his services.

"Right!" He said with a jump in his step.

He carefully pulled the fabric out of her mouth and let it hang loose around her neck. Its wetness sent a shiver down her spine. She was thankful she didn't have to taste it anymore.

"How the hell did you find me?" She asked him, exasperated, relishing the relatively clean air in her lungs.

"You were gone for too long, so I followed your trail. At least what I assumed was your trail. Mushrooms, yeah?" He shot her a questioning look.

"Bingo," she grinned wearily.

"But the trail stopped about fifteen minutes from here... the wind's been getting stronger, must have sent the mushrooms haywire. Anyways, I wandered around for a while, not really knowing what the fuck to do. I was getting worried. I know the others would be wondering where I was and if I'd gotten lost, but whatever, I just had to find you. I'd never leave your arse behind, you know that."

She smiled a soft smile, just happy to have him talking to her.

"So yeah. I ran around the woods... I'm fucking sick of trees. I did leave my own trail though. Unravelled one of your jumpers. You've been gone for three hours; did you know that?"

"What?" She instantly thought of all those minutes in the freezing cold for the group. "How are the others?" She asked, panicked.

"Fine. Me, Finn and Sunny were running around in circles for a while to warm up. Sunny's still in pain though, from, well, everything."

"And Finn?"

Kit rolled his eyes. "He's his normal annoying self. Insisted he come with me, but I convinced him to stay and look after the girls. Besides, how could I do my knight in shining armour act with a snivelling lovesick sidekick?"

Lovesick, the word made her ears turn red and her mind fill with him once again.

"Okay, but you still haven't told me how you found me," she insisted, needing to put facts in the place where an apparent miracle had taken place.