Dead.

Chapter Ten

Cass held the bloodied bandage for a while in her shaking fingertips and stared at the injury.

"Jay-" He cut her off with a look and Cass faltered,

"Gonna amputate it, doc?" He asked her, feebly with the most damaged smile Cass had ever seen. It had been a good twenty minutes already, she didn't have the equipment and trying to find it in this maze between taking down corpses and finding adequate things would take too long.

"I'm kidding, I'd rather die with my arm." Jay said to her, and Cass was unsure what to feel in that moment. She stared at the oozing injury and was unaware Jeff had approached until he crouched down and gazed at the wound. Cass was frozen, for the first time she couldn't move and leap into action.

"Well, fuck." He said quietly and looked to Cass and then Jay. Jay gave a breathy chuckle, letting the bandages slip, the jig was up after all.

"What do you wanna do?" Jeff asked after a moment of heavy silence. Cass looked to Jay,

"He's coming home, we're leaving, I can start a treatment of antibiotics." Jay just looked at her, half bemused by her reaction, and he reached out with his good hand to give her shoulder a squeeze.

"Nah, I don't think that'll work too well. Let me help you guys out, then I'll make my peace." He said to them both but mostly to Jeff. Jeff would need to keep Cass on the rails, Jay would have been horrified if it were the other way around and Cass had been bitten. It was better this way, but he knew Cass would suffer for it. He should have done more, said more to her.

Jeff wavered but finally nodded to him,

"Then look alive, we've got stuff to get. It's almost sundown." He remarked and got up, moving back to gather what was left of the kitchens. Cass was silent, for a time, before finally reaching out and pulling Jay to her like he was the last raft in an ocean. It didn't matter he was covered in blood, whether it was his or a corpses, she didn't want him to go.

"Hey, c'mon, I don't want anyone knowing right now." Jay said with a grin as he pried her off him. Cass sat beside him, unsure of what to do or say, she couldn't fix it. She had fixed other people, brought some of them back against all odds but nothing could fix this, and she knew how it ended.

"We're out of time, let's go. Same way out that we came in. Back to the vehicles." Jeff called and spared a look to Cass as Jay hauled himself up. There was already a thin layer of sweat building on his forehead, and she watched him. The change didn't take long.

"Jay it's-" Cass started but he offered up a measly smile to her,

"Yeah, fever, then pain and then I become a corpse. Let's get you back home." He said, steeling himself as he started to walk, and Cass glanced to his arm. No one else seemed to pay any notice and Jeff must have kept it quiet for fear of someone just putting a bullet in Jay's head for safety.

The walk out was slow, barely any corpses and by the time they got back to the cars, the sun was starting to set.

"He's riding with us and doc. I'll drive." Jeff said and opened the door for Jay and Cass to the back of his car. Another of his men got into the car. Jay was partially laid out in the back seats and Cass tucked herself in, placing a hand to his forehead and feeling his temperature skyrocket as he tried to lean into her cooler digits. Cass stroked back some of his hair and looked to his arm, the veins around the injury were turning darker and she could even see it in his exposed neck. He was too far gone.