No Tomorrow

.

There were deep gouges all over her body and her skin looked savaged like a wild animal, blood was all over her too and on the floor; dripping from the edge of the table like thick paint and congealing in the cracks of the tile floor. Some of the wounds looked like they were trying to heal but the whole place reeked of death.

"My poor baby...what did they do to you?''

Gunfire began to pop around outside but I ignored it and walked to Belle with lead in my feet, I reached a shaking hand out to touch her face but got nothing, she felt so cold....I slipped a few fingers under her delicate looking jaw to feel for a pulse and I cried out when I felt the faintest flutter. Her body was surely shutting down but her heart was trying to hold on, my brain stubbornly thought it was holding on for me only- but an idea trickled into my mind. The memory of what happened when she lost her baby and needed blood-

This will work...it just has to. I'm not ready to lose you yet, I'm just not....not you too.

I picked up a scalpel from a table close by and moved to kiss her softly on the lips before I sliced my wrist open and held the dripping wound over her mouth. My whole body was starting to felt numb but the tears that were running down my face felt like hot fire. Each beat of my heart brought a fresh drop of crimson blood through her lips and I willed my body to keep the wound open just a little bit longer.

If there's a god even through all of this...please just let Belle live. I haven't gotten the chance to...live with her yet....please have mercy on me just this one time.

*

Dary's POV:

"We should go-"

"We don't have enough weapons other then your crossbow and a few handhelds, that's not going to get us very far."

Rick was digging at the leaves at our feet but a rustling noise from behind had us all looking up in wonder, a few more noises and I raised my weapon in that direction on impulse with an arrow hitched into place. When the thing came into view I nearly dropped everything right then.

"Barely....made...it...."

Jay stepped through some low hanging branches with something huddled into his chest, Belle? She looked....dead. Her arms hung limply at her sides and there were long bloody gashes all over her body, some were still bright red with fresh blood but most of them were closing up. I noticed how there were purple markings all over the wounds where she was cut and it took me a minute to see the bigger picture; she was cut like a cow. Jay's shirt was on her but some of the blood had already soaked through and even her lips looked bloody.

"....is she alive?"

I unloaded the arrow before I slung the bow across my shoulders and tried to touch Belle but Jay moved her out of my reach.

"I don't know, but don't touch her. I had to give her quite a bit of my blood and I don't want anything to contaminate any of her open wounds."

He hefted his arms up a little bit higher for me to see her better and my heart skipped a beat when I saw her bottom lip twitch a little bit. Maybe there was some hope left after all.

"Please, I won't hurt her...but she's my wife. Let me carry her."

He tucked Belle's body firmly back into his chest and folded an arm firmly under the crook of her knees to hold her better before walking straight past me. I tried to not have that bother me but failed miserably.

"No, I'm carrying her with me until she either dies or wakes up and she's able to move around on her own. No offense but you couldn't carry her for shit in this heat."

*

Jay's POV:

"Help, someone help!"

Rick clapped a hand over my shoulder and shook his head as the man's wailing grew louder and stopped me from moving too far ahead into the woods with the others.

"Lag back a little bit- it might be a trap or something and you need to keep her safe at all costs remember?"

He lightly touched the top of Belle's head before he dashed off with the others and I smiled a little before carrying her over to a fallen log and sat down with her curled into my lap; somewhere along the line a few more of her wounds were healed and her chest had finally started moving a tiny bit to show that she was finally breathing normally. I sweeped a thick lock of her black hair out of her eyes before rocking around back and forth to sing softly to her.

"The monster's gone....we're on the run....but I'm still here....beautiful, beautiful, beautiful....my beautiful girl....come back to me alive...so we can live together...."

I felt tears threaten to sting my eyes and I choked back all of the despair that was trying to drown me in the worst way possible, somehow, someway, this had to get better at some point...it just had to. I pressed my chin softly into the top of her head and just focused on rocking back and forth while my eyes stared bleakly ahead into nothing. First my parents at the start of this....then Holly, coughing all the blood from her body in front of me....and now Belle, a woman I'd loved since highschool, carved up like some fucking animal sent to the slaughter.....and for what? So we could find our people?

....if she comes back from this, we're leaving these people and all the bad luck they seem to stand for. I'm not risking her life ever again.