The Hunted

The Plan

Hugh P.O.V

I wake to feel this strange weight on my chest.  I don't mean the emotional or spiritual weights you hear in stories but a literal weight on my chest.  It wasn't heavy but it kept me from getting up.

I open my eyes to see Alicia sleeping soundly on my chest.  Her head rests delicately on my chest.  Her arms wrapped around my arm. 

Her face glows brightly.  The sun shines behind her ears, highlighting every perfect spec of her.

I move my hand lightly over her hair.  It's as soft as silk. 

Her skin is so smooth.  It's perfect.  She's perfect. 

Here she is laying soundly, here I am laying with her and I can't make a move.  It wouldn't be right to.  We can't start anything now.  Everything now is about survival.  If something happened to me out there it wouldn't be fair to Alicia.  I can't have her shoot me.  It would break her the same way it would break me if I had to shoot her right in the head.

I can't see Alicia as an "it".  I won't even try.  I will not let it happen.  She won't get infected as long as I have a say in it. 

I need to get up.  Strand's probably going to come in and announce his "grand plan" and call everyone in.  I'm already on Travis' bad side I don't think I need to add sleeping with his future step-daughter to his list of reasons to leave me for dead.

I slowly roll onto my side carefully trying not to wake Alicia up.  But fail.  Horribly.

The second my arm hits the floor I double over in pain and cry out.  "Shit!". 

Alicia slowly rolls over to check on me.  She stares at me with tired eyes.  "What hurts this time Hugh?".

Sarcasm.  She still is the typical Alicia.  Nothing much has changed.

She looks down at where my hands are and gets off the couch. 

She crouches beside me and sighs.  "Travis really did a number on you didn't he?  You know if you'd stopped it sooner your chest wouldn't hurt this much.".

I bite back the urge to say that my chest didn't hurt as bad last night and it was probably her head that made the pain worse but decided against it.  Instead I just nodded and let out a small whimper.

She gets up and walks towards the kitchen.  "Let's see whether Strand has any frozen peas in here.  Or frozen anything.  It seems like the guy only eats canned foods all the time.".

I chuckle slightly before letting out another groan of pain.  Jeez.  I must be prone to injuries.  Or maybe it's just my stupid decisions.  Who knows?  But since this thing started I seem to be injured all the freaking time.

Alicia walks back and hands me a pack of frozen peas.  "Looks like Strand eats human food too.".  She smiles and sits me back upright on the couch. 

I laugh and place the cool peas dull the pain in my chest. 

I adjust my seating position to face Alicia and give her a small smile.  "That's one injury sorted now onto the other 8 hundred injuries I have.".

She let out a small laugh and opened her mouth to reply but her smile dropped suddenly.

I turn around to see what she's looking at and see Travis standing with Maddie holding his arms close to him. 

Maddie nods over to me probably reassuring me that Travis wouldn't attack me again.  I nod back but her assurance isn't at all comforting.  Travis still has his hands in balled fists which could come flying at me at any second.