Helena had a hard time staying asleep.
Nightmares left her thrashing and nervous and made her head heavy with dread and exhaustion alike. Yesterday's events ran over and over her brain: Emily's wound, the zombies, the cold gun barrel pressed against her skull. She would have been dead. She should have been dead, if Brendan hadn't pressed on the accelerator.
And now she was here and Emily wasn't.
Helena's eyes flickered open and she looked over at Brendan's figure, sleeping next to her. It was dark, the fire had diminished to glowing embers, and Helena could barely make out his features. It took her a second to realize that Brendan's eyes were open too.
"What are you doing awake?" She murmured. Her voice was blanketed by the room's silence.
"Can't sleep," His expression was empty and depressed.
"Me neither." She swallowed hard. "I can't stop thinking about today."
Brendan sighed heavily and turned on his back, looking up at the ceiling. They stayed like that a while, no one speaking. Staring up into darkness.
"So you still think I'm a selfish asshole?" Brendan finally murmured. His voice tapered slightly.
"No," Helena whispered back. "Well, sometimes we're all selfish assholes. We just have to make sure it's not all the time." Brendan swallowed audibly. Helena could sense that Brendan had something big on his mind, so she waited patiently.
"If you were me-" He said abruptly. "If you had been in my place, what would you have done?"
"I can't answer that," Helena whispered. "I was the one with the gun to my head."
Her mind flashed back to the moment. Cold hard metal; death pushing at the edges.
Something heavy rolled its way up Helena's stomach.
"Thank you," Her voice was low. "For saving my life."
"Of course," Brendan said.
"But..." Brendan's voice shook. "I killed Emily, She's dead because of me. Did I do the right thing? Letting her die?"
Helena breathed in deep.
"Sometimes," She whispered. "There is no right thing."
She must have fallen asleep, because suddenly Helena was opening her eyes and looking at the brightly lit wall. It was white and empty.
She lay there for a while as yesterday's events came back and washed over her. Emily was gone. Her friend. Helena's stomach hollowed out and she would have lay there forever if Rory's shouts hadn't shaken her from her thoughts.
"He's gone."
Helena turned around and sat up. Brendan's sleeping bag was empty. Rory's dark hair was disheveled and his eyes were round with panic.
"I can't find James."
Helena stood up straighter, her blood freezing in her veins as she processed what Rory had said.
"His bag's missing," Brendan said from the other side of the room. She hadn't noticed him there. "He just up and left."
Helena's vision tunneled.
No.
No, no. Not James Not again. Not another one.
"He went for Emily," Helena's voice sounded thick and low. She forced herself to stay strong. Keep her shit together. "Of course he did."
"We have to find him," Rory said. "We-" His voice cracked and he took a shaky breath. "We have to."
The pain of losing a loved one is the worst kind of pain. Torture. Like a knife digging into your chest. Eventually the knife is pulled out, but the wound is still there. And it never fully goes away.
