I'll Still Love You in My Nightmares by Sarah Collins

Author:Sarah Collins [Collins, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-07-08T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Lauren looks ghastly pale in the passenger seat. Her body rocks back and forth weightlessly with each bump in the road. Beads of sweat form on her temples, plastering pieces of hair to her forehead, and slowly roll down pallid cheeks. She mumbled complete nonsense in a daze for a while, but that stage ended hours ago. Now…now the only sounds tumbling from her lips are labored breaths that are so uneven that Alex often holds her own as she waits for the next.

She doesn't want it to be true. This can’t be happening. Not now. Not after all they’ve been through. She prayed and begged and cried, but the outcome remains the same.

Lauren is dying and there's nothing she can do about it.

They haven't passed any water in two days, and only nightfall delivers respite from the Nevada desert heat. Alex drives during the day now since it’s the most likely time to run into someone else or spot something that could help them. But it's been days, and she's found nothing.

She takes Lauren's scorching-hot hand in her own and strokes it with her thumb. "Just hang on a little longer for me, alright?" She looks across the vast, dry horizon. Small, dried out bushes litter the sienna landscape. "There has to be some fucking water out here somewhere."

Minutes…hours slowly tick by and Lauren's pulse grows even weaker. Alex finally sees a small, deserted town towards the north and she prays to everything she can think of that there’s something there to help them. Anything. Anyone. They can’t be the only people trying to survive out here.

Normally she would park the SUV on the outskirts of town in case they ran into trouble. But now Lauren can't even get out of the car, much less yell loud enough to be heard from so far away. Alex drives down the cracked, dull-gray road through the middle of the dilapidated town. The few buildings on the side of the road look empty and half-demolished. There could still be bad people in them, though, so she watches her surroundings intently. If anything looks even slightly suspicious, she’s out of here. The things are bad, but what the looters do to people is even worse.

Alex finally comes across a small gas station. The pumps have long been drained of any gas. All the windows are smashed and the door hangs loosely on the hinges. It will probably be devoid of anything useful, but at this point—there's no harm in trying.

After killing the engine, she reaches over and presses her lips against Lauren's forehead. She’s burning up, but not nearly as badly as before. Alex isn’t sure if that’s a good sign or not.

"Lauren," she whispers.

Nothing.

"Lauren, please," she begs, dropping her forehead to rest against the crown of Lauren's hair. "I can't do this without you. I don't want to do this without you. So you have to wake up. Do you hear me? You have to wake up," she finishes with a raspy voice thick from impending tears.

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