Annihilation

Drenched

He pulled away from the kiss when one of Gideon's men yelped, the sound of others who ran toward him following the noise.

"Dammit, I fell in the ditch!" The man who yowled called out. We listened as there was more shuffling, grunting as they lifted him from the divot of land. There was a flash of light, followed by a crack of thunder so loud that I flinched. "And it's about to storm. Let's get back and see what the king wants to do."

"He said not to come back until we find them." Another retorted, the pitter-patter of rainfall suddenly harsh against the ground, making it more difficult to hear.

With every second that passed the rain fell harder, the sky creating a rumble so loud it felt like it would shake the earth. "We can't find them in this. Hell, they probably won't survive the night." The man responded, yelling so that his drawl could be heard through the storm.

If they were walking away we couldn't hear it, the ground turning into mush so that we weren't able to detect their movement. Mud formed underneath me, rain puddling around my body until it sunk into the ground a little more.

"We should get out of here." Jungkook winced as he moved, pushing his hands into the soft ground to lift his weight off of me as far as he could.

With our adrenaline wearing down, the pain of his injuries settled in again. He groaned as he shuffled overtop of me until he was out of the enclosure. Another spark of lightning provided a moment's glance at him as he shoved away the limbs that covered us while I climbed from the sludge.

He took heavy breaths, slipping once before lifting himself out of the ditch and holding out his hands to help pull me up. We were drenched in rain and could hardly make out our left from our right in the dark.

Without a clue to where we were headed we trudged a few feet away from the ditch, hoping that the dirt road revealed by another strike of lightning on the other side would lead us to shelter.

My clothes got heavier with every step we took and the spongy ground made our feet slip so that we needed to hold onto each other to avoid falling. When he lost his balance again, landing on one knee and giving out of breath, he didn't try to stand. I knelt beside him as he pressed his fists into the mud to lean his back against a tree next to us.

"I'm fine. It's just my ribs." His breath was short. The droplets of water that stuck to the ends of my eyelashes blurred any real sight of him, only an outline of pale skin against bark.

"Let me feel." I released the hand that I held onto, tracing to reach beneath the edge of his shirt and remembering the spread of purple and blue bruising on his skin from a few nights ago. "Can you take a few deep breaths." I felt just below his chest, putting a light pressure on my fingers so that I avoided bringing too much pain to the sensitive area, but enough to detect any cracked movement through the muscle.

The pain was worse as I lowered my touch down his side and he recoiled at the discomfort. "You're lucky. It feels like they're mostly bruised. One might be broken but thankfully it's on the lower end so you won't be puncturing a lung tonight. We just need to get somewhere so you can rest." I replaced the wet, thin fabric of his shirt to cover him.

"Yeah, my lucky night running from people who want to kill us and getting stuck in the rain." He chuckled.

I blinked up at the sky as the rain lightened, transitioning from a downpour into a drizzle. "See, lucky." I pointed up, brushing away the long strands of hair that fell past his forehead and covered his eyes.

After another minute of steadying his breath he stood, squinting as he got a slightly clearer look up the path.

We stayed along the treeline, Chapel Hill a combination of the country landscape of the South and the dead college city. The dirt road broke off onto a smaller street that we walked along easier, our feet splashing against wet concrete rather than sinking into sludge.

We kept walking, past small houses that were likely once rented by students or young professionals, until we reached a road sign that I recognized from the map I stole to use in plotting our escape. We were west of campus, the restaurant where we planned to meet the others on the opposite side.

At the next turn we were met with an area full of the undead, the most I'd ever seen congregated together since we arrived in the city. The surprised gasp that left my mouth when we turned the corner alerted a few of them to our presence. We ran in the opposite direction, weaving our way back into the soft brush of the area to stay hidden and ensure they lost our trail.

When we were short of breath again we split onto another small road, empty outside of an abandoned business of storage units lining the plot of land. Many of them were padlocked but we found an empty ten by ten, Jungkook grunting as he reeled down the door behind us so that we were closed in.

It was stuffy inside, a stale humidity that coexisted with the end of the storm. I squeezed out my hair and skirt in the corner while Jungkook did the same, shaking his hair out so that water splattered around the room. The rain ebbed and flowed with its intensity, creating a sound against the roof that reminded me of staying in my grandmother's tin roof trailer.

We only had our guns and the shank tied around my arm left, the ribbon around my thigh having slipped away with the moisture long ago. I lifted my skirt to remove the petticoat beneath, the thick fabric of my dress still so heavy that I used a blade to cut around the hem so that it fell just below my knees.

Jungkook helped rip through the back of the fabric that was left and stuffed the detached thread into his pocket, sure we could use it for something.

"Better?" He asked.

"Can you unbutton the back?" I tugged my hair to the side to give him access to the buttons and stretched a hand over my chest so that it held the front of the dress in place. "Untie the corset." I instructed, his hands cold and slick with rain as he pulled through the laced ribbon until the boning released, an exhale of relief leaving me as I breathed fully.

He chuckled from behind me while I maneuvered the corset from inside my dress, tossing it as far away from me as possible.

"Don't laugh at me." I couldn't help but giggle at the alleviation I felt too. "I thought it'd be selfish to bring up the fact that my breathing was constricted when your ribs are all bruised and making it harder for you."

He was gentle, his fingertips brushing against the exposed skin of my back as he fastened my dress. We sat next to each other on the concrete floor of the unit in silence, hours of staring at the gray wall across from us. There wasn't a second where we closed our eyes or got rest, the small break we had until our next move used to dry our clothes drenched in water and minds that drowned in fear.