Warm Bodies: The Little Brown Bear

The Hanged Man

"Wake up."

The words brought R out of the dark into a body racked with vicious hurt, a crushing, pounding pressure in his head and panic as he realized he couldn't breathe properly. As he struggled, trying to lift his head, it suddenly dawned on him that he was upside down. Cold. Naked. Arms no longer bound, and hanging past his head. Something was digging into his ankles, something painfully tight and rough. Rope?

What the fuck?

Slowly, blinking through blood and tears, he opened his eyes.

The world was upside down. Evan stood before him, in the doorway to a bizarrely pink and red kitchen. R blinked again, looking down as he tried to understand what was going on.

The floor beneath his swaying body was covered in blood.

Oh god.

With widening eyes, R stared up at Evan.

"Good. It's important to me that you see this coming," Evan said, and he drew a knife, Julie's knife, out to where R could see it.

Oh FUCK!

"Nng... d-don't..." R gasped, then coughed up something wet and thick. Blood. Coughing again, he struggled for air to speak, desperate to reach through to Evan. "You're... infected... making you... do this... don't..."

"I'm going to bleed you, gut you and eat you asshole," Evan growled, pressing the blade to the side of R's neck as his cool fingers twisted in R's hair and pulled his head down, stretching his throat. "It's what you deserve for hurting her."

NO! I DON'T FUCKING DESERVE THIS!

R gave a strangled cry as the blade bit, and grabbed frantically for the knife, adrenaline giving him strength, just as a piercing screech filled the house around them.

Evan's hands went slack for a moment, as he turned towards the sound.

"Sis?" he said.

With a wild and desperate roar, R twisted the blade in Evan's hand and drove it upwards, under Evan's ribcage, into the guy's chest. The knife cut true and deep, and hot blood streamed over their hands, joined around the handle.

Evan turned back slowly, and looked down, at the hilt embedded in his heart. With a trembling jerk, he pulled the blade free.

Confusion crinkling his brow, blood spurting from the wound in his chest, Evan's eyes fell to R.

R held his gaze defiantly, as the light in those pale eyes dimmed, and Evan collapsed with a soft sigh. As the man fell away from him, R wrenched the knife back, and desperately tried to ride the adrenaline rush by swinging himself up to cut the rope binding his legs. The rush petered and died as he screamed with the wet crunch of his ribs, and he fell back down, racked in bloody coughs, almost losing his grip on the blade.

The darkness circled around him, pulling at him, but R fought it, knowing if he fell into it, he'd never come up again.

...don't deserve this... come on!

With a cry of rage, Rowan swung himself up and grabbed at the rope with a flailing hand. His fingers, slick with blood, closed on the rough hemp, and he hung there, trying to breathe as he sliced through the rope with Julie's blade.

Darkness snatched at his mind, and from far away he felt himself falling, the knife slipping from his hand as his body went limp. As he dropped sharply, the ropes pulled taut and suddenly snapped, and he crashed hard to the floor, landing in a bloodied heap.

Groaning, Rowan rolled to his side, warm blood flooding his mouth as another cough shook his body. Spitting it out on the floor, he struggled to rise against the stabbing agony in his side.