I Will Love You Forever

Chapter 3, part 3: Death Sentence

He would have to tell her. She needed to know how much depended on their efforts tomorrow.

"I'm sorry, love." He flipped the blanket over them against the gathering chill of evening. "I don't know how the world could have gone from so good to so bad, so fast, but it looks like I'm not going to make it."

He could feel Lu's head lift up off his chest, so he knew she was listening to him. "Make what?" she said. It was the first question she'd asked since the accident. She is such an odd combination of what she can do and what she can't!

"Tomorrow is our last chance to get you out of here and to a hospital." He barely kept his voice under control. "If I can't move tomorrow, you'll have to go without me. If you make it to the road, someone will probably stop for you, and get you to a hospital."

"Ken not come?"

"No," he said, softly, "Ken not come."

She was silent for more than a minute. "Why?" she finally asked.

He had almost drifted off into delirium when her question pulled him back. "Eh? You mean, why don't I come with you?" He sighed. "I thought about not saying anything, my love, and I almost did. But I don't know how much you understand right now, and I don't want to leave anything unsaid. I have an infection in my leg, a bad one. If I last through tonight, I'm pretty sure I won't last through tomorrow. We have to get up and start walking at first light, or I won't even be able to guide you all the way back to the house. I ... I may have to send you on without me, before the day is over." His voice broke then, not because he was going to die, but because she probably would, if he couldn't get her to the road, or at least within sight of it. And then I'll die alone, and that damned coyote will come back ... He pushed back the images that were converging on his mind.

"What infection?"

"Huh? In my leg. I think I broke it when everything hit us. I won't lie to you, love; it's bad. Even if I were in a first-rate hospital, I don't think my chances would be good." He sighed again. "Not good at all."

She didn't say anything more, and Ken drifted off into the nightmares that were taking over his mind with the fever. Sometime later he felt her mouth on his, kissing him. She was oddly clumsy at it, but that she thought of it at all must mean there was more of her left than he thought. He held her close, weeping silently. He didn't know if the animals returned that night. He couldn't make himself care. The fire in his leg overwhelmed everything else in his universe. He didn't think he could sleep with that throbbing agony in his leg, but somehow he did. 

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