Page 7 of Romancing in Rot

He gives the paper a sharp shake, like I didn’t read it the first time.

You wouldn’t have made it far anyway.

Leon tears the page free and presses it into my hand. My bloody fingers close around it, trembling.

He moves fast after that. A gun is in my hand before I fully understand he’s given it to me. He hooks the crowbar into his gear, sliding it down beside the arrows so the bloody end juts up over his shoulder like some kind of warning. He taps the butt of the gun and holds up ten fingers.

Ten shots.

I swallow hard. “Okay.”

Poppy stands frozen beside me, cheeks wet, trying to be brave and too scared to know how. Leon crouches just enough to meet her level. He unhooks the hatchet from his leg and presses it into her hands.

Her fingers tighten around the handle.

That’s my girl.

Leon grabs the office chair, wedges it beneath the doorknob, and drives it into place with one boot. The door shudders, but holds.

For now.

He turns back to me and slides one arm beneath my knees and the other around my back, slow enough for me to brace myself.

The second he lifts, pain tears through my leg and steals the air from my lungs. I fist my hand in his shirt and bite down hard.

Leon freezes.

I force a nod.

Keep going.

His jaw flexes, but he obeys, lifting me the rest of the way while I swallow the scream for Poppy. His grip tightens, secure and unshakable.

“Poppy,” I breathe. “Grab his belt. Don’t let go.”

“I won’t,” she says, already moving.

Small hands lock on to him.

As we make our way toward the back, the front door shudders behind us again, something cracking in the frame.

I tuck the note into my palm and hold the gun tighter.

You are worth saving.

I don’t believe it.

But he does.

And right now, I have to borrow that.

Leon stops at the back door, his hand hovering over the knob. Everything goes still. The pounding at the front. Poppy’s shaking grip on his belt. The heat of his chest against my side. The smell of blood and smoke and old dentist-office mint.

He looks down, still as stone, and I crack inside.

“Thank you.” I whisper.

It isn’t enough.