Katherine groaned softly, the sound cutting through the silent cabin like a knife. She was shivering in her thin tee-shirt and wet hair. She was in pain. The wild man beside her laid his hand on her stomach fingers splayed wide.
She rolled over, landing on the cold floor harshly on her knees, to get away from him. She didn't like him touching her. She clutched her stomach, her eyes wide in fear. She was extremely cold, as if she would never be warm again. Shivering, she could only rock back and forth as wave after wave of pain shook her small frame.
Heat was burning her insides, eating through her internal organs, squeezing her heart, her lungs. In the back of her mind, she blamed the wild man in her bed for passing along some sort of virus to her. The towel unraveled from her head, damp and tangled chestnut hair pooled around her head. Her abdomen was on fire. A fine sheen of sweat coated her body.
She could see the wild man try to move, to get her, but she pulled away. She collapsed painfully on her side and pushed off the leg of the bed to slide away from him. He couldn't reach her.
Katherine's half-starved body writhed, locked, then writhed again. She rolled slowly to her knees, and tried to crawl toward her medical bag. She wasn't thinking; the movements were blind, instinctive. She had no idea where she was or what was happening to her, only that she wanted, needed, the fire to stop.
She could hear the wild man behind her struggling to move. She didn't know if it was to help her or to put her out of her misery. At the moment, she was half tempted to let him. Finally, he lay back.
She groaned, rolled over, and curled up in the fetal position, making herself as small as possible. She didn't want to go near him, she didn't want him near her. Another wave of fire beat at her, attacking her internally, spreading to every organ. She could only draw up her knees like an animal and waited for it to pass.
Katherine was going to be sick. Something in her, some shred of dignity she had left, made it possible to drag herself to the bathroom. She did it slowly, choking down bile, but she made it. She kicked the door to the bathroom shut behind her.
She fought to stop the endless stomach spasms, her agony intense. Outside the small bathroom window, she could hear the wind pick up as it howled at the windows and ripped through the trees.
Faintly, she could hear a low growl rumble in the other room and the sound of sheets ripping. The wild man.
She was in there for hours, huddled over the toilet dry heaving. Her saving grace in her painful struggle was the cool porcelain seat. She laid her cheek on the seat, breathing in rancid toilet water. In a brief moment of calm, she dug a water bottle of water out from the molding cupboard beneath the sink. She splashed the water on her face, rinsing out her mouth and spitting it into the toilet.
Katherine pushed herself off the wall and stumbled back into the bedroom, her face starkly white, shadows under her eyes. The bruises and the wounds on her throat stood out plainly. She looked breakable.
Curiously enough, the wild man held out his hand to her, the expression in his dark eyes a mixture of demand and gentleness.
"I think you gave me rabies, asshole."
Rabies, the flue, or some other shit thing she could have contracted from treating him or being in that cellar. Either way, with her immune system compromised already, she was fucked.
She made her way carefully to the bed to grab a pillow so she could crash on the uncomfortable wicker chair. It came to no surprise that the wild man grabbed her upper arm and pulled her onto the bed beside him. She was too exhausted to care. She rolled into a ball, burying her face into her pillow, praying for death to end her agony. By illness's hand or his; a bright side could be that if he killed her, he'd get infected, too, given his own weakened condition.
Payback's a bitch.
But he didn't try to hurt her. His hand gently, almost tenderly, pushed back the heavy fall of hair from around her face, traced his vivid thumbprint on her neck. He touched her swollen throat, examined his work of her wounds. Katherine was behind him, locked in her own world of suffering.
This was so wrong.
He wrapped an arm around her waist, offering her what comfort he could. Dawn was approaching and sleep was over taking them. Tomorrow would come and bring with it its own problems.