*Note* I'm sorry for the short chapters, but it felt right to keep this angsty stuff separate. I will try my best to provide meatier chapters soon!
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Chapter Eight - Haunted
"Why did you want to be alone?"
They were still snuggled on the sofa in the dim glow of a couple of the led candles that Emily had been so good at hoarding. Their bellies were full of deer and they were slowly emptying a bottle of Kraken that Doyle had found hidden at the back of the pantry. He didn't go into detail with his question, but he knew that Emily understood what he was asking.
She sighed, and he felt her body stiffen in discomfort. She started to lean away from him, and Doyle felt the sting of rejection that seemed to come so frequently with Emily. Her weight shifted some more, and she slid her legs off the sofa to plant her feet on the floor.
"Em," he whispered, and she stopped moving. She bowed her head for a moment, and took a couple of deep breaths before she replied. Her words were strained and rushed and full of venom.
"Because people are unreliable. Because they get you killed, or they die, or they run away, or they push old people and children into the path of the infected to give themselves a better chance of saving their own skins and I don't want to see that shit ever again."
Fuck. Doyle knew that the residents of District One had seen some shit, but it was moments like this that made it really hit home that he didn't – and couldn't – have a fucking clue. Her shoulders were shaking and he realised that she was crying.
Emily started to get up, and Doyle pulled her back into his arms and held on tight. She fought to break free, smacking and scratching her hands against him as she whimpered at him to let her go. He held tighter, slid his hand into the hair at the back of her neck and pulled her ear to his chest so that she could hear his heart. She sobbed, tears soaking into his shirt as she ran out of strength and stilled against him.
There was nothing that he could say to make things better. Nothing that could possibly take away her pain. Doyle had seen friends haunted by the things they'd seen in combat, and there were never any words that could fucking help. He had been messed up before he'd even arrived in Britain, and now he was followed by the faces of those terrified people he'd shot as they ran for their lives from the containment areas.
All he could do was hold onto her and let her cry, so that's what he did.
