He raises his hand to the back of his neck, a nervous laugh brushing over his lips. “You don’t have to worry about that, Annah,” he says. “I’m going to take care of you. And everyone else. You’re safe.”

I step forward and place my hand on his arm, feeling his muscle flex beneath my touch. I press against him, pushing his hand from his head, pulling it down to his side, threading my fingers through his. The movement places us even closer together. His chest barely touches mine. Now I can feel his breath on my skin. I can feel his heat wavering between us.

“What would you do?” I ask again, softly.

His eyes become serious and I can almost see the emotions roiling inside him. “I’ve already been there, remember?” He pulls at his shirt, loosening the buttons and sliding it over his shoulder. Pushing me away in the process so that cooler air drives between us. He takes my fingers and places them against the flesh of his arm, forcing me to feel the two half-moons of red scars.

Bite marks.

I know he’s trying to remind me—remind both of us—that he’s infected. That he doesn’t know if he can infect me. That he’d never take the risk.

“What did you do during those days?” I ask, wanting to understand him.

“I waited,” he says, his voice distant. His eyes flicker, a flash of something that disappears.

“Waited for what?”

“To die.” That same flicker again. “Alone,” he adds in a whisper.

I open my mouth to ask for more but he cuts me off. “I’ve already had my days of waiting to die,” he says. “The question is, what would you do, Annah?”

The same question as last night, except now I actually have an answer. I’m tired of just surviving. I’m tired of waking up each day simply to make it to the next.

That isn’t enough anymore. It’s been what I’ve done for too long and when I look back on those strings of days they’re all empty. I want more. More than closing myself off, more than being afraid to let someone care about me and me about them.

I want Catcher.

And I’m tired of his fear that he could somehow infect me. So what? I’m already dying anyway—every day I live is closer to death. It’s like I told my sister before: what matters is what you do with the time you’re alive.

“I’d live,” I tell him. Then I step forward, slide my hand from his shoulder to the back of his neck and press my lips into his.