My mouth opens to scream but no sound comes out. I am hanging by my hands, my body heavy, and it's hard to breathe. I feel my fingers begin to slip, the blood from the rope digging into my skin making my flesh slick. I try to regain my grip, to heave my legs back up, but my arms are too tired. My muscles shake with the effort of just hanging and I'm angry at my haste in not allowing Harry to wrap a harness around me.

Tears blur my eyes as I focus on Travis below. His fingers open and close. Finally, he lowers his arms until they hang limply at his sides, his effort expended.

With a whoosh I allow myself to drop and I crawl to him. He's leaning against the trunk of the tree just inside the gate. His body shakes. His breaths come ragged and sharp. But he is still alive.

“Travis!” I yell as I pull him close to me. I rock him like a small child. “You'll be okay,” I tell him. “You're okay.” My chin rests on his hair, his head tucked against my chest.

I can feel his blood seep into my own flesh.

“Why did you do this, Travis?” I ask. “Why?” My voice cracks and I can feel his lips moving but cannot hear any words.

His eyes roll back into his head.

I shake him now, almost violently. “You can't!” I shout in his face. “I won't let you!” A smile twitches at the corner of his lips where a trickle of blood begins to trail down to his chin.

“We'll fix this,” I tell him. “Maybe there's another village. Maybe there's a healer. Are you sure you were bitten? Are you sure they're not scratches like mine?” His small chuckle stops time, pulls us into our own world back before this village and the breach. Before his broken leg.

Back when we were children. Before we knew of the world.

“It wouldn't have mattered if they were scratches or not,” he says, his voice like liquid. “I was bitten during the escape from the house.”

My limbs go weak, everything inside me folding in and collapsing on itself.

“I was already dead,” he says, opening his eyes.

I can only mouth the word Why. I cannot find my voice, cannot force sound from my shuddering body. I swallow. I rub my hand over his forehead, his skin slick with sweat and blood. I bring my head down to touch his. My mouth hovers over his and all I can think about is the days we spent together in the Cathedral when I would tell him stories about the ocean.

“Let me pray for you,” I whisper. My nose runs; my eyes are swollen with tears.

“You were never very good at praying,” he says with a small laugh. “That was never what drove you. It was always the stories.”

I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. “It was you,” I say.