I tried to grab him, and he shrugged me off of him again. “Henry… I’m so sorry.” He turned and looked at me, fire and rage in his eyes. “Henry, please. You’re scaring me.” He stood up and pushed past me.
“Get in the fucking truck!” He wiped the frozen tears off of his face. I ran to the truck. “Nick! Drive Sophie’s truck…and if you so much as put a dent in it, I will kill you.”
Nick looked back at her already battered truck: the cracked windshield, part of the grill missing, and countless amounts of scratches and dents. Nick looked at me curiously as Henry shoved past him. I scurried into Henry’s truck, along with Thomas.
Henry threw open his door and jumped in. Then he slammed the door with such intensity that I thought the window would shatter. He sat there for a moment with his head in his hands, clutching his hair. Then he screamed, “Fuck!” He punched the dash and steering wheel a few times. I didn’t know what to do for him, and I didn’t know what to say because nothing would make him feel any better.
Quietly, he sat there with his forehead pressed against the steering wheel, taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. I went to take his hand. Blood was trickling out of the wounds.
“Henry…we need to take care of your hand.” I gently took it and he hissed. “I think it may be broken.” It was already swelling up. He continued to look forward, lost in thought. “Do you want me to get Claire to look at it?” He didn’t respond. I looked back at Thomas, looking for an answer. He shrugged. “Henry…?”
“Can you just wrap it up for now?” he asked in such a soft voice that it took me a moment to figure out what he had asked.
“Of course I can. Whatever you want me to do. Thomas, grab me something.” Thomas dug around for a minute, and passed me an already torn up t-shirt. I tore another section off of it and carefully wrapped Henry’s hand, trying to be as gentle and as tender as I could.
“Henry, I’m so sorry about Sophie. I know what she meant to you. I love you.”
He swallowed hard, his brilliant green eyes filling with tears again. His breaths were getting caught in his throat. It took him a minute to swallow his immense sorrow. He cleared his throat. “I love you, too. Tell Nick we’re ready.” I picked up the walkie talkie.
Henry put the truck in drive. He still hadn’t released the brake. I could feel the agony radiating off of his body. I know he didn’t want to leave Sophie there, lying in the road. I touched his arm. “She’s here with us, inside of us. You are not leaving her behind.” He nodded once. “She would want you to keep going.”
Then he took his foot off the brake and inched the truck forward, crawling over the many true deads that littered the highway.
Chapter 31
B
y the time we crossed the New Jersey border, the snow had let up a great deal. Surprisingly, we had made good time. Not one word was spoken in either truck. Henry turned off of the highway and began looking for a place for us to camp for the night. I couldn’t deny that I was worried.
It seemed to be an area where we could run into a lot of undeads. He turned down into a subdivision of townhomes. It looked deserted. They were a little run down, and trash was blowing around the street.
“Henry, I don’t think this is a good idea. We should try to find a home in the country or something. Too many things can go wrong in an area like this. I’m not getting a good feeling.”
“I’m going to knock on a few doors.” Before I could stop him, he dragged his sorrowful, battered body out of the truck. I sighed.
He proceeded to the first house we pulled up to. There was no response. He went to the next couple houses, also peeking in a couple of windows.
Either no one was truly alive in the neighborhood, or we were being watched. I was going with the latter because that made more sense. Henry walked back to Nick. They talked for a minute, and then he came back to Thomas and me.
“What did you find?” I tried not to have any sort of tone in my voice. I knew if I did, he would flip out.
“That one’s empty, like the people moved out. So we are going to camp there. Nick and I are going inside to clear it first, just in case.”
“Be careful.” He forced a slight smile and touched my hand. He pulled out his Sig. “Thomas, keep watch over the girls.”
“I will.”
“Thank you.” Thomas jumped out, and looked around like his head was on a swivel. Henry and Nick stalked off. I watched him pick the door locks, while Nick looked through the windows. Henry opened the door, and they went inside.