"Come on!"

I woke to a pounding head and water being poured on my face. I groaned. The last thing I remembered was the infected coming at me. The infected.  I shot up ignoring the pain in my eyes from a light and looked around for a weapon. 

"The only thing around here is sticks."

I stopped searching when my eyes landed on a dead infected a few feet away. When I registered that someone had spoke I turned around and saw a guy. Not an infected. As far as I know. 

He was leaning against a tree, a smirk plastered on his face, arms folded like we weren't standing near an infected body. He was cute at least but that was forgotten as I stared at his lips. My hands flew up to my face. My mask was missing and he wasn't wearing one either.

He pushed off the tree and walked towards me while I took cautious steps back until my back hit a tree.

"Fuck." I was trapped and just from looking at him, I knew I couldn't outrun him let alone get past him in the first place. My dad's voice of him scolding me for getting trapped in a situation without weapons came into my head and I would have teared up if I wasn't waiting for the guy to attack first.

He stood right in front of me as if he was waiting for me to run, but that's not how you win fights. He reached for the knife on his belt and I let my training take over. I kneed him and when he buckled to the ground with surprise. When he reached for the knife I grabbed it from where he dropped it and grabbed his wrist. Pinning his arm behind him, I pressed the knife to his throat.

"Give me a reason why I shouldn't cut your throat."

Seconds passed and he didn't even flinch, but before I could figure out what I would do with him he spoke up.

"Izzy sent me." I pressed the knife harder against his throat.

"What. Do. You. Mean."

"They're safe but they couldn't come for you so they sent me to find you." He lifted his other arm and grabbed my wrist, pulling on my arm bringing me to the ground in front of him. The breath was knocked out of me and I struggled to breathe. He sat on me pinning my arms next to me as he grabbed the knife out of my hand and put it to my throat. I couldn't feel it but I knew if i moved I wouldn't live to regret it. Way to go Percy, now he's going to kill you.

"As I was saying, Izzy and Chris sent me. They knew you wouldn't believe me so," he reached into his back pocket and pulled out an envelope before sitting up to open the letter with the knife. Oh, now I feel stupid. "They gave me this and said you'd listen if I told you 'That if you were dead Izzy will personally kill you again and bring you back just to clean up the mess. And I just hope you made it, even though all of us know there's no way you could have.' and I believe Jess wrote that letter."

I stopped struggling against him and stared at him. He was telling the truth.

He stood up and I felt like I could breathe again before he offered his hand for me to take. I stood on my own ignoring his gesture. 

"You could be lying to me and keeping them captive. Or you could just be wanting to kill me."

"Yeah. I saved you from the smelly corpse just to kill you myself."

A rustling caught our attention and I knew we had company and I didn't have a weapon. Before I could speak he grabbed my hand and pulled on me. 

"Come on."

Do I risk my life with him or against an unknown number of infected? My choice was easy: him.

So I let him drag me after him and we were running through the woods. We sprinted onward, tree branches slapping at our faces and arms as we fled our pursuers. Behind us about twenty figures pushed their way through the underbrush, undeterred by the sharp plants dragging at their clothes and skin.

Breaking free of the heavy bushes and trees we burst into a clearing and, breathing heavily, ran toward the other side. Half way across the clearing our pursuers exploded out of the tree line with a roar. Startled I tried to run faster and missed my footing and stumbled forward, landing hard on several branches before standing up with some help from him as quick as I could and I was running again. He had stayed by my side the whole time even though I was sure he could have easily left me behind.

"We need to get across the river and once we're there, I have a safe place." I nodded at him.

We ran for a few more minutes and I was about to stop. Being infected was sounding better the more I tripped over branches and kept running but we came up a small river which was more of a creek. It was gentle and slow, flowing down and I wanted to stop and bask in the water. We jumped over the shallow waterway and he ran into the trees ahead of me. I thought he had left me when I heard him shouting for me. I ran towards his voice and found him climbing up a rope ladder attached to a tree that led up to a wooden box in the tree that had a small door on the bottom. I didn't waste a second as I climbed up after him through the small opening. When I got through the small hole I collapsed onto the floor and he closed the hatch before putting wooden planks into slots over the top.

My breathing was taking awhile to adjust and go back to normal, while he leaned against the wall just looking at me. 

"What?"

He gestured for me to be quiet and patted the ground beside him, indicating for me to come near him. I was about to tell him off but realized that I still needed answers from him.

So, I scooted over to him and sat against the wall. 

"What?" I whispered again before looking at him. When he didn't answer I turned to face him and his gaze held mine. 

"My name's Damien. And you are?"

"Persephone, but they call me Percy."

"Your name is just as pretty as you."

I blushed at his random compliment. No one had ever said that to me before. "Uh.. thanks?"

He scooted closer and his blue eyes darkened and flicked to my lips before returning back to my eyes and I don't know where my mind was or how it happened but the next thing I knew, he was kissing me.

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