Evan slipped in and out of consciousness over the next couple days.

Cassie stayed by his side through it all, holding his hand and talking to him when she thought no one was listening.

If it weren't for Zombie and Dumbo's obvious dislike of Evan, Cassie's loyalty would be admirable. But Zombie's mood had taken a sharp turn and now whenever anyone mentioned anything of Evan, he started cursing the Others and spewing accusatory claims about Evan concerning Teacup- who we still hadn't seen or heard anything from.

His bad mood and everyone else's suspicions of Evan made Cassie's behavior more annoying than admirable. Evan being there wasn't entirely the issue, it was Cassie's unrelenting support of him, despite the rest of the squad feeling uncomfortable and threatened by his presence.

"Listen Cassie, we're sticking by the original plan. If Ringer doesn't come back, we're heading to the caverns. We're not going to wait around like sitting ducks because your boyfriend can't walk."

"Can't walk? He can't stay awake! I'm staying with him until he's fit enough to travel. You all can go on without us," Cassie said to Zombie. She shook her head slightly, as if in complete disbelief that the squad would ever considering making Evan come with them.

Zombie took a step forward, his jaw clenching. He was getting upset. And if anyone knew anything about Zombie, they knew that upset Zombie was not someone they wanted to know.

I held out my hand to gently touch his arm. "Let's give it a couple days and see where Evans at," I said. "Him being unconscious while traveling isn't going to be helpful to anyone."

I could feel Zombie relax next to me, his tense muscles easing.

I'd noticed that regardless of what Zombie was feeling, he seemed very responsive to my opinion. He didn't like Evan, but he still realized that I'd be buried under the rubble of Wright Patterson if he hadn't saved me. It was a good feeling, knowing that I had a degree of influence over him. As arrogant as it might be to say, I truly believed I was the single most important factoring in preventing Zombie from going completely awol.

"Thank you, Lucy," Cassie said, sending a glare Zombie's way.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dumbo nod his head. "Let's give it a couple days. As much as I don't like us being here, Evan is in really bad shape. It's quite likely that the journey would impede any sort of recovery he could make."

Flintstone stepped forward, flicking Evan's forward. He waited for a response, but none came. He stood up, facing Zombie. "I agree. He's in shit shape."

Zombie pursed his lips, crossing his arms. "Fine," he said, somewhat reluctantly. "We'll give it a couple days. But then after that, we're leaving, regardless of if he can make the journey or not. I'll carry him if I have to."

He turned towards the door quickly, bumping into the wall in the process. He grimaced, shaking his head once in pain.

"Where you going?" Nugget asked timidly, stepping towards Zombie.

"Bed," Zombie said through gritted teeth. "I need to lie down before I fall down."

Zombie limped into the hall, leaving the room quiet behind him.

"Poundcake, please stay on duty," I said, nodding towards him.

He gave me a small nod of understanding before turning back to face the window. We'd found him outside the other day, with Teacup no where to be found and not many answers as to where he'd been the whole time. He remained a mystery that none of us had much energy to solve.

"I'm going to go see what medical supplies I can find for him," Dumbo said, jabbing a finger in the direction of a sleeping Evan.

"Haven't you already looked for medical supplies?" Nugget asked, cocking his head to the side.

Dumbo dipped his head. "More than once. But it'll keep me busy...it's not like there's much else I can do."

With that, Dumbo exited the room and thudded off down the hall, no doubt on his way to search every hotel room for the trillionth time.

"Thanks for standing up for Evan," Cassie said once he had left. "It doesn't make much sense, but Zombie seems to listen to you, and I'm grateful for it."

I gave her a slight, almost forced smile. "Evan saved my life. Deep down, Zombie knows that. He just has to be reminded every so often."

Cassie gave me a quizzical look before murmuring agreement.

I had a feeling Cassie believed that Zombie and I were a little more than friends. Zombie and I hadn't told anyone how we felt about one another, and we really hadn't had the chance to show any public signs of affection, but Zombie's exclusive gentleness toward me made it kind of obvious that there was something there.

Without bothering to say anything else to her, I walked away and out of the room, deciding to check on Zombie.

Cassie had started to get on my nerves the last couple days. She was hell bent on making sure Evan was going to live. Every other second she was pestering us with questions about whether he was going to make it or not, or if we'd happen to find medicine in the two seconds sine she'd last asked us. Which didn't help our situation, considering there wasn't much we could do about it at this point.

What I did know at this point was that amidst the chaos surrounding Evan, Zombie's wound hadn't been checked on.

His limping had gotten significantly worse even after the small amount of time I'd been at the hotel. It was probably due to the lack of medicine and the poor living conditions...which had also made Zombie more irritable and tired.

I stopped by one of the rooms where Dumbo had laid out some of the supplies he'd found on his searches around the hotel. I picked up some bandages and a bottle of water. Without any antibiotics, cleaning his wound was almost a pointless process, but I couldn't just sit around and watch him be in pain without trying to do something about it.

With the bandages in one hand and the bottle of water in the other, I headed down the hall, towards the room Zombie usually chose to sleep in.

I stopped outside the door, carefully pushing on it to peak inside. The door squeaked around the hinges and the wood on its bottom scraped against the floor.

"Zombie?" I asked, seeing him sitting towards the window in the corner of the room.

His eyes were closed and his leg was propped up with a broken chair. His hair was sticking up in every direction, probably from the multiple times he had run his hand through it in frustration, and he had one arm draped across his stomach, clenching his injured side.

His only response was a small grunt but I took that as my cue to come in.

I sat down by his side, lowering myself to my knees. I cleared my throat, giving a little cough to get his attention.

He opened his eyes slowly, looking at me through the corner of his right eye.

"I need to see your bullet wound," I said.

"I'm fine," Zombie said, starting to close his eyes again.

I pursed my lips in annoyance. "I wasn't born yesterday. Honestly, do you think I'm stupid? Just show me," I instructed.

Zombie was silent for a minute before he sighed and lifted up his shirt just above the edges of the bandage.

My eyes widened slightly at the sight of the bloody bandage found around his chest. I reached my hand slowly to it, letting my fingers lightly touch the stained material.

"How long have you had this bandage on?" I asked, making sure to keep my tone level.

Zombie shrugged. "I don't know," he said.

I shook my head slightly. "You should've changed this a long time ago."

The bandage itself was dry, making the it stiff to the touch. The wound had long since stopped bleeding.

"Can you take your shirt off?" I asked, darting my eyes up to his face.

His eyes met mine and a shadow of a smile lit his lips. "I've been waiting for you to say that," he said.

I diverted my gaze from his, my cheeks starting to grow warm. I had to bite my lip slightly to prevent myself from smiling. "Can you just take it off?" I repeated, rolling my eyes.

He laughed softly, pulling his shirt off.

I took a second look at the bandage, now completely exposed in its entirety. I shifted closer to him and carefully peeled back the bandage, trying everything I could to not let my gaze linger on any other part of his exposed torso.

I finished unwrapping the bandage and tossed the dirty bandage to the side, repelled at the foul smell it projected. I felt my stomach drop. I'd expected some kind of infection, but nothing as bad as this.

The bullet wound, although free of the bullet, was still swelling and the skin around it was discolored, showing a mix of greens and yellows.

I covered my mouth with my hand, letting my other drop to the ground.

"It's that bad?" Zombie asked.

I ignored him, taking a second before reaching up to feel his forehead.

"You're heating up," I said quietly, my breath locking in my throat. I looked down at the new bandages and the bottle of water I had placed next to me.

After mentally debating with myself on what I should do, I brought my hand down from his forehead to unravel the new bandages.

"It's infected," I said, louder this time. I reached across his chest and wrapped the bandages around his torso. He shifted to sit up more, his muscles tensing.

"Canary-"

"It's bad. Really bad. I don't know what I can do. I'm just going to rewrap it." I said, my words rushing together in a jumbled mess. My capacity to stay calm was quickly dwindling.

Zombie reached his hand out to me, his fingers grazing against mine. "You don't need to do anything," he said. "Without medicine there's not much you can do."

I moved to get up. "I'll get Dumbo then," I said.

"No," he said. "Dumbo can't do anything either."

I slowly lowered myself back down to the ground, feeling defeated. "Well I can't just sit here and let you slowly die," I said, finishing the wrapping. I diverted my eyes from his, knowing that if I caught a glimpse of them I'd start crying.

"I'm not going to die," he reassured, reaching to brush a stray strand of hair away from my face.

I looked sideways at him. "Zombie-"

"If I survived the plague I can survive this," he said. "You're not going to lose me to one of Ringer's bullets."

My eyes narrowed, suddenly remembering why Zombie was actually injured in the first place. This was Ringer's fault. My fingers curled into fists.

"Hey," Zombie said, his fingers grazing against mine. "I'm going to be ok."

"You don't know that," I said, almost annoyed. Why was he trying to pretend like everything was going to be ok? Had he not taken a look at what was under the bandage? I was no doctor but I knew he was not anywhere close to being 'ok'.

"Zombie! Zombie!"

I jerked my head up, surprised by the urgency in Dumbo's voice.

His figure appeared in the doorway as the door was thrown open, banging loudly against the wall.

"There's a girl outside. And she's headed straight for us."

<><><>

I feel like a horrible human being for making you all wait this long. I had the flu and then midterms so this past *almost month has really been tough for me.

I'm on spring break now though so you can expect another update in the coming week. I'm going to try to be nicer to y'all from now on.

Anyways, the story is going a bit slow for now just because that's what the majority of The Infinite Sea is, so if you haven't read the book, just know that's why not much is happening.

Love you all and if you're in need of something to do while you wait for the next update, listen to Ed Sheehan's new album: Divide. It's literal gold.