“Faster,” Amy shouted, Camden in her embrace in the back of the SUV, the bear still closing in on them.

“We’ll spin out,” Harvey said, head out the window to watch the road behind them as he drove the SUV backward down the mountain road, the bear chasing with ruthless determination. The vehicle wobbled, drive unsteady, transmission shaky, but Amy was ready to attribute that to the backward trajectory and the bad mountain road. And Amy knew Harvey was right; they could only go so fast, and they were already dangerously close to passing the point of no return.

The bear veered off the road and into the woods, a beleaguered growl ringing out as that massive black figure disappeared into the woods. Harvey kept driving backward, finally coming to a wider portion of the gravel road, suitable to turn around.

Harvey stopped and began jostling the transmission, into drive for a few inches forward before dipping dangerously close to toppling forward, then into reverse to pull the SUV back and to the side. Once back as far as Harvey dare go, he pulled forward again, craning the wheel hard to the side.

Back and forth, back and forth, they seemed to make precious little progress. Amy shouted, “Can’t you hurry up?”

“I’m doing my best,” Harvey sneered, muttering, Amy looked out the window, scanning the woods, nothing to indicate where the bear was, how close, what it was planning. But the creature had ducked behind the SUV to ambush Camden, so it was a hunter with keen intelligence and the ability to plan, to strategize, to prevail.

Amy looked down at Camden, who was getting pale fast. She looked down to see blood pulsing out of his mangled ankle, and knew instantly that he was bleeding out.

“Keep driving,” she shouted.

Harvey screamed back, “What the hell else am I gonna do?” But when Amy pulled her T-shirt off, Harvey said, “Oh, right,” before turning his attention back to the steering wheel and muttering, “keep driving.”

Harvey finally got pointed in the right direction and hit the gas, but the SUV was still going slowly, a jarring and staggered gait.

“Faster,” Amy said, “what’s the matter?”

“Drivetrain, I think,” Harvey said. “This is about as fast as we can go without losing the wheel altogether.”

Amy turned her attention to Camden, looking up at her with a weakening expression, eyelids heavy. Amy tore the T-shirt down the middle on one side, then another tear down the center of the other side. Leaving one end out, she wrapped one strip tight around Camden’s leg, the big man flinching as Amy pulled it hard and tied off the end.

“You’ll make someone a very lucky man,” Camden said, Amy smiled and said nothing. “And someday, a mother, so loving and protective, so strong … ” Amy said nothing of the little pang she’d felt deep in her gut after their last orgasm together. She almost felt that she should, that she owed it to him, that perhaps it could make a difference to his survival with all his blood loss.

Amy wrapped the second strip of the shirt around the first, tying off the wound with even more efficiency. “I think you’ll be all right if we can get you to a hospital soon. But you’ve lost a lot of blood, Camden, and this isn’t much more than a Band-Aid.”

“I’ll be all right,” he said lazily, head lolling on the jittery floor of the crippled SUV. “As long as I have you.”

Amy paused, but knew her next question had to be asked, though she was dreading the answer. “Is … is that just part of the act?”

Camden looked up at her, a shadow of guilt tracing his expression. He knew as well as she did that they’d begun playing roles, as vital to one as to the other. But things had changed over the course of those two days, at least they had for Amy, she couldn't deny it and she wouldn’t deny it.

But will Camden confess it?

Camden said, “The blood is real, my heart is real, my love is real.” She leaned down and shared a tender kiss with him, despite the jittery ride of the injured SUV and Camden’s fading faculties, their connection was pure and strong and simple, a quiet moment in the chaos, an oasis of tranquility in a world gone mad.

The vehicle jostled hard as the bear charged again, having appeared from out of the woods and marshaled its strength for another assault.