I take a second to let myself take inventory of my body. Pressure and hot liquid bloom across multiple areas, some worse than the others. “My left arm won’t move at all.”Fuck, I think I re-dislocated it.Cameron moves behind me and takes a staggered breath before he snaps it back into place. The pressure disappears and makes another one known.
My eyes shift to my leg, where my ankle rests in a grotesque angle. “Goddamn it.” I take a few deep breaths. I fucking walked on that up the stairs? My limbs are shaking and my teeth start to chatter.
The response to body trauma can’t be completely canceled out, I guess. My heart beats faster and harder, warning me that we’re close to the amount of shock it can take.
Cameron curses and looks over my ankle. “I don’t know if I can set it,” he says with a quaking voice. His eyes flash up to mine, panic contorting his expression.
“Try,” I mutter, pulling out a shot of morphine and sticking it into my thigh. The body tremors instantly die down to a mild shake. I let out a soothed sigh.
He nods and swallows hard as he puts his hands on both sides of my leg and jerks it back into place. A ripple of electricity shoots up my entire right leg, all the way to my hip. I yelp at the strange feeling.
“Shit, are you okay?” He moves to inspect me but freezes and clutches his chest.
“Cam!” I push him over and tilt his chin up so his airway is clear. His breaths come in raspy and labored. His eyes become unfocused and he stares at the ceiling, gripping at his chest. “What do I do?” I cry. “Cameron. Cameron!” I unzip his vest and pull his shirt up. Blood has soaked through the material, and once I have it pulled back it reveals that he has two gunshots, one to the shoulder and one in his right side. Nothing vital, but maybe his body is goinginto shock. Or is he finally hitting his wall after all these years? Maybe his body is refusing to keep going on like this.
“Cameron, what’s wrong? Do you need morphine?” I whisper as I hold out the last shot of morphine that I have. He looks at me and forces a tight smile. It’s so weak that I have to bury my teeth into my lower lip to keep from sobbing.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t feel pain… I don’t feel—” He spaces out and stares back at the ceiling before blinking and trying to push himself up. “Fuck, I don’t know what’s going on with my body.”
I set my hand on his chest and hold him down. I speak into my mic. “Volt, Red Turtle. Mori is down. I repeat, Mori is down. Where are you?” A few dreadful seconds pass before someone finally responds. Though it’s not the voice I expected to hear from.
“Move forward with the mission, Morphine. No stopping. Remember?” Erik’s cold voice sets ice into my veins.
I glance down at Cameron. Broken. Worst, his headset is on and he hears the careless tone his father figure uses. A teary-eyed grin spreads across his lips. “You heard him. I’m fine, I just need to catch my breath.” He chokes on a dry cough and sets his head back down.
The last thing I want to do is leave him here. But a voice in my head says that if I finish this quickly, we can end this and fucking be free.How will we escape with him incapacitated?I shake the thought. Iwillget him out.
Even if I have to carry him to the underworld.
If he falls, I fall.
“I’ll be back. I promise.” I press a kiss to his bloody lips and taste the iron of him on my tongue. “I love you, Cameron.” I swallow the knot in my throat that tries to keep me from speaking. “I love you and you’re not allowed to fucking die, all right?” My frown must be painful to see because he curses and lets tears trickle down his temples.
“I’m not dying. Fuck that.” He grins, a small flicker of fire burns in his eyes. “I love you. I’ll be right behind you.”
I nod, though I hope he stays put, and force myself to my feet. If I don’t go now, then I won’t leave his side at all.
Wraith’s voice comes over the headset. “Morphine, I’m on my way up. Keep going, I’ll fix him up.”
I let out a relieved breath. “Thanks, Herc.”
I prep two of my flares and empty the remaining two death pills I have into my mouth and chew them into a bitter paste that makes the heartache fade a fraction. Two spare clips are all that I have, and I’m on my own until I find Gage and Damian.
The halls are loud with gunfire and my headset crackles the closer I get to the center of the building.
Is this why they haven’t responded? It could be a transmission blocker.
I kneel as I take a corner and put ten bullets into two guards who are stealthily moving in the opposite direction. Any mercy I held on to has been shed from my heart long ago. Nothing will get in the way of me ending this godforsaken empire.
After killing a few more men, getting shot in the forearm before slashing a throat, and leaving my knife behind because I couldn’t pull it out from a guard’s locked jaw, I finally find Damian and Gage.
They instantly light up when they see me, and I reciprocate the relief.
“We thought we were going to have to take this entire mission ourselves,” Gage complains. There’s not a fucking scratch on him, and it makes me want to laugh.
It makes no sense how he always gets away so unscathed. Luck, I guess.
Or he’s just really good at hiding, I muse.
