My vision swims. The room pulses. I feel myself tilting sideways even though I’m strapped down.
I look down as far as my eyes allow, and new tears burn down my cheeks as reality hits me like a sledgehammer.
Knuckles didn’t just die protecting me. He used his last strength to try to keep me alive.
The arm he wrapped around my torso is shoved under my hips, wedged there to hold his weight in place. To keep him from sliding off me when he lost the fight.
But his other hand…
His other hand is the one that guts me.
He wasn’t reaching for my face, like I thought.
His hand is pressed against my throat, right over Aaron’s cuts.
He was trying to stop the bleeding.
Even as his lungs failed. Even as his heart gave out. Even as he knew he wasn’t going to make it much longer.
His last act on this earth was to try and save me.
Fresh tears spill down my face and catch on the tape sealing my mouth. I gasp through my nose, desperate for air, desperate to stay conscious.
My blood trickles down between Knuckles’ fingers, warm where it slides over his cooling skin.
It isn’t enough pressure to stop the bleeding. He didn’t have the strength left for that.
But he angled himself so that even in death, his arm wouldn’t slip away. So that even when he finally let go… he’d still be trying.
Still protecting. Still shielding me with a body that should’ve been resting hours ago.
A broken sob tears out of me, muffled into silence by the tape.
“Knuckles,” I try to whisper.
I can’t move. I can’t reach him.
All I can do is feel the weight of him.
He fought death longer than any man should have to. Just to give me a few more minutes of life.
And now my heart is slowing. My head is spinning. My body is threatening to shut down completely.
I try so hard to stay awake.
But the darkness presses in on all sides.
I’m falling.
All the signs are here. The buzzing in my ears, the floaters drifting across my vision, the way the room tilts even though I’m tied to a damn chair.
My body is done fighting. It’s shutting down.
I look up at the tiny window near the ceiling.
The last strips of sunlight bleed in, warm and gold, brushing over Knuckles’ still body and the bloody concrete floor.
I shouldn’t be out any longer than a minute…maybe two…before my brain reboots and drags me back.
